I was accepted to the Macaulay Honors Program at City College and I was accepted to Binghamton University and both of them I was accepted for engineering and I’m trying to decide which I would rather go to. I really liked Binghamton and I would like to go there because I’m from the NYC so I would like to go somewhere different. I’ve seen City College’s campus and I’m going to see the Grove School buildings soon. A lot of people I have talked to keep saying I should go for Macaulay because it’s free. My brother is in Macaulay Honors currently and I’ve heard from him that they haven’t been as good with their opportunities funds lately so it is hard to get money from them to study abroad anyway. Money is not so much of a problem for my decision so besides the fact that Macaulay Honors is free are there any big benefits Macaulay would have over Binghamton?
I am in macaulay at Lehman College so I will tell you some of the pros and cons I have seen. The pros are that you get to take an individualized honors core curriculum with just people who are in macaulay consisting of 4 seminars + 3 additional honors courses, you get individualized attention from staff which most students don’t recieve, you get free tuition, and you get the feeling of a small college within a large university because it’s almost like you attend two colleges at once ( macaulay and the host college). The cons are that these courses usually have extremely large work loads when you have other courses to worry about as well,you have to take additional honors courses on top of the core, you have to write a thesis regardless of your major, and there is not much money to fund the opportunities fund anymore so you might not get to study abroad. Both colleges are great choices. I personally recommend macaulay but it’s up to you. If you want to go away really bad choose bing otherwise choose macaulay. They are both great choices. If you have any more questions or concerns feel free to inbox me.
The minimum academic requirements to remain in Good Standing in Macaulay Honors College, requires Macaulay students to achive an overall GPA of 3.3 in their first three college semesters and through their 45th credit, and an overall 3.5 GPA thereafter. An Engineering curriculum is challenging, so factor the GPA requirement into your decision. However, if you can complete your undergraduate degree with a 3.5 or greater GPA through Macaulay Honors Program at City College, you have a shot at some of the top CS/Engineering graduate programs in the country.
In my case, I graduated from CCNY engineering school and spent 10-months completing my M.S.E. degree at a top-ranked graduate program (all expenses paid by the company that recruited me out of CCNY). CCNY have dorms on (directly) campus, and offer “some”(?) Macaulay Honors students 1-year free dorm. You can also share apartments within walking distance of the campus if you want to eliminate the commuting aspect of attending CCNY.
Although not your typical college experience (commuting), going to college in NYC does have it perks…ask the NYU students that flock to NYC, ponying up $40K-$70K per year for the NYC college experience.