Hi guys. I was recently rejected from my dream school so I need to make a decision on which school I should attend. I was accepted to Rutgers with no scholarship (instate though), Temple with about $10,000 in aid, and WVU with about $13,500 in aid. I am leaning towards Rutgers because its close to New York and but Temple is in Philly. My brother went to Rutgers and he’s telling me not to go but I don’t know what I should do. Pls help, thank you!
It depends on your major first of all, Rutgers in general is more competitive than Temple and WVU and is more highly ranked but you should compare the rankings of the programs you are interested in. Also, scholarship doesn’t matter as much as the end price you end up paying. A lot of oos schools offer scholarships to oos students but the oos students still end up paying more than their in state school because oos tuition is much larger than in state tuition for public universities. If you visited rutgers and liked it, it’s probably your best choice if it’s the cheapest
Temple is about 55k OOS so with your aid you and your parents are looking at 45 k vs 30 at Rutgers, does 60,000 extra for temple make sense for you and your family? WVU is about 40k IIRC so your 13k in aid makes it a little cheaper than Rutgers but not much and WVA is a PITA to get to. One thing I would caution is what kind of aid did you get, is it set for 4 years, colleges are gonna take a hit with extra fA request and most have just sent Back big time $$$ for dorm refunds so I think aid may be harder to come by in the future. Again really depends on your major but I would say temple should be out and does being near a major city mean a lot to you?
@NJdad07090 im undecided rn but I think im going to end up doing economics, and being near a city does mean a lot
Ok if you think it is Econ ( the dismal science it is called BTW, I am a Econ major) you may end up thinking grad school so debt is bad , I would go with RU, New Brunswick is a decent college town, you could hitNYC or Philly but I doubt you would more than once or twice ea year, RU has a good rep for their Econ dept, Temple is more money and is also a state school so the same issues you may have at RU , you will also have at Temple, yeah Philly is a much better city no doubt , but really New Brunswick should keep you busy, find out why your brother did not think it and see what the issues were, learn from him.
@NJdad07090 I had a talk with my parents and committed to RU! but my brother didnt like it because he ending up leaving after his first semester sophomore year so he’s not a big fan of the school. but RU is still a lot, 36K a year and I got no aid but housing is 14K so after my freshman year it would be a lot more affordable
@booknerd00 - congrats , I think you made the right choice, yes , no aid but still your cheapest option for a very good school, I a can tell you this, the further you get away from NJ the better rep Rutgers has, it is weird. 36K I thought it was around 30K
@NJdad07090 16K for tuition 14K for housing and 6K for other expenses (books, transportation etc.)
there is no why you will need 6 k for other expenses unless you live in Cape May and take a uber every week home 
I will tell you from personal experience, I got denied by NYU and ended up going to Rutgers. NYU was my dream school and I am currently finishing sophomore year at Rutgers University.
I absolutely made the right choice. Rutgers out of any other university I applied to is by far the best decision I could have made. It truly is a diamond in the ruff, and I am surprised people aren’t dying to go there. Everyone always says, “Rutgers was my backup,” when you meet them, and then after their first semester they’ll tell you they are so glad they did not end up going wherever they wanted to go because it truly is just an excellent place to be.