Good colleges for me to start looking at?

College Search & Selection
9

To see what your options are (and avoid disappointment) you should really find out the budget for your college expenses and determine how much a “name” school matters for you - you usually end up paying more for it.

That said, being from NJ (as are we) you must visit at least

  • Rutgers (big, YES, but cheap and lots of options including perhaps extra $$$ if you raise your stats), consider their “smaller” (4,000) SEBS school (do the open house) for pre-med; the biochem session really impressed us
  • TCNJ: high on a lot of lists for value and no class larger than 45 students (go on an open house day) but they do want you to select a major on the application (the T originally stood for teachers).

Any NY state school is a “budget” choice for out-of-state kids, and the TCNJ equivalent is SUNY Geneseo. Not a state school but Marist (Catholic) also has more reasonable costs.

I’ve always asked my kids what the “added value” of the college you want to is for you - internships, a good foreign study program, lots of chances to do service work, etc; research those features that interest you and compare the colleges that are tops on your list -it may then be easier to make a case to pay more. A school with a lot of those features is Elon in NC, plus a really nice campus. You’ll get at least a $4000 discount off the standard 42k price, and maybe more if you punch in your numbers into their calculator.

I know you don’t want to go that far north, but McGill is an easy trip from North Jersey (closer than NC) and a budget choice especially with the current currency exchange rate - even without that discount, you are likely to pay close to 30-35K max. It is large, but also rated at around 25th in the world, and if you do education (as my daughter is) at least half your classes will be small, and you are likely to enter with advanced status so you will be only in for 4 or the 5 years the program normally is. Just read up on it so you understand some of what might be negatives, but it is a great city to go to school in (Montreal).

good luck!