I am comparing colleges which cost same for us. She has been accepted to UVA, UMD, Johns Hopkins but all of them are expensive so not considering them.
So Pennstate is good to get in to good companies? My daughter is very ambitious and loves leadership roles.
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Hi Pam, this is Aruna. And My Son is Debating between Penn state , Drexel and SDSU . Looks like you mentioned There pros and cons for Penn state. Do you mind sharing with me about PROS and CONs?
Yes, as much as I would give an edge to Duke if finances are equal, if the Duke scholarship doesnāt come through and itās an $80k/year difference this is a very different discussion. You will get a fine education at NC State and may have more of an opportunity to stand out in many ways there, which can be valuable.
What major?
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She is open to both Computer Science or computer engineering.
We are in NJ so kids prefer Rutgers. My son has acceptances to both Penn state and Rutgers and a bunch of other schools.
Rutgers CS is great program.
My son has acceptance from PennState - UP (OOS) for CS major, but still not sure how much of edge PennState is when we are looking at University Of Delaware, Virginia Tech, UPitt, Rutgers - NB.
in that case, if she chooses PSU/Schreyer, she should know thereās an honors-only, application-based leadership course that starts with a 2-day retreat in the summer sheād have to mention it to her adviser at orientation. Then thereās the presidential leadership academy (students need to be nominated based on what theyāve achieved freshman year, often through the aforementioned leadership course but not necessarily because the PLA is open to non Schreyer scholars who have achieved a lot during their first few months).
https://academy.psu.edu/
Schreyer scholars also have access to this
https://www.shc.psu.edu/life/career/leadership/index.cfm
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Those are very good opportunities! Thanks so much!
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I canāt imagine choosing Rutgers over Penn State, especially since you are in state for Penn State and have been admitted to Schreyer. (I may be a bit biased though 
) 3.5 hrs is not that far. Also I hear itās a bit more difficult to get around Rutgers and you are dependent on buses or driving your own car.
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Thanks for providing your feedback. Yes I agree kids( Not my daughter,I hope!) are usually not that thrilled to say they got accepted into their home state public colleges.
There is a saying in our language it roughly translates to ā Your backyard plant is not medicinal herb!ā
So people sometimes donāt appreciate good things which are around!
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Is Penn state direct CS admit? My sonās acceptance is to college of engineering ( not CS specifically)
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All engineering majors (including CS which is in this department) will require an application to major in sophmore year. Entry requirements will be GPA dependant but not restricted by numbers/space that I recall hearing. The GPA requirment is determined at the time the freshman class enters and will not go up for them (though it may go up for future incoming classes).
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Yeah I get that. Going away to other states seems more exciting and exotic. Even when they are as similar and PA & NJ! lol My daughter is at Penn State and was concerned that there would be too many kids there from her high school. But itās such a big place that she doesnāt see them. Her good friend chose to go to Rutgers and while she is happy overall, she was impressed when she visited my daughter because you could walk everywhere at PSU. Also her car was recently damaged which led to a whole bunch of stress on how she was going to get to her classes while it was being repaired. We visited the Rutgers campus that has the baseball field and the campus and facilities were niceā¦but we did not check out the other parts.
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Thanks for your input. Since my daughter got into comp engineering Honors . We visited Rutgers honors college which is pretty good.
I have been to university park as well. Itās beautiful too but Rutgers location is very nice so close to everything! But daughter most likely May chose Schreyers.
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Actually you are dependent on buses, you canāt drive from campus to campus, students are allowed to have cars but can only get one permit for one campus, might not be the campus they live on, and they take classes on multiple of campuses (my husband and daughter are graduates, itās a great school).
Thatās not good! Then Schreyers it is!
If she hasnāt visited Iād let her go and get a feel, there are a lot of students at Rutgers who didnāt choose Penn state because they felt it was in the middle of nowhere (Rutgers has a train station on campus for easy trips to NYC and Philadelphia, plus less than an hour to the beach.
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Yes we visited Rutgers and we liked the honors college .
But people are saying they have to take bus or have a car . So we need to get more information.