<p>Yes, I know there is a huge difference in the two schools. Let me explain.</p>
<p>NYU: $7,230 per year College of Arts and Sciences Scholarship
$4,000 Work-Study Program
$5,000 New York State Tuition Assistance Program (TAP)</p>
<p>SUNY Albany: $4,000 per year Presidential Scholarship
$5,000 NYS TAP
Honors College</p>
<p>So my big dilemma here is this.
Is NYU's undergraduate Math program really worth $40,000 a year?
Or will I be in the same position attending SUNY Albany's undergrad math program for closer to $7,000 a year?</p>
<p>Do the math: You’ll be spending $132,000 more at NYU (actually, likely more as tuition goes up.) What exactly are you buying? If you had an extra $132,000, what else might you buy to further your education or your career?</p>
<p>I see your point, but I’m not really sure what you mean. Also, my parents are paying for it, though I have offered to take out a student loan and do it all myself, my dad doesn’t want me in debt when i graduate. </p>
<p>I guess what I’m asking is, will the NYU degree get me farther than the Albany Honors College degree? If I wanted to go to grad school at Princeton say, does it make a difference?</p>
<p>If you’re planning on pursuing graduate school or something highly competitive like that with your math degree, NYU would definitely be worth the price difference.</p>
<p>I had a great time at SUNY A… and loved going to school there. I had experiences that will never be duplicated again in my life, unfortunately. However, I never got the impression that the school was an academic powerhouse, to put it diplomatically. I do now regret not going to either of the other choices I had at the time (Pace and Penn St) due to higher name recognition, but I did save a lot of money.
I am, however, in favor of education at a discount. Unless you are going to one of the top 5 or so universities in America, it is just not worth it anymore… especially if you are committed to attending grad school after.
To get our of college in this economic climate with 100k or more in debt is crazy!</p>
<p>To the above poster, dilksy:
So you think that if your path was NYU undergrad and say MIT grad, you would be in a better situation than if your path was SUNY A to MIT?
I doubt it.</p>
<p>Seems to me that if your receiving $5,000 TAP, assuming that this is based on your fathers/parents EFC, then your family may have to borrow money to pay for NYU. If this is in fact the case, then money is a real concern and I think it’s quite thoughtful of you to consider the costs.</p>
<p>As far as which college is better for you…do your homework and call the head of the honors program at Albany, then speak with the department heads, set up visits with each if possible. Take a close look at your anticipated curriculum for your major. Look at available courses. Take a look at how your AP courses will be treated … I know that Albany is quite generous in this area.</p>
<p>The schools are quite different, and which one is better for you is difficult to say here. One school of thought says that the most important factor in your success in college is fit. At which school will YOU be able to achieve your potential. In other words its about you, not about them.</p>
<p>NYU sends multiple people to the top math graduate schools every year. I’d question if SUNY-Albany has sent any people to the top math graduate schools in the past decade. </p>
<p>If you’re coming from a school that professors on the admissions committee aren’t as familiar with, you have to do that much more to prove yourself. Even if you’re at the top of your class, you have to find a way to distinguish yourself from the hundreds of other people that were at the top of there class at similar lower-tier institutions. The admissions committee will assume you’ve been taking easier/less rigorous classes, and haven’t been dealing with as much competition. You’ll probably have a limited course selection. Your recommendation letters won’t be coming from people that the admissions committee has necessarily even heard of.</p>
<p>If you’re coming from a top school, it’ll be much easier to show you’re capable of succeeding at graduate school. Professors will know about the rigor of your school’s curriculum, and know you’ll be competing against capable students. Doing well in graduate courses at a top graduate school like NYU is obviously good sign you can handle the curriculum at other top schools. You’ll be getting recommendation letters from people admissions committees will know and respect.</p>
<p>Yeah, NYU may get you to Princeton. But so many don’t get into it, your chances are still very low. NYU will look a lot better than Albany on the resume. But if you end up teaching at a high school it would not be worth it. It may if you want to teach at the college level. NYU is worth it, and is like the 33rd top school in the nation. It’s up to you, either choice will give you a great education.</p>
<p>is there any strong evidence of this? while courant is certainly a fantastic research institution, nsf phd completions numbers are HORRIBLE for nyu undergraduates. specifically, the data indicate that only TWO nyu grads earned phds in mathematics or statistics in 2006. 2003-2006 came in at THREE each. total in the 17 years reported: 39. </p>
<p>so unless these courant grads are so strong that they are being hired out of their phd programs in droves, or the nsf data is incorrect (which i tend to doubt), it would be difficult for nyu to be sending multiple people to top graduate programs every year. theyre barely sending multiple people to graduate school… period.</p>
<p>why is this the case? i have no clue, in part because i have little direct familiarity with courant. its certainly not due to a lack of undergraduate mathematics degrees being awarded, though: nyu has averaged north of 100 per year over the last decade.</p>
<p>NYU’s mathematics is one of their strongest departments. The Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences is ranked #5 in citation impact worldwide, #12 in citation worldwide, and #1 in applied mathematics in the U.S. It’s also ranked #1 in the U.S. by the Faculty Scholarly Productivity Index. NYU’s Courant is quite famous and respected, while I can’t say the same for SUNY Albany. NYU also usually does very well in the academic peer review/assessments (96/100 this year in USNWR’s world’s best colleges). In fact, a rating based on Academic Peer Assessment; Employer Assessment (Upper Level Management); Graduate and Professional School Admissions Officer Assessment; Quality of Student Body by SAT / SAT II; Quality of Student Body by GPA / Class Rank; Resources / Expenditure Per Student; Graduate /Professional School Attendance; Wage and Employment; Number of Applications / Desirability of School ranks NYU as 19. If your parents are willing to help out and are able to do so without exhausting their retirement fund, I would go for NYU.</p>
<p>If you go back 10 years, it’s 12 for SUNY Albany and 28 for NYU. If you go back 5 years, it’s 6 for Albany and 13 for NYU. Not quite as sizable of a difference as I thought it would be, but I still think there would be a pretty big divide if you look at the quality of schools these people are going to.</p>
<p>Math is one of NYU’s strongest departments. You can’t go wrong with it. +, a lot of Math Majors end up working on wall street (if they are so inclined), and thus, NYU+Wall Street Aspirations >>>> SUNY Albany</p>
<p>Dilksy: I think the choice is quite obvious, especially if your parents are willing to pay. NYU will get you more opportunities, period. Suny Albany is a good school, but what will look better on the resume? I think we all know this answer.</p>
<p>Even though I went to SUNY A, Believe me, I would have rather gone to NYU! (or Penn st, or Pace, or U Delaware… all schools I was excepted to…)
If money is an issue, it then becomes a no brain-er! Speaking for myself, I did not want to have 75k in student loans.
Of course NYU is going to open more doors… but if you went to SUNY, in the honors, and went to grad school, you have a great chance of ending up in the same place for less debt.</p>