<p>My son got accepted to NYU, Wake Forest, GMU and JMU. Got rejected from William&Mary and UVA. He feels torn between choices he has. NYU and Wake Forest will leave him with a debt for many years. In addition to that, NYU offered him a Liberal Arts 2-year program in Florence with a mandatory Italian classes. My son has studied Russian and Spanish and would rather improve these two languages. NYU guarantees his acceptance to NYU junior year if his GPA is 3.0 or higher. It almost seems that it's NYU community college program that comes at much higher cost. Also, my son decided he wants to study economics rather than social sciences but in NYU he'll have to study liberal arts for two years. In JMU they offered him a scholarship but GMU seems a better school even though ratings are lower than JMU. Does anyone know why JMU is Tier 1 and GMU is Tier 3? Does the tier even matter? What your opinion on economics/social studies programs in JMU and GMU?
All our family is losing sleep over these decisions. Please, help!!!</p>
<p>don’t go to NYU unless your son is absolutley in love with that school - otherwise the debt won’t be worth it </p>
<p>same goes for Wake Forest…</p>
<p>If he feels that GMU is the school for him, that might be THE SCHOOL. My cousins went there and they seemed to like it.</p>
<p>I posted this on the other thread, but I will mention it again. GMU has one of top five rated economics departments in the country - due to the professors they are able to recruit from the DC area. Also, the DC area is wonderful for internships. S will be attending GMU OOS for these reasons.</p>
<p>Thank you! I just emailed this thread to my son.</p>
<p>I’m just curious. Do these tiers even matter?</p>
<p>NYU has started an agressive program to enroll more students without having to house them (of course very expensive in NY) by putting them overseas for a year or two. D was interested in their Dubai program, but after looking into this it seemed to me they have expanded these overseas programs in a big hurry- I would like to see them operate for a few years before making my kid a guinea pig.<br>
As to the comment that Wake Forest isn’t worth the cost, what is this based on? Ranked 28 in the country, with business school ranked 14, grad’s seem to be getting good jobs- is this just your opinion?</p>
<p>I’m a professor at JMU. I’m sad to say that I’m not sure I can recommend my own school. Although it has many virtues, it seems to be in a long, slow tailspin toward becoming basically a party school. If your son is unusually mature and has a lot of self-control, he might do fine here. Unfortunately, however, if he’s at all prone to give in to the prevailing culture and go with the flow…well, the flow here is largely away from the libraries and toward the parties. Believe me, it saddens me to say this, and I hope this trend reverses itself. But that’s the way I see things standing as of now.</p>
<p>The NYU Liberal Studies Program (formally called General Studies Program) has been around for a while and is not the same as going to the Dubai program. It is a rather restrictive with many course requirements for two years but some kids are fine with it as it gets general requirements out of the way and there is no problem getting in their major requirements the last two years. That said, he should really love the idea of spending a year in Italy if he were to choose that program, and I agree that the debt issue would probably not make it worth it.</p>
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<p>Are you talking about the US News tiers? Well, they’re not as important as some high school seniors in other forums pretend they are. On this forum, they are measurements of prestige and don’t necessarily reflect the quality of the undergraduate education or the employment opportunities upon graduation. It’s especially irrelevant since the tiers are used on an overall basis and doesn’t go into specifics; the fact that GMU has a lower tier has no bearing on what the school is like for a specific department.</p>
<p>S was accepted at GMU, JMU, VT, and Drexel. After a long decision process, he finally chose JMU. JMU and GMU are excellent schools - VA has some of the best public universities in the country. I don’t think your son can go wrong choosing either one. Hopefully, he’s visited the schools and has an idea of the environment.</p>
<p>Yes, JMU is suddenly getting bad press this week due to the riot over the weekend. There are parties at every school, and if your child wants to party rather than study, he/she is going to do so, no matter what school they attend. In order to succeed in college, you need to perform well in a highly competitive academic environment. If someone can party a lot and still perform well, more power to them. It’s still incumbent on the school to maintain academic standards, and if the partiers can’t “hang,” then their grades should reflect.</p>
<p>Interesting, JMUProf, that you would use your very first post to disparage your employer. </p>
<p>I would note that in 2009, JMU was granted a Phi Beta Kappa chapter. I thinks this speaks volumes to the quality of the faculty and the students who attend. I hardly think JMU is in a tailspin to becoming a party school. With new facilities to accomodate the performing arts and growing programs in science and technology, JMU will finally be recognized for the scholarly institution it is.</p>
<p>You say my reply is “interesting” in order to suggest some kind of shenanigans on my part, though you make no specific charge that can be verified or refuted.</p>
<p>Interesting.</p>
<p>I was careful to be judicious in my response. As I noted, JMU has many strengths, and is, in terms of the quality of the education <em>available</em> here, superior to the vast majority of colleges in the nation. However, the social distractions here are unusually powerful. This problem is no secret at JMU. As I noted, students who can resist the distractions, and who seek out challenging courses can come away with an excellent education. Students who can’t/don’t do those things, but who go with the prevailing flow are likely to come away with a less-than-stellar education. The same thing can be said of most schools, of course. But the difference between what is available and what is actually required seems unusually great at JMU.</p>
<p>To summarize: the school has several notable strengths, and several notable weaknesses.</p>
<p>Is GMU really top 5 in econ? Though they are known for their relative strength in economics, I would still be interested to a link to a rating of them in the top 5.</p>
<p>Re: posts #6 and #8…
Just want to point out that NYU is not in Dubai. It is in Abu Dhabi.</p>
<p>JMUProf, are you suggesting more gen ed requirements? Or more rigor within the majors? </p>
<p>The very best students can be pulled away by social distractions. Those that are unable to right their course won’t be students for long.</p>
<p>If this were my son, I’d encourage him to attend either GMU or JMU, whichever school he prefers, and use the money he saves on travel abroad. Most universities will accept academic credit from travel-abroad programs run by other reputable universities, so he doesn’t need to attend NYU to have this opportunity.</p>