<p>^ Personally I don’t think it’s practical to go into serious debt for any program when we’re talking about just a Bachelor’s degree. I guess this is a personal choice since I’ve met students who are in a lot of debt but remain happy with their choice.</p>
<p>I was trying to make two separate points there; the first that NYU has strong academics outside of stern/tisch, which I feel people gloss over because they’re not as well known. The second is that I’m surprised whenever people say NYU isn’t worth any debt unless it’s for tisch/stern (I’ve seen this attitude frequently on the NYU board by applicants).</p>
<p>@psych__: thank you for that very detailed response, I’m sorry I missed it earlier : )</p>
<p>I see that you are a fairly new poster, so you may not realize the “NYU bashing” that goes on around here. I’ts not the school for everyone, but some of these comments are uncalled for.</p>
<p>“NYU bashing” occurs here because NYU is a school that many CC kids like. It appears on a lot of radar screens of participants’ of CC. It also does not meet full need of all of its students, nor does it have much in big merit money. It is need blind, so it tends to accept kids that may have a lot of need and then gaps them, more than other schools that tend to be discussed here. Also, NYU is a very, very expensive school, not only in its official COA stats, but because of where it is located and the opportunities this location offer in terms of spending money.</p>
<p>I have often posted the flip side of this. I know some kids whose best package was from NYU. So it should not be eliminated from your list, but you should be aware that this is an expensive school and overall, they gap bigtime as compared to schools of similar rankings.</p>
<p>I have no problem saying that NYU is expensive (we say it every time we send a payment there), that they tend to not meet full need, and that it is expensive to live in NYC. What I have a problem with are the people who have put down the academics. It IS a good school. Like any other school, it is “worth it” for some students and not for others. If we were going into huge debt or cleaning out the retirement fund to pay for it, we wouldn’t send our child there. But it would still be a good school.</p>
<p>I agree that it has good acadmics. However, its selectivity based on its popularity is heavily because of its location, not the caliber of their academics for under grads. The school is a huge disjointed college, and not the best choice for many kids who could use more structure and attention. But the same applies to a number of other schools. NYU shows up more here because more CC kids are interested in this school.</p>
<p>NYU has fine academics but not premiere academics. I say this as a college professor who has researched their course offerings and how they’re taught.</p>
<p>In addition, the separate schools creates a wide variation in rigor. Steinhardt is very different from CAS. </p>
<p>I also have a bias against schools that make it difficult to study across the schools, but some very fine (Cornell/Northwestern for example) do this too.</p>
<p>In traditional liberal arts, NYU is strongest in math (#9), econ (#12), sociology (#14), poli sci and history (both @ 17), and English (20). Other rankings include Comp Sci (at 31), physics (42), psych (29), biosci (58). Chem didn’t make the top 50.</p>
<p>cptofthehouse you’ve got it exactly!!! As a native New Yorker who trained an NYU math professor in the 80’s I so totally agree - since the city has improved so tremendously over the past decade or two, NYU has become much more in demand. When the city was questionable from a safety point of view, NYU suffered, Columbia not so much. Using Washington Square Park as your campus loses some panache when there are drunk bums and drug addicts with needles sticking out of their arms sleeping on the benches.</p>
<p>I never wish NY to go back to those days but if NYU were somewhere else I’m not sure it would be as desirable from a strictly academic point of view. </p>
<p>Mythmom - Northwestern allows school cross over for most of their schools and are working on improving that even more. Many kids double major and minor in different schools, my daughter will have enough credits to graduate with a Theatre major with MT certificate and Math major plus Dance minor. Some are more difficult because of the requirements needed for a major but they are pretty good at allowing you to go for it.</p>
<p>Bluebayou, are those rankings for undergrad or grad students? When I have seen such rankings, it has always been for the grad schools, and often does not pertain to the undergrads. Many times undergrads don’t get the priority, attention and department funds when the grad programs are strong. The undergrads get the grads as their TAs so that they can get money to study there.</p>
<p>I have no problem with NYU. It’s a great school. The location is truly a plus, though for kids who need a bit more of an umbrella, it may not be a good choice. It reminds me more of European schools in that it isn’t campus oriented but city oriented. My son has not looked at it yet–not really strong enough academically for it to be a contender for his list but he loved Pitt for the vibrant city atmosphere with the city as a campus. </p>
<p>Anyone who needs financial aid should have safeties on his/her list, and should also be aware the NYU does not typically meet full need, nor do they have a lot in merit money. It’s also very expensive. if applying there.</p>
<p>grad school rankings – I have yet to see much in the way of ranking A&S departments at the undergrad level. Personally, I don’t mind using grad school rankings as a proxy if only bcos I don’t find the use of TA’s to be particularly bad. Just like profs – some are great and some can be jerks. But more importantly, there are plenty of Ivy-trained post-docs working as TA’s in big Unis. (Not much different than a rookie-tenure track member, IMO.)</p>
<p>As a professor I do think there is a problem with the use of TA’s. It makes grading on large lecture courses particularly capricious. One section has a very easy grader; another a very difficult grader. The same test scores and papers could earn a C+ from one TA and an A- from another. This is especially true in the Humanities.</p>
<p>TA’s are also not as reliable to correct difficulties and not as credible to write job/grad school recommendations.</p>
<p>They can be very engaging in the classroom.</p>
<p>Of course, I was a TA myself once, but as a English person we taught our own classes – composition. My students would have to say if they suffered. No tenured professors taught basic writing in my department.</p>
<p>I agree with Mythmom. Having been to a major research university which was rife with TAs, and seeing how things are done at LACs, students are much better off on the whole with profs who make it their life work to teach. </p>
<p>Grad school ratings do not correspond to the quality of the undergrad education in that dept.</p>
<p>Today I was reading an article in our local paper about the top high school students in our county. Basically, the Valedictorian for each school was named. A big focus of the article was about how big merit scholarships were fewer and far between for high achieving high school students. Of course the writer showed ignorance in the whole process by not discussing that a high GPA in a rigorous curriculum with high test scores need to be had for many merit scholarships. (Many of the county’s valedictorians do not attend schools with rigorous programs.) </p>
<p>Anyway, one valedictorian from a private and rigorous school is going to Brown and he was lamenting that he only had 5400 in scholarship money so far for a COA of 54,370. (According to the article his brother is attending Notre Dame with a COA of 53,240.) I couldn’t stop crying for him. :)</p>
<p>Now what bothered me was his comment, one I hear so frequently on CC, “My parents have a strong belief that education comes first, and we’ve always been willing to cut back in the name of education.” I can agree that parents who are able to cut back do so for education do value education, but an assumption I hear in the statement is that those who aren’t willing to make such financial sacrifices do not value education. I think too many people think that spending a fortune on an UG education is the only way to demonstrate that one values education. Personally, I think it is better demonstrated by reading to your child and later with your child when they are young. By having books throughout the house, conversation throughout the day, visiting museums and historical sites, explaining to children how things work, and how to handle finances. It is shown by reinforcing the importance of respecting your teacher, doing your homework, listening in class, learning to research at an early age, etc. etc. etc…</p>
<p>Writing a big check is the least demonstrative way to show how much it means.</p>
<p>I agree with Fallgirl. Also, I’ll bet that there are a lot of students who are on CC that would disagree with that last statement. There seems to be an abundance of kids who have gotten in to colleges, do not qualify for fin aid, and their parents who somehow raised these high achieving kids don’t want to write that big check for them.</p>
<p>As a parent who has written some big checks for a long time for education, I can tell you that in this family, the money was not easily earned.</p>
<p>And how is that any different than two profs who teach the same course, such at Science 1? Or Math 1. Both have large lecture halls, both use their own tests; one prof is particularly harder than the other… Or even English; some professors are known for “easy” A’s. </p>
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<p>Agreed, particularly since LACs don’t generally have graduate departments…and my earlier post discussed NYU, a non-LAC…</p>
<p>Don’t misunderstand…I’m not saying that Profs are not preferred, just that TA’s are not particularly ‘bad’.</p>