Sometimes parents are trying to be helpful, be advisers, help you find colleges that would be better for you. It would die better is you work with your parents in finding schools. Wanting to go to school in nyc is just one factor.
Why don’t you apply to the Macauley Honors program and choose Baruch as your home college? All NY State residents are eligible. You get a full-ride scholarship and a laptop. And it will add prestige to going to Baruch, which, by the way, is a very good college even without Macauley Honors.
OP: I saw your stats in one of your other posts. You and your parents need to sit down and look at collegedata.com or naviance (if your school has it) together and see where you stand with SAT’s and the schools you listed. You may need to consider one of the smaller SUNY’s. And while Pace may be within your stats, it is quite an expensive school, and I am not sure it’s worth it. You can look at Baruch for regular admission. Not sure if you have the stats for an honors program. You listed Fordham and Loyola - so you may like Univ. of Scranton. It’s a reasonable fit, statswise. I think they have business oriented majors.
OP, I wouldn’t recommend Pace University, given its cost and very low ranking. You might be able to get into Baruch, but both CUNY-Queens and Brooklyn College have good business programs (including Finance and Accounting). Business/Eco are the top majors at both of these schools, followed by Psychology.
http://www.forbes.com/top-colleges/list/#tab:rank_state:New%20York
BTW, you said you Dad graduated from a NY University. …which one? Maybe you should visit Baruch, Queens and Brooklyn College with your Dad to let him see first hand what these schools have to offer.
Your parent may be working from his idea of what these schools were like 20-30 years ago. When your acceptances come in, maybe you all could visit the campuses together and his thinking might change?
I have no personal experience of Pace, BTW.
Would going to college in a big city that isn’t NYC work for you?
I agree that Baruch is a great college for your stats, excellent programs in finance and accounting, heavily recruited.
Loyola Maryland also has an excellent business school. You could also look into Susquehanna, UScranton, SUNY Albany, Temple (in Philadelphia).
You’re unlikely to get the scholarships that would make Pace worth it, so I do think you should take your dad on a college tour to visit Baruch. 
Based on our own circle… Pace is a college students go to either for Musical Theatre or because they just really, really wanted to be in New York. The students outside of musical theatre that we know there have had a lot of disappointment. As others pointed out, the base line SAT scores for students is low and a high performing student could feel frustrated. Their 1st year retention rate is pretty average but their 4 year graduation rate is abysmal for a private school at 36 percent. It’s expensive and there is a good chance you aren’t going to finish in 4 years.
I’m not saying Pace is a “bad” school. School is what you make it for the most part. However, it’s very expensive without the benefits of attending a very expensive private school. Your dad isn’t wrong to be suspect of it.
The OP’s Dad would more than likely notice the shear size of the Asian population at Baruch…40%+!!!
Baruch has the largest undergraduate business school in the US, so their network in NYC is huge, coupled with the other CUNY schools, it can give you a leg up when seeking internships and/or jobs after graduation.
While Baruch had decent Asian/Asian-American representation even 20 years ago, it was nowhere near 40%. The current figure is largely due to efforts by NYC/state officials and CUNY admins to implement policies to emphasize greater academic rigor, making admissions much more selective, and otherwise making Baruch and other 4-year CUNY colleges more desirable destinations for academically above-average and gifted students.
The Macaulay Honors program is one good example of the last.
Whereas 2 decades ago, most parents who had high expectations of their children to attend respectable/elite colleges would have been highly skeptical of them attending 4-year CUNY colleges in lieu of more prestigious public and private colleges like NYU-STERN even if they earned full-scholarships to attend*, that has not seemingly been the case since at least the mid’00s.
- Most HS classmates who did turn down admission to more prestigious colleges to attend Baruch around 2 decades ago had to contend with parents who felt they were making a huge mistake. Sometimes, this involved heated arguments/comments right in front of us classmates.
Yeah OP. Like @turtletime said, don’t waste your time at Pace. They’re the type of university that’s so starved for quality students that they had to call me on my cell phone to try to get my interest. You’d be much better off at one of the CUNY universities, particularly Baruch.
Why not try a SUNY? Buffalo and/or Albany are good picks, and Stony Brook is very close to NYC.
Pace University and LIU are bth fighting for their financial life…both rated a D
I have to say, I taught a semester at Pace as an adjunct (I have a PhD from a HYPSM), and while I had a couple of students I thought were “bright”, the vast majority were really unimpressive. I would not go out of my way to attend there just because you want to live in NYC. Besides, they have a separate campus in Westchester; who knows you may end up having to take classes there. I had students in Westchester who were coming straight from classes in NYC. Now THAT doesn’t sound like fun.
I was one of those kids who went to the college my parent’s picked. It didn’t go well - for any of us. I was miserable. I struggled. My parents spent thousands of dollars on a year of college that basically went to waste. I did transfer to another school which was a better fit for me. That said, I certainly understand your position. I have have high school senior right now who uttered the words, “It doesn’t matter what essay I write because you’re not letting me apply to the schools I want to apply to!”. It’s hard to hear as a parent. We are looking at college from a different point of view. Encourage you parents to attend the seminars given by high schools that review college choices! The biggest eye opener for me was when the president of the high school stood before us and said the following: “A happy student is a successful student”. What I see in a school as a mom is different than what my 18yo sees. Understand that they have an opinion too. Try to work it out (although it’s really difficult to assert yourself to your parents when they’re paying the bill!). As for us, we let our senior apply to the schools he wanted and some we wanted. We may not agree on which one gets picked, but ultimately he’s an adult and has to start making his own decisions.
With a family income of $70K and so-so SAT scores, the schools mentioned (Umass, Uconn, BU and Loyola University Maryland, Pace, Fordham) are, more than likely, unaffordable. You should target schools within commuting distance from your home. You mentioned that you live on Long Island…is Stony Brook University (if you can get in) or Queens College within commuting distance by train/car? You might not be able to get into Baruch and even if you did, you might not be able to comfortably commute into the city daily.
Unless things have changed very recently, Albany has long been known as the party school among the SUNY university centers. A factor causing many HS classmates and friends to transfer out after a year or two.
Also, Stonybrook isn’t that close to NYC. It’s around a 2 hour one way ride on the LIRR and is located in an upper-middle class residential suburb with little in the way of college-town amenities for students.
A key factor in why the campus tends to be dead on weekends as most students living nearby opt to go home rather than stay on campus and why every HS classmate/colleague who attended regarded the campus/campus life as one of the lowlights of their undergrad experience.
Two hours is a lot closer than some of the other schools on his list, and Stony Brook is an excellent university. It seems like cost is a significant factor for this family, so th fact that it has “little in the way of college-town amenities for students” might not matter if the student’s family can’t afford anything else.
However, other suggestions in the SUNY system are New Paltz and Purchase. Both are about 1.5 hours from the city or less (driving - little longer in a train). New Paltz I know for sure is a cute, sleepy college town where the kids make their own fun but travel down to NYC relatively often - many of them are from the city. I’ve never been to Purchase, I have a couple friends from NYC who went there and said it was a good time.
The recommendations for CUNY colleges, especially Baruch, Brooklyn, and Queens, are good ones.
OP, depending on the breakdown of your SAT scores, Baruch and Stony Brook might be tough to get into. I’m not saying you shouldn’t try, but I wouldn’t count those as definite matches.
I don’t know much about the other CUNY’s, but I think Manhattan College was a good suggestion. You’re SAT scores are probably above the middle of the pack. Others might be able to tell you more about its reputation than I can, but my impression is that it has a pretty good reputation locally, and I think they’re pretty generous with merit aid. I just checked, and the average SAT scores are just a little higher at Manhattan than they are at Pace - not sure about GPA. I’d be curious what the others on this thread think about Manhattan’s reputation vs Pace. And also what your father thinks, which is what really matters
I don’t know anything about financial aid, but I would have thought that a family income of 70K would put you in a very good position to get financial aid. Maybe just not at the schools you’re looking at? I was surprised to read that you wouldn’t get enough aid at those schools earlier in the thread. Maybe others can confirm or refute that.
Manhattan College is a private Roman Catholic affiliated institution with a much better overall academic reputation than Pace or other area private colleges like Hofstra or St. John’s.
However, the reputation I know about the college is mainly from its Engineering* and Arts & Sciences divisions. I don’t know how well their undergrad b-school is regarded…especially in comparison with Baruch’s which has a respectable reputation in undergrad business, especially in recent years.
- One of my first supervisors at a computer technology startup and later friend was an engineering alum of the college.
Thanks cobrat. The Engineering department at Manhattan is what I’m most familiar with too, but my information is a bit old. I wasn’t sure if its reputation had changed. I’m not sure what kind of reputation the Business department has either, but OP, it looks like it might be worth looking into.
I must echo what Jamrock411 said. You need to find some affordable schools that are likely to accept you, or we may be reading your sad tale come Spring. Please take a look into some SUNYs - I suggest SUNY Old Westbury’s School of Business. It’s not a US News darling, but I think of it because I personally know one person who attended, and he has had a pretty successful business career.