<ol>
<li>Rutgers University (State Univ. of New Jersey)
<ul>
<li>$23,000 and best reputation both as a college and for my major</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Stony Brook (State Univ of New York)
- $14,000+ But not as good as rutgers but still pretty well reputed. Problem: Located near a very isolated farm with no outside activities</li>
<li>NJIT (New Jersey Institute of Tech)
- $9,000 Problem: Not very well reputed for my major. Located in a city.</li>
<li>CUNY (City University of New York)
<ul>
<li>$0 with laptop and $7,500 for study abroad/research provided. Problem: Very badly reputed as a college but good major. Not many indians.</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Boston University - $40,000 which I totally don't want to pay</li>
</ol>
<p>Every college listed above is excellent (U.S News rank) in Biomedical Major except NJIT (but they do have very good lab facilities).</p>
<p>My preferences in college:
* Diversity or specifically Indian community
* City or large suburb-ish</p>
<p>Rutgers is certainly near a large Indian community (in nearby Edison).
Rutgers is in New Brunswick which is a small city and is also surrounded by suburbs.</p>
<p>I’d go CUNY. Your objections to it (that it has a bad reputation and that there aren’t many Indians) are simply not true. By your description, I’m assuming you got into Macaulay Honors College, which is actually a very prestigious program, at least in NY/NJ/CT. You have to be one of the top students in the tri-state area to have a shot at getting in. Also, its NYC. There’s a fairly sizable Indian community.</p>
<p>Is there a particular reason why your mother must live with you? Why don’t you live in campus housing at CUNY? I thought that the Hunter scholarships included that.</p>
<p>If your mom must move wherever you go, then you two need to sit down and work out a housing budget that covers both of your expenses. Ultimately, one of the other locations may turn out to be a better option. If you were only looking to accommodate yourself, CUNY with the full tuition/fees scholarship plus money for study abroad would be the automatic hands-down winner for cost.</p>
<p>You also need to take into account the availability of work or volunteer opportunities for your mother. She will be bored and lonely if she’s home alone all the time while you are in class, labs, and the library.</p>
<p>Reputation of your undergraduate college matters less in grad school admissions than you might think. Your own good grades, good GRE score, and relationships with your professors as reflected in their letters of recommendation will count for much more than the name on your diploma. Other factors include any work/internship/research/publications related to your field of study. You can get into a good grad school from any of these institutions.</p>
<p>Dear happymomof1, thank you so much for your comments and I also don’t believe that money is everything when it comes to college decisions. I am more reclined towards Rutgers and I plan on studying there for a year and see how it goes. If we can’t manage it I might chose to go to a different college my second year.</p>
<p>CUNY has some great professors and is what you make it. I don’t know about the bad reputatin claim, I consider CUNY to be very solid. And its FREE!!!</p>
<p>Macaulay Honors has a good reputation and is diverse (well CUNY is highly diverse; the honors program I’m not sure about).</p>
<p>I would eliminate Boston as it was both expensive and not particularly prestigious (at least you ranked it last).</p>
<p>Stony Brook isn’t on a farm; its in the suburbs. It has a great medical program and a top hospital. Still you may want Rutgers or CUNY. I would leave it between those two.</p>
<p>I agree, Rutgers and CUNY seem to be your best choices. Personally, I’d go with CUNY, given the location in NYC and the better financial situation.</p>
<p>Dear posters, please keep in mind that I the costs that I mentioned above do not include Room and Board.</p>
<p>Please tell me why I should chose the specific college?</p>
<p>Is it worth sacrificing “the commuity I want to be with” for a low cost college?
or Is it worth choosing a university that is buzzing with activities that I love but costs $24,000 (just for tuition/fees)?</p>
<p>Should I go to Rutgers and wait a year to see if things work out and if we can pay our bills and if not transfer to one of the above schools? or should I chose another college?</p>
<p>I just heard that in Rutgers University Engineering students have to pay $2,400 extra which makes me to have contribute $2,300 every month for college education which is really really difficult. What should I do?</p>
<p>You need to go to the most affordable school. Since you have to live off campus because your mother needs to have a place to live the first thing that you should investigate is housing costs and commuting costs. Hunter has the best tuition and fees but if your living expenses are through the roof that just won’t work. At the same time if your living expenses are cheap enough at Rutgers, the overall cost there might be the lowest.</p>
<p>You have been offered some excellent merit scholarships. But they are almost certainly one-time offers. It is not likely at all that you would get that kind of offer as a transfer student unless you are coming from a community college with a full AA degree.</p>
<p>What should you do? You keep asking this and almost all say CUNY-free,laptop, study abroad, honor’s etc…You can’t afford Rutgers if you are already worried about 2300 extra, and say you want to try it to see if you can pay it for one year. You need a personal finance class, you can find them online. You will set a budget and it will be clear you need to budget for when sh** happens- and it does on a regular basis. Plus, if you can not pay your bills on time to the Uni they block you from reg. for classes.</p>