<p>And I should add that every school he applied to has a very good nationally recognized engineering program that focuses on the undergrad, has research opportunities, study abroad, and internships/co-ops, so the education he would receive would be very very equivalent. Further, employers know about all of these schools and do recruit from them, as do graduate schools. None of them are “big” schools whose focus is mainly on the graduate student. Did I tell you I did my research already? : )</p>
<p>^^^</p>
<p>Yes, it sounds like you did your homework regarding strength of major. However, many of us know that kids aren’t spending 24/7 for 4 years on their academics. They have “a life” as well. So, some will sacrifice a little bit on “academic strength” to have the “total package” of a full college experience. That’s why I mentioned that if you wanted significant merit to get costs down to $25k per year, there were other schools with good eng’g that could have done that AND provided a full campus life (regional campuses often lack this element).</p>
<p>What is the atmosphere at Rutgers-Camden? Is it mostly a commuter/suitcase school where kids go home on weekends and nights? What is there to do on weekends? </p>
<p>I am glad that you’ve realized that your son can’t earn that much to put towards college costs. frankly, if he’s going to be responsible for his “pocket money” and entertainment (pizza with pals, dates, spring breaks, etc), then he probably won’t be able to actually pay for anything other than books.</p>
<p>if he’s going to have to contribute $8k-10k towards tuition, then he’s going to need loans to do that. As a frosh, he can only borrow $5500, so his first year might be an issue.</p>
<p>Maybe she’s not telling you the school because it’s not actually prestigious. This forum is filled with pathological liars</p>
<p>Ana1, your statements make no sense. If my mind is made up, then why am I wasting time posting a thread and putting my heart out there on my sleeve? I am finding that you have nothing to contribute except negativity. Based on your posts, you appear to ■■■■■ all the ivy leave forums. Clearly your focus is on prestige alone, and therefore anything you add seems completely biased. Perhaps you come from money and therefore it has never been an issue for you to consider such a price tag. For the working class, $140K is a lot of money even for two professionals, and needs serious thought before a financial commitment of that size is made.</p>
<p>The schools are Rowan University and Lafayette College to those who need to know. If you’re going to compare the two, I ask that you first do your research, and not make any uninformed or inaccurate comments. I will know if you do because I know a lot about each of them. The engineering programs, professors, classroom focus, technology, and recruiting are all very comparable.</p>
<p>Which one is the prestigious one? LOLOLOLOLOLOL</p>
<p>On a serious note, if the engineering depts. are both comparable, why is there even a dilemma here?</p>
<p>rsingh13, believe it or not, your “funny” comment makes a lot of sense. If you’re not from the northeast, most people have probably have never heard of either of them LOL.</p>
<p>Neither school seems to have much prestige from an out-of-region viewpoint.</p>
<p>What you want to do is ask each school’s career center about what employers come recruiting for interns and new graduates of the student’s major, and what graduate schools students tend to go to.</p>
<p>Lafayette has a career survey, but it is not broken down into majors (as opposed to categories like engineering, humanities, etc.):
[Graduate</a> Outcomes Career Services Lafayette College](<a href=“http://careerservices.lafayette.edu/about-us/graduate-outcomes/]Graduate”>http://careerservices.lafayette.edu/about-us/graduate-outcomes/)</p>
<p>Busybeemom, actually we were in your situation a few years ago and the funny thing was that it was also between SMU and Yale, as the person’s sister above. I do not come from money and got full need based ride that included loans. What I am trying to say as mom2collegekids more eloquently said above, there are other components in a college education than the specific department and the whole college experience would contribute in your son’s formative years as an independent adult. Lafayette has 2300 students and it is a small liberal arts school so the professors would have a closer interaction with students on their specific field of study. There would be an opportunity to explore other fields as well so he can be a more rounded person. If he decides that he wants to change major, he will have the opportunity to do without hesitation since the school has an overall excellent academics. L is private so the money available for academics and upkeep wont depend on the level of state funding. A BS from there will allow him to apply to a more prestigious engineering school and he may get aid from there like MIT/Berkelye/UT etc.</p>
<p>Rowan may have a great chemical engineering dept but it does not have equally strong academics. That’s important because it will affect the quality of life. Rowan also has 10k undergrads, more than four times the size of L. Only 36% live on campus vs 94% for Lafayette. Also, having a grad school it does affect how professors interact with undergrad students. If the merger with R-Camden goes thru, it will also have an upheaval as Rutgers is dead set against it.</p>
<p>I strongly believe that the undergrad education is more important than graduate school and all components that the school provides play a role. What I want to say is let your child decide by himself. Many times as parents we do not understand how much we influence our kids.</p>
<p>BTW, I do not trol the ivies, I post everywhere as I am waiting admission results for my niece. Just the ivy boards appear to attract more frequent writings than other schools. And if you notice a recent post that I made about choosing between Williams and Harvard, I introduced a factor that others had not made-be in an isolated place with difficult public transportation, as I considered the benefits from either school about the same.</p>
<p>busybeemom,</p>
<p>You know your situation better than any of us do: What you feel comfortable paying, what you need to set aside for another child (or children), what the real differences in experience will be between the two schools, what will work for your son. There are, in fact, a lot of threads covering the question of whether it is worth paying for a more prestigious school. I am not getting the impression that Lafayette’s engineering program is better than Rowan’s, so if your son is set on engineering, that would seem to be a big mark in the “this will work!” column for Rowan. Here are some things I would be discussing with my son and pondering: How big a deal will the social scene and surrounding town be? What things about the Lafayette experience appeal to your son that he can’t get at Rowan? What about the relative sizes of the student body? (Seems Rowan has about four times the number of students as Lafayette?) How comfortable will your son be if he has to take out loans? If he can get good externship/internship experiences at Rowan and if he wants to keep graduate school as an option, that free ride seems like a good deal indeed. I don’t know much about the qualitative differences that might make Lafayette worth the cost, though I can imagine there are some. It sounds to me that you’ve done your research, though, and you feel your son would get a good education whichever of these schools he ultimately chooses. Best of luck with the decision.</p>
<p>For engineering it is true, that it doesn’t much matter where you get the degree. However, the school a kid attends can mean a lot to him. There is a big difference between, say IIT and Lehigh in atmosphere, student life, amenities. But, say UMD College Park vs Lehigh, umm not so much. Also, bear in mind that most freshman change their minds as to what their major end up being. Engineering has a lot of kids who change to other majors. So some schools may not be such a great idea when that is taken into consideration.</p>
<p>I’m glad you see that $8-10K is more than most kids can make in a year, especially taking a rigorous courses. There is just so much that can come up. Unpaid opportunities, a special course that should be taken, illness, jobs just not working out. It can happen–my current senior has done well these past two years, but he, too, had financial setbacks his sophomore year due to some unfortunate events, mistakes and opportunities. </p>
<p>The other thing I want to say, is that it is important to have your child feeling good about the school. When things don;t work out, and believe me, things often do not work out, it’s too easy to blame everything on the fact that the school was not the choice of the student. I’ve seen kids who just could not get over that once some things did not go their way. And when you transfer, you are at a disadvantage in getting any merit money; in fact it is rare to get any. </p>
<p>We’ve found that it is a powerful incentive for our kids to work things out themselves when things go wrong,when the school was their first choice. I have one struggling socially right now at his first choice school and we told him that would be the case as he chose a large OOS public where he was not likely to know a soul. Had we insisted on this school, I think the way he is taking it would be different. That it was his choice, and we did have to ante up more for him to go there over our own state school where he was also accepted, motivates him to try to make it work.It’s just human nature.</p>
<p>Edited to add that I wrote this without knowing what the 2 schools are.</p>
<p>I think your real choice is between a larger public university with full ride and a private LAC with less or no aid. The prestige factor doesn’t seem to be the real factor here.</p>
<p>Ana1 did a great job of describing some of the real differences between the schools. It’s perfectly true that kids can get perfectly good educations at public universities, even at Community Colleges for that matter, the undergraduate experience definitely varies, and to some kids that’s very important IF the family can afford either one.</p>
<p>I would also make sure it is equally likely to graduate on time from either school since adding an extra year can be a problem - especially if financial aid isn’t available for it. You paint your son as pretty passive… I might suggest gently that sometimes kids don’t take much initiative when we overdo for them… but a lot of us are probably guilty of that. Good luck to your family.</p>
<p>Busybeemom, you know your son and it’s one of things as parents we often have to do is assessing if something is truly worth the extra cost for our kids. Sometimes it is. Sometimes not. We do the best we can in the assessment and sometimes we miss, sometimes not.</p>
<p>Thank you all for emphasizing the experience part of college. I already know it but its hard to get caught up and lose sight of that. Everyones support and advice helps me embrace the choice he makes even better. I agree the choice must be his and I tell him that often. We will see what he gets out of these last visits he makes.</p>
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<p>If there’s anything – and i mean anything – that CS&S knows, it’s prestige, and i can guarantee you that neither of those schools are prestigious. We debate about whether relatively high ranked schools are prestigious like UCSD or Yeshiva university. But this isn’t the case with either of the schools you’ve listed. And hence, neither is worth $140k</p>
<p>i doubt either Berkeley, MIT, or any top grad program would be fairly impressed with either university. And i doubt either would have more of an advantage than the other.</p>
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<p>My sentiments exactly.</p>
<p>you’re obviously free to do what you wish, but i wouldn’t spend that much money on such a university. We’re not talking Harvey Mudd vs Purdue here. We’re talking about one unprestigious university vs another slightly less unprestigious university. If you want reassurance that your son is making the right decision, you won’t get it from me, and i doubt you’ll get it here.</p>
<p>I agree with beyphy. I can’t imagine spending $140k more for one of those universities over the other particularly if the engineering departments are similarly ranked.</p>
<p>It’s too late. The OP’s son could have applied to some other schools that give better merit aids.</p>
<p>Beyphy what is CS&S? Also click link in post 28 to see that you are wrong. Rowan also attracts good employers and grad schools. Both schools are also very close to NY and Philly. </p>
<p>Also my son received highest merit Lafayette offers of $20K a year. Not many schools give better merit than that!</p>
<p>This is awkward…I am from the northeast</p>
<p>Posting these kinds of inquiries in fora frequented by students who are not paying their own bills and who have limited experience will frequently result in comments of the type by “Ana” that the parent should spend any amount of money to keep the kid happy, or comments by beyphy re the “unprestigious university” Lafayette (which is neither unprestigious nor a university). </p>
<p>Know-it-all aggression is usually the hallmark of immaturity.</p>
<p>Good luck to you and your son, busybeemom.</p>