My intended major is CompSci. With a sat math of 650 and unweighted gpa of 3.6 I am thinking that the following schools are possible for acceptance. RPI is my reach (and preferred) but let’s say that all of them accept me, my question then is where should I go compared to the cost. I’m thinking that all of these schools are a few thousand dollars more than I can afford so I shouldn’t go to any of them, therefore I need the lowest cost while still having a good quality education. I realize I won’t be able to afford RPI but I’m leaving it in since it is my dream school.
Here’s my list in alphabetical order, if you would please arrange them in order from what should be my preference over the next:
College of New Jersey
Brooklyn College
City College
Hunter College
Hofstra
Lafayette College
New Jersey Institute of Technology
Ramapo
Rensselaer Poly (GO RED!!!)
Rowan
Rutgers Cam
Rutgers NB
Rutgers Newark
Stockton
Stony Brook
My Reach is RPI and I need only 6-7 matches from the above list, please help.
E to the X – DY -DX
E to the X – DX
cosine, secant, tangent, sine,
3 – point – 1 – 4 – 1 – 5 – 9
square root, cube root, log of pi,
DISINTEGRATE THEM, RPI!
Here in order taking into consideration cost and value, campus etc. This is assuming you live in NJ
Tcnj: should be number one on your list
RPI: but ONLY if the net price is within $2-3k of tcnj (factoring in merit aid only not loans. TCNJ is the better value, rpi is more than 2x the cost of tcnj, not worth the debt)
Ramapo and Rowan are a tie if the net price is the same. If one is cheaper, go to the other
Rutgers
All the rest of the schools you list are significantly or larger or city campuses much harder to manage going back and forth to class. Your other option is U Delaware which I would add. Take off Hofstra, Hunter, Lafayette and the city colleges. Many reasons why TCNJ, Rowan and Ramapo are great values from total cost, class size, quality comfort of campuses. Other than RPI, none of the others will offer a significant advantage post graduation in computer science, none of them are worth the added cost or debt.
Agree with njdadjets. If you are in state, TCNJ is just as good as any on your list. What is your total SAT score? Merit to NJ state schools is tied to that, I believe, so if you’re over 1350 or so, you could get some money from all the state options.
@njdadjets very helpful and encouraging, thank you very much.
@ucbalumnus True, I should have added that in the original post because it should be part of the decision making.
College of New Jersey-26,879
Brooklyn College-npc site not working
City College-npc site not working
Hunter College-10632
Hofstra-35198
Lafayette College-18090
New Jersey Institute of Technology-18828
Ramapo-24239
Rensselaer Poly (GO RED!!!) - 18832
Rowan-23538
Rutgers Cam-npc site not working
Rutgers NB-30992
Rutgers Newark-31492
Stockton-13614
Stony Brook-37068
As you can see from the above, I take the npc for all these schools with a tiny grain of salt. The exact identical values were entered for the parameters for all of the schools’ npcs and some asked for more info, and others asked for just 5 or so questions. There is no way that rpi costs $4 more than NJIT. But those are legit the responses I got from identical entries.
I think we can afford about $9k to 10k after 6k loans. So all of these are probably going to be over budget by about 8-12k
@NJWrestlingmom I’m only at 1300 in my overall. I’ll take the test only one more time because I can’t tolerate focusing for that long on the test. I can take 16 hour classes while I learn, but I have a hard time sitting through boring tests.
So Hunter and Stockton are the only colleges that are likely to be within your $15-16k budget. Maybe Brooklyn or CCNY if their costs are like Hunter. So these should stay on your list.
Lafayette, NJIT, and RPI are a little over budget; you could apply to them as financial reaches hoping that they are more generous than their NPCs or that you get some additional merit scholarship to bring them within range. If your $15-16k budget does not include some work earnings from you, then they are probably in range if you work for a few thousand dollars a year. In this case, Ramapo and Rowan could be financial reaches, hoping for a scholarship or better financial aid than the NPCs indicate.
The other schools should probably be put in the unrealistic reach category unless there is significant likelihood of getting a large merit scholarship (which should probably be considered a reach for the scholarship, not just admission).
@ucbalumnus I agree and that’s the reason I am applying to RPI contrary to what the npc says. Hoping that their offer turns out better than their npcs
Are you of the same opinion that TCNJ is the better of Rowan and Ramapo? I love their campus, but I’m really wondering if I will land that much of a different calibur job by attending TCNJ over Rown.
As a NJ resident, TCNJ is considered the best of the 3, but Rowan is quickly growing in reputation. Rowan tends to be the more generous with aid as well, so wait and see. I’m not sure about the SAT scores; my son didn’t score high enough to get money from any of them! But he’s a very happy freshman at Rowan. Good luck to you!
You really need to look at the course offerings. Just because a school has a good reputation in State, doesn’t mean they have a good program in CS. TCNJ is not known for CS, however Rutgers has a CS program that is highly ranked both nationally and internationally. NJIT also is known to have a very good CS department. Those would be my suggestions but you should go to the websites and take a look at the course offerings and make sure a school has enough classes in the area of CS that you want to study - gaming, cyber security, software development, etc.
Don’t bother with the net price calculators. You need to do the Fafsa, then see where you get in and what the real net price is. Your stats, especially SAT scores are good but not at a level that would get you significant MERIT aid anywhere. You need to stick strictly to instate public schools. It’s obvious that your NPC figures that you list factor in loans. If you live in New York, your instate publics are the best options. If you live in NJ— the same. Stick to publics. Tcnj gives a maximum 6k merit. Rowan, Ramapo, Stockton give more if you have the stats. Rutgers could be an option if you want to ride buses all day. Rowan and Ramapo are definitely on the rise reputation wise. Ramapo offers unmatched dorms— hands down the best in the State public or private. The campus is small but beautiful, easily walkable and in a nice area of Bergen County. It’s smaller and slightly more difficult to get into than Rowan. Rowan is also rising. Much bigger than Ramapo and tcnj and Stockton. Rowan has one of the top engineering programs in the country but the rest of the degree programs need to catch up. Stockton is isolated in the woods and very nice if that’s your thing. TCNJ is the overall crown jewel currently in state public. A valid argument can now be made that Rowan is the place to go for engineering on par with Stevens. For you if you major in comp sci, go to the school among tcnj, Rowan, Ramapo, Stockton that you need to take the smallest $$$$ loans for.
I’d like to apply to as few schools as possible because we’re broke so that’s why I’m asking, therefore waiting for FAFSA doesn’t help me since I’d have to apply to them first. The net price calculator is what I’m using as a sort of filter in order to then know what NOT to apply to for sure.
With regard to the net price calculator, I took the values without adjusting for loans. Those are the prices without loan reduction applied, so along with those costs I could additionally lower them with loans if that makes sense.
@njdadjets I know about the buses at rutgers nb as an issue and to me that is definitely one of the two problems I have with RutgersNB. The bus travel at Rutgers is notoriously a major drawback for me wanting to apply to Rutgers new brunswick. I’d like to know if Camden or Newark have the same issue since I’ve never gone there. I look at them over google earth and I can’t tell because I don’t know if the various campuses for each are places that I have to travel to.
Even though NJIT is less than 30 minutes away from home and I could potentially save on dorm/meal costs, my issue is- will I get a job? Look at their graduation rate-58.1% for 2014. I can’t tell if they have a good student employment rate because they don’t list it anywhere as other schools do. These are concrete issues that I considered for all these schools on my spreadsheet.
If anyone is curious why Hunter College came out so cheap, it’s because there are no dorms there so it wasn’t added to the cost. Thanks for the helps.
The busses are really not a big deal at Rutgers and you don’t ride busses “all day”. Everything you need is on each campus but you might have a couple classes on another campus, depending how you make your schedule. But yes, it is a trade off for a great education. If you are sure you want CS you should consider the strength of the program. They are not all seen equally in the eyes of employers. Stony Brook also has an excellent reputation and they seem to give out of staters decent merit money.
Are any of the schools close enough to commute to? That will save you a lot of money.
Montclair state is the closest at 15 minutes but I don’t like their program. NJIT is 30 minutes but haven’t heard of it with any prestige for employment. Rutgers Newark would be the same distance as NJIT but dont know anything about it. The rest would be dorm. Stony Brook would be great but it seems the students complain of the boredom there with issues regarding housing also.
First and second year students residing outside of a 25 mile radius are required to live on campus. A lot of students from Michigan attend because they offer such a good deal to OOS students. http://www.utoledo.edu/campus/tour/
Try to visit the schools. You have to see which is the best fit for you. Ask to have a tour of the CS department or to meet with someone there. If they don’t offer one, that may be an indication that that program is not competitive. Also ask what clubs and resources they offer for CS. A school with a hackathon club and CS community space is ideal. This is assuming you have experience with CS and are sure it’s a good fit for you. Look at the requirements for the degree in each school and the courses offered. Do they have a variety of classes with different “areas” of CS or is it the same track for everyone? Some schools put more emphasis on higher level math than others. Do you want a research school with opportunities for student involvement? CS is a little different from most other majors and you really need to figure out which program is best suited to you. I went through all of this with my son last year and he ended up at the school that he thought he would never go to - but after a visit and some research he decided it had the CS program he was most impressed by and was surprised that he liked the campus (you can’t listen to what everyone else says, most of the people have never been to the campuses they talk about they just go by what they “hear”. You really need to see for yourself) and everything it had to offer. He loves it there.
@BuckeyeMWDSG U of Toldeo looks real good and the campus looks very nice. The Net Price Calculator gave me a total of $21,596 out of pocket after the 14k merit award so it’s a bit too costly for me for that distance. The rating shows to be 185 on the computer-science-schools.com website, that’s not too shabby. But because of a disability I’m bound to within a 3 hour drive from home.
Wright has some really interesting computer labs and research projects. There is a lot of co-op opportunities in the Dayton area, so a lot of students co-op part time while taking classes. I don’t know what a financial aid package from them would look like for OOS students (in state they are very generous) or if you could get it into your price range. If the finances don’t work for undergrad, think about them for Masters/Phd if their support for disabilities would enable you to move from home.