<p>No problem. And I think Georgetown is a great place to do well at. Bright, motivated, ambitious peers, brilliant professors, a nurturing learning environment (once all those pesky core courses are done), these all create conditions conducive to success and achievement. It’s awesome to be surrounded by so much inspiration, to have your character molded by the core values of the school, and to be a part of the community. Though I think alums of every school try to extoll the virtues of their community, I think Hoyas are pretty unique both in the experience we’ve had and the bonds we created. Now that I’m in grad school and slowly transitioning to the professional world, I’m finding the connections that Georgetown created. During my interviews, I’ve sparked immediate connections with Hoya grads. During networking events, Hoyas just naturally gravitate toward each other. In class, Hoya grads almost sort of have their own language.</p>
<p>I have a pretty long list of honors from the school, and that helped me out in interviewing well. While firms mostly looked at my grad school and grades, the Georgetown alums recognized the honors and what they meant. They knew how hard it was to get them. Thus, even though my grad school grades were decent (but nowhere near magna or anything), Georgetown alums really came to bat for me at the prestigious, selective firms, since they knew how much my accomplishments at the school meant in terms of my intelligence and social skills. It really makes a difference.</p>
<p>So yah, if you have any questions about being on the hilltop, I’d love to answer them (though I’m sure current students might be better situated to provide more practical and current advice).</p>
<p>Don’t listen to people who grossly overgeneralize the strength of a university’s degree without looking at the strength of a specific program/department/school within the university. Yes, academically and prestige-wise Georgetown is definitely better in some areas, such as the social sciences. However, NYU is significantly stronger in other areas, like philosophy, the arts (Tisch), and business–Stern is hands down better than McDonough. We have the #2 finance program in the nation (if that’s what you want to pursue), right behind Wharton, and have NYC right at our doorstep for internships. Stern’s facilities are awesome, and every Stern professor I’ve had is amazing; the education here is excellent. On top of that, the students here are really intelligent, just as smart as kids at Georgetown. The reason I say all of this is because I think Stern is severely underrated (well, at least at the undergrad level), and people assume that just because Stern is part of NYU, Georgetown (whose overall name is stronger than NYU) is automatically better; but that’s not the case at all. In my opinion, Stern is the second best undergrad business program in the nation, right behind Wharton.</p>
<p>I’m not going to dispute the notion that some undergraduate programs at NYU are stronger than Georgetown. But in the realm of professional school admissions, it doesn’t matter. And, more specifically, the OP is concerned about academic experience. At the undergraduate level, the quality of the department won’t have as significant an impact on you as the academic experience would. This is mostly because undergraduates aren’t in a position where these things would make a difference (they do, obviously, make a difference at the graduate school level, where a necessary component of due diligence is judging the caliber of the department).</p>
<p>Academic experience-wise, I think Georgetown offers a great setting for small seminars, a traditional college atmosphere, etc. I won’t say it’s better than NYU; some people prefer the culture at NYU. However, if you’re looking for a close-knit, centralized community located in a traditional college environment, you won’t find it at NYU.</p>
<p>“Bright, motivated, ambitious peers, brilliant professors, a nurturing learning environment (once all those pesky core courses are done), these all create conditions conducive to success and achievement. It’s awesome to be surrounded by so much inspiration, to have your character molded by the core values of the school, and to be a part of the community.” </p>
<p>Beautiful language–just beautiful. These words resonate strongly with me flowerhead, but I’m also glad we are getting some (slight) anti-gu sentiment. It’s good to have a mix. I am definitely looking forward to a smaller school with more attention–hopefully I’ll find that.</p>
<p>Yeah, I understand the dissonance. But you have to understand where it’s coming from. JSA attends Stern, so clearly there is some bias there (though I think his/her points are valid). I’m biased too, as an alum. But I can say that there is no way I’d have taken NYU over Georgetown (I didn’t apply to NYU for UG, so I never really had the choice), and there are only a handful of schools I’d have considered in Georgetown’s place (Brown, Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, MIT, Swarthmore, Reed, Columbia, Dartmouth).</p>
<p>For graduate school, there’s no way I’d have taken Georgetown over NYU–and for that, I did have a choice.</p>
<p>My post wasn’t directed to the OP; I was simply responding to hookedongtown who was “reconsidering the value of a Stern degree.” Secondly, class sizes at NYU vary by school and major/program, as it does at most schools. Yes, on average NYU’s class sizes are larger than Georgetown’s, but that can be misleading. Again, it depends on the specific program one plans on pursuing. For Stern, class sizes are pretty small. My Stern courses (which happen to be all of my classes this semester) have consisted of 19-70 people, which is much smaller compared to the lectures my pre-med friends are in with 400+ students. Point is while colleges may have a general leaning in certain aspects, the specific program/major one pursues can make all the difference, especially at NYU where the schools are completely different and have their own set of characteristics. Case in point, my academic experience at NYU as a finance major in Stern is vastly different than that of a biology major in CAS, or a creative writing major in Tisch. Without knowing what the OP wants to major in/is interested in at the undergraduate level, it’s hard to say how his/her experience will be at one particular school versus the other.</p>
<p>“Bright, motivated, ambitious peers, brilliant professors, a nurturing learning environment (once all those pesky core courses are done), these all create conditions conducive to success and achievement. It’s awesome to be surrounded by so much inspiration, to have your character molded by the core values of the school, and to be a part of the community.”</p>
<p>In light of what I’ve just said, I can definitely vie for the fact that all these things exist at Stern. But again, they may not hold true at, say, CAS.</p>
<p>That said, I agree with everything else you’ve posted, flowerhead. :D</p>
<p>p.s. I swear I don’t work for Stern admissions. haha</p>
<p>That’s fine, but keep in mind that my courses at Georgetown–except for core courses (of which only had to take 4-5)–had 5-10 students on average.</p>
<p>I definitely think that Stern is a different beast altogether at NYU, with many students having had Ivy-worth resumes from the get-go.</p>