My son has been accepted at Iona College and received a very good merit scholarship. We are from Massachusetts and have not visited yet. I need honest opinions on all aspects of the college, academics, resident life, is it a commuter or suitcase school? How is the area around the campus? How is the faculty? And student services? Any insight would be greatly appreciate.
The figures I see on collegedata.com are:
Students in College Housing 68% of freshmen, 43% of all students
We live 40 minutes from Iona and I know 2 students from our local Catholic HS who go there . One is on a team (not sure which) and rarely comes home. Another comes home Thursday evening, works Friday-Sunday at a store 5 minutes from home and then goes back to school Sunday night.
I haven’t seen the New Rochelle area where Iona is recently but from what I remember it’s suburban. The student who comes home on weekends for her job comes from a very protective family and I doubt that they would have allowed her to go there if they thought the area around campus was at all sketchy.
In terms of academic reputation Iona is overshadowed by many other schools in the area (NYC and surrounding suburbs)
If your son is interested in the NYC area and in search of merit he might have the stats for a very good scholarship at Manhattan College or St John’s if you want to stay with Catholic colleges, or Hofstra and Adelphi all of which are at least on par with Iona or even a notch above it.
Here are 2 threads about the neighborhood from another board
http://www.city-data.com/forum/westchester-county/2512331-new-rochelle-after-dark.html
http://www.city-data.com/forum/westchester-county/2206316-iona-college-new-rochelle.html
I live nearby and from what I know it is primarily a commuter school although they have been building more housing across the street from campus. You should find out what % of students live on campus. New Rochelle is definitely in the suburbs… My D took one interim break class at Iona and the campus is small but nice and appeared to be well kept up and the class she took worked out fine. The academic reputation is decent…I say it is below Fordham and Manhattan in terms of the local Catholic Schools, but probably above St. John’s. I’d suggest that you drive down for a visit. Not sure what kind of student services you are looking for but I believe that Iona has a strong program for students with learning disabilities.
New Rochelle is officially a small city, but it’s also one of the older suburbs on the commuter rail. Its downtown has been on the verge of revival for the last twenty years. There are some very nice restaurants, but not much shopping. It’s an easy half hour train ride to Grand Central Station in Manhattan. It used to be more of commuter school, but over the last ten years they have been building dorms like crazy. It’s popular with Catholic kids, B students with middling SAT or ACT scores. The business program is supposed to be decent. It has a nice art gallery that puts on some interesting exhibits. The kid I knew who attended worked in his family’s Indian restaurant and eventually opened his own restaurant.
New Rochelle is a fairly affluent suburb; Not Hastings-on-Hudson or Pound Ridge affluent, but a tidy place with significant economic and ethnic diversity. The Iona campus is compact and tidy and as was said there are new dorms adjacent to the main entrance of the campus. Plenty of name-brand franchise restaurants/bars a short cab ride away in Downtown New Rochelle. Nicer neighborhood than Fordham. Area has similarities to Riverdale Bronx, home of Manhattan College but nowhere near as hilly as the Manhattan College campus. And Riverdale is not a “college town” area at all.
Once Leo’s delicatessen left the area across the street from Iona, there was no reason to go there :). That was a great deli.
Wait- Google says it is still there. Could it be so???
Thanks for your insight. My son has also been accepted to UMass Amherst, UNH, Providence, Saint Anselm, Assumption and Merrimack. He is interested in Physics and Computer Science. He appiled to Iona after meeting the Admissions Rep locally. I have seen conflicting reports on Iona. Some state it is mostly a commuter school, and since we are over a 4 hour car ride away, he wouldn’t be coming home much, I worry that he would be left alone. I wonder if there are activities for the kids on weekends. And if the area is safe. He is a smart kid and he hopes to do an internship or research, I wonder if these options are available. and if he will be challenged academically. I am trying to decide if we should visit. I am just not sure if Iona is the right fit for him. The rep really built the school up to my son and I as I said I am seeing conflicting reports.
What is your best case net cost for Iona? It would not be in the same league academically as Providence, St. A’s or Assumption as Catholic peer schools. It has more commuter school attributes than not.
Could it possibly be less money than U Mass for you?
The area is fine but it takes much longer to get to Manhattan than was stated above.
Iona is safe - I’m speaking both as a parent of a senior who has also been accepted and as a College Counselor. It is a vibrant, energetic small campus where everyone appears to be happy. I have attended several events both as a HS counselor and on prospective students days and even random students I’ve polled are thrilled to attend.
If you include a 20 minute walk to the train station it takes 50 minutes to get to Manhattan. The area is very safe. North and East of the campus is very upscale, south and west more middle to working class. I lived within a block of the campus fifteen years ago. I don’t think he’d be alone on the weekends.
I would have no issues on the score of safety. That said, it’s never been my impression that physics or computer science was a strength of theirs.
Iona has an ok reputation but by no means stellar. Historically the students attracted to the school have not been very academically oriented. They were C and low B students in high school, many without any academic aspiration but I believe there are some efforts to change that. As for New Rochelle, the post above is correct. The school boarders some very wealthy areas (some every bit as wealthy as Hastings-on-Hudson) but also extends into a downtown area that has been depressed and has subsidized housing-although it is a distance from those housing developments. Trump has invested in downtown New Rochelle so that may help at puts some people in the downtown area that have resources. Iona has expanded quite a bit in the past few years. I mirror the sentiment of others-go visit. You are not that far away. I just read your other posts. My impression is that your son won’t love it. If he is interested in computer science and physics he is probably a strong STEM student. He won’t find many soul mates at IONA
Iona is not a school for a student with academic aspirations and who wants to do research. I anticipate him being pretty lonely at Iona if he goes-not because students leave on weekends but because he won’t find that many others who want to do research in their spare time. They may look at him funny. Further, I am not sure how much solid research he will find going on there. It is not a national research university. I usually recommend colleges over universities because students get more individual attention and they care more about their teaching and the college in general. But that is true only for the national LACs. The problem with a school like Iona for a student interested in academics is that his peers are unlikely to share his interests and faculty are less likely to be current and active in their field than they would be at a university or top LAC.
Few students from our NYC suburban high school apply there, but all of those that did were accepted including many with GPA < 2.5 and SAT less than 1000 (out of 1600). All but one kid that applied had under a 3.5 GPA. U Mass Amherst rejected kids with less than 3.0 GPA and successful Providence applicants generally had higher than a 3.5.
It is hard to tell from the college website how many of the professors are full time and how many are adjuncts. It is also hard to tell how much research is going on.
It is difficult to turn down a school offering a great financial package. For many students there are schools that would be very inexpensive. I am sure there were schools that my kids could have gotten really big money from, but we were willing to spend a bit more for a better school. OTOH, there was a thread here over the last couple of years about a student that went to a “third tier” school and was incredibly successful and i see kids from “lesser” school getting job they are happy with. Most of those kids, however, were in the grade/score range for the college they went to.
The recruiter’s job is to highlight the positive things about the school. Only you and your son can decide what is most important to him. Will he be happy if he is surrounded by students that may be less serious and engaged students? Will the lack of loans or having to worry about money make it worth going? Also, a recent thread says that where students go to college matter less for STEM students, (see thread here), which makes it harder to choose.
Definitely visit.