For anyone interested in detailing their college journey from start to finish 
I know being an aspiring journalist I am! If anyone else wants to join in, just give yourself a little introduction below!
“Weighing in at 120 pounds and standing at 5 feet, 9 inches tall, from Chiiiiiiicagoooo Illinois, it’s your aspiring journalist/businessman, @WindyCityKid !”
A little bit about me! I love to write and tell stories. Writing is where I feel the most in my element, and my dream is to be a sports analyst with someone like ESPN. I feel like journalism has always been my calling, but unfortunately, the job market for journalists has never been worse and it doesn’t pay very well…
Which brings me to the other major I’m considering, business. I’m a people person, and good at small talk and forging relationships that you need in the business world. My parents subtly push me more towards this field because they want to see me have a successful life filled with making money. I’m not sure yet. I’m definitely not opposed to going into business, but do I love it? Only time will tell.
As of now, I’ve grouped my schools into three distinct categories, “Journalism Schools, Business Schools, and Schools that Will Probably Give Me Good Money”
Journalism schools include:
Northwestern (High Match)
Syracuse (Low Match)
Missouri (Safety)
Business schools include:
Michigan (Match)
Berkeley (High Match)
Penn (Reach)
Money schools include:
Stanford (Reach, Communications, would fall in the new <125 k bracket)
USC (High Match, business/journalism, might be competitive for their big scholarships?)
BU (Low Match, business/journalism, competitive for merit aid)
Michigan State (Safety, business/journalism, highly competitive for merit aid)
Tulane (Low Match, excellent merit aid)
I look forward to sharing my journey with you! More analysis of schools in the days and weeks to come!
Northwestern and Syracuse’s school of journalism are both reaches. If you live in Chicago, Michigan and Berkeley will be reaches as well. If your income is under $125,000 you should remove Berkeley, Michigan, and Michigan State from your list. They will not be affordable. You will not get any financial aid from them. Feel free to check out my College Application Journey. I am an aspiring sports journalist as well who will be attending Northwestern University in the fall.
@CaliCash Berkeley is probably the one I should remove from the list because there’s almost no way I could afford it. But my parents both went to UMich, and they’ve told me they’d be willing to spend a little extra if I really wanted to go there, so keeping that often. Also, I got a 34 on my ACT, and Mich St. offers some pretty decent merit aid (in-state tuition and 15k with the potential for more).
Michigan won’t be a “little extra”. You would be a full pay student, meaning $55,000 per year. Now, I don’t know your financial situation, but if you are eligible to go to Stanford for free, then you probably can’t afford to be a full freight student at any school that cost $50,000. You wouldn’t be able to do it without taking out an exorbitant amount of loans. In addition, USC financial aid isn’t really good for people within your income bracket. You would need to shoot for the big scholarships and would probably need higher test scores.
@CaliCash I mean yeah, but I’m not going to not apply because of the financials. If I want to go to a school, I’m just going to try and find and compete for outside scholarships that could make a Berkeley/Michigan/USC affordable
This is a very bad plan. For USC it may work. But for out of state publics, it’s not very smart. Especially since the bigger scholarships have a need based component that you will not meet and the smaller ones typically aren’t renewable and will only make a small impact. Please be smart about this. Even if you get in, you aren’t going to Berkeley unless your parents have a drastic increase in income over the next 5 years.
I see a lot of myself in you. That’s why I’m trying to help you out now
Haha thanks @CaliCash it’s not that I really have my heart set on Berkeley, I just don’t like closing doors
I just saw that you will have a sibling entering college as soon as you leave school. For this, any full pay schools should be 100% out of the question. It’s not closing doors because those doors were never open for you to go through in the first place. Please be considerate of your sister. I also saw that your family makes roughly $110,000 per year. My family makes a little more than twice that amount and granted I have a sibling in college, Northwestern will only cost me $29,000 per year after a $5,500 loan for me. Once my sibling graduates, my parents will likely be paying $35,000. It should be noted however that this package came after appeal. I think your best bet is to apply to top private schools for journalism like Northwestern, USC, and Syracuse. Apply to your instate public as a safety. And apply to schools where you know for sure you will get a lot of merit aid. Tulane is a great option and if you want guaranteed scholarships, there is a thread for that as well but there aren’t any great journalism schools on that list. I think you should follow the path that you want. I know Stanford would be free, but I can’t see why any aspiring journalist would go there aside from the financial aspect. Don’t let your parents push you into business. It’s your life that is gonna be affected. Graduate with a degree that will be useful for you career wise. You can always double major but if journalism is your dream, you should look at schools that offer both journalism and business.
Other schools to consider:
Emerson
Northeastern
University of Florida
Ithaca College
University of Miami
Arizona State University (you would get into their honors college and be a presidential scholar based on your GPA and test scores)
NYU( You could get a pretty decent merit scholarship, but nothing need based)
Indiana University- Bloomington (Amazing journalism program)
@CaliCash what does aid look like at some of the top journalism schools? Could I even afford my dream
Northwestern gave me $39,000. You would likely get much more than that if your income is lower provided you don’t have a business or anything that would make FA complicated. Northeastern has some big merit awards for high stats students as yourself.
@CaliCash as a fellow aspiring sports journalist, would you recommend northeastern?
Yes I would. Great program, great internship opportunities through co-op, great city and D1 sports. I applied and was accepted, but got no financial or need based aid.
You’re from Illinois? Mizzou. Definitely. If you’re thinking of switching majors maybe not but their J-school is considered by many outlets (Forbes chief among them) the best in the country. Furthermore, they give out a lot of scholarships; if you’re doing well in your studies, you can go there with all tuition paid for. Am I biased? Yeah, probably a little, but it’s an amazing J-school and if you work your tail end off I know the KC Star does a lot of recruiting there (which is, of course, the home of famed sportswriter Joe Posnanski). I personally love Mizzou and am giving it strong consideration as a pre-med student, if that’s of any interest to you.
@WindyCityKid, I look forward to following along. Please listen to @CaliCash’s advice - she had quite an adventure and some frequent CC’ers still can’t quite believe how well it worked out for her.
@CaliCash the only reason I’m hesitant is my girlfriend applied there, got accepted, and was thoroughly underwhelmed. I know that’s a horrible thing to base it on, but in the end it’s the little random things that make colleges stand out.
@chuckleberry do you attend mizzou now? I’d actually really like to learn more about their J program, so anything you can tell me is appreciated!
@GnocchiB haha are you in the class of 2020 or?
The great thing about the top j-schools is that there are plenty of “types” that all offer great programs–both private and public schools, large and small, etc. One of your top factors should be money; out of all the majors out there, journalism is one where it’s not worth it go into a lot (if any) debt if you can help it because you won’t be making much money at all straight out of college. There are plenty of schools that will give you plenty of merit aid which you should take advantage of. Sure, maybe you won’t be able to afford a dream school that costs $50k a year, but you should be able to find a j-school that is just as good for a fraction of the price.
Personally, Northwestern had been a dream school of mine since I was a freshman. I loved everything about it; visited, loved it, etc. I ended up not applying because I knew I wouldn’t get enough aid to make it worthwhile. I ended up applying to Mizzou instead and will be attending in the fall. Mizzou’s just of good of a school (and if anything, it aligned with my interests better than NU), and I’m getting good aid considering it’s an OOS public. I’m not going to advocate for any one school, because you really can’t go wrong with any of the top journalism schools, but just know that just because a school itself is more prestigious than another doesn’t mean their journalism department is. For example, NU vs. Mizzou. As a whole school, Northwestern is definitely more prestigious and has the “name brand” value. But if you’re comparing by department, NU and Mizzou are both “name brand” schools for journalism. So don’t discount any of the generally lower-ranked public schools that you see listed on “top journalism schools” lists ASU, Mizzou, etc. So the lesson here is to not count out any school if they have a good journalism program. Visit around and see where you seem to fit in. Make price a top factor.
I will say that if journalism is a passion of yours, don’t go to a school that doesn’t have as strong as a journalism program just to get your business degree; find a school that is strong in both fields. Michigan doesn’t have a journalism program, so don’t go there just because they have a strong business program. If journalism is something you love, find a way to do it and don’t just do whatever makes you the most money.
So yeah, that’s my .02.
@CE527M I’d love to hear more about your search for journalism schools, any advice before entering this ~300 day marathon with a (hopefully) amazing finish. Before I get into this, here’s it plain and simple; my life dream is to be a sports analyst. It doesn’t matter where, it doesn’t matter how, it doesn’t even matter that I won’t make a ton of money. But I still have reservations. What if I’m a better businessman? What if making more money will make me happy? How do I make the right decision? These are the things my insecure teenage self needs help with
@WindyCityKid You’re asking the right questions and it’s good to have some reservations since journalism has a rather unstable job market. You can’t plan everything out and know 100% that you’re making the right decision, but just go with your gut and try and do the best you can with what you do know. Be smart and double major. Keep your options open. Eventually it’ll work itself out.
I was in a similar predicament for a while, except it was between journalism and political science. I was told by a lot of people that I didn’t need to major in journalism and could major in anything and still be a journalist. For a while I debated between majoring in polisci and minoring in journalism or double majoring in both or solely focusing on journalism. Until about September or so, about 3 of the schools I was planning on applying to didn’t even offer a journalism major. Then I just decided to apply to a couple of schools, both of which offered journalism, to save money on the cost of applications. I decided to double major to give me maximum flexibility and give me an additional skill set in case journalism didn’t work out.
At the very beginning of my college search, I looked at just about every top journalism school. At the beginning of my search I didn’t even consider Missouri, but one day I went to their website and looked around and read just about everything I could and ended up falling in love with the entire school and journalism program. I visited and liked the school even more–it was a perfect mix of just what I wanted. School spirit, large journalism program, great campus feel, etc. While Mizzou is overall a less prestigious school than some of the other top j-schools, their journalism department is one of the best. I’ll also be in Mizzou’s Honors College, so that will give it a smaller school feel.
I think you should definitely consider Mizzou, as they are without a doubt one of the biggest j-schools in the nation and have the resources to create the next generation of journalists. They have [30+ specialties](http://journalism.missouri.edu/programs/undergraduate/junior-senior/areas-study/) in journalism, more than any other school I looked at. They have so many opportunities for internships–their students run the local newspaper and radio station, in addition to New York, DC, and international opportunities. So that was a big selling point for me. They have a couple of sports journalism options–“sports journalism” and “Radio-TV sports journalism.” From what I know, they have a great sports journalism program and when I toured they talked about how there are quite a few ESPN anchors and analysts who are Mizzou grads.
The j-school also has a couple of [honors programs](Undergraduate – Missouri School of Journalism) for students that gives them the opportunity for special advising, scholarship money, and smaller classes. And I’m guessing you would qualify for [direct admission](Undergraduate – Missouri School of Journalism) to the j-school.
You’d qualify for some nice merit money, too. Missouri is also a pretty easy state to gain residency in, so you could always end up getting in-state tuition sophomore year onward if you wanted to.