<p>Is there any serious grade deflation... especially in the sciences/ pre-med courses?</p>
<p>whoa! one paper, a visit to houseparty, a night without sleep and some minor foot surgery and i come back to this! thanks, satn, for keeping up while i was gone.</p>
<p>dancergal- i wouldnt say there is serious grade deflation in any of bucknells courses. this isnt to say that you will be racking up a ton of easy 'a's, but in my experience keeping up with reading/work and studying for exams rarely results in less than 'b's. further, while bucknell certainly does have its share of cutthroat premeds, they are the exception far more than the norm. its a pretty cooperative environment, which in many ways is just as important to a premed as mean grades.</p>
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<p>ill try to comment further on some of satns answers in the next day or so.</p>
<p>I know that Bucknell's College of Engineering is highly regarded as a whole, but how strong is the Computer Science department?</p>
<p>ilmor - unfortunately, i don't know much about the computer science department at bucknell. i haven't had any comp-sci classes yet and so can't give you a first-hand account of it. there is the computer science department website:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.bucknell.edu/x13774.xml%5B/url%5D">http://www.bucknell.edu/x13774.xml</a></p>
<p>This has some handy information including post-graduate surveys which tell you how the alumni are doing in the job market. The website may help. there is an article there about an alumnus being nominated for an oscar for the work he did on the Narnia movie which came out.</p>
<p>satn87,</p>
<p>Do you think Bucknell is worth its high cost? I've been accepted to Case Western with a $22,000 renewable scholarship, and I'm trying to justify having my parents pay 47k a year if I were to go to Bucknell. As of right now, I think that I would fit in better at Bucknell than at Case, but is having a better fit worth that much money?</p>
<p>ilmor- first of, let me say that choosing a college is a big decision that should be made by you and your parents, & not overly influenced by the words of a college freshman like myself. that being said, i'll try to give you as much information as i can to be of some help. </p>
<p>You first want to consider what you're going to be majoring in (it might be comp-sci, i don't know for sure). Go to the bucknell and the case website , find out all you can about your propective major and compare the 2 colleges. </p>
<p>Another thing to consider is the post-graduate survey/report that colleges have on how their graduates have been doing, in terms of employment & grad. school placement. Bucknell's most recent post-grad survey is here:</p>
<p>its very detailed, but look through it to find the relevant major for yourself. that'll give you a realistic idea of the value of the education. i think 1/3 bucknell people get jobs before they graduate and 90 something % are employed or in grad. school within 6 months after graduation. try to find a similar alumni report for case and compare the two. </p>
<p>then there is class size and personal attention. Bucknell being an undergraduate focused college will give you more personal attention and that does help. the professors are friendly and very accessibel and it is very easy to get time with them outside of class. it might be harder to get that at case, since its a much bigger university. Compare internships and research opportunities as well, if you want. there are quite a lot of research opportunites available at bucknell, i know. </p>
<p>You can then turn to the quality of life:</p>
<p>1) the freshmen dorms here are very good. after that, you might be able to stay in the freshmen dorms for your second year, or there are other dorms which aren't bad at all. there are gateways, which are apartment style, 4 people places. there are mods (off-campus). kress (a dorm hall) is very good.
living here is comfortable enough. </p>
<p>2)the food is very good and i gave a nice description of it earlier.</p>
<p>3)the people are very friendly. </p>
<p>4) the campus is nice with all the facilities you can ask for; if you prefer a large city, then you will be disappointed in lewisburg. its a small, quiet town. there are enough things to do on campus though. i dont' know where case is. </p>
<p>try to compare these points for both universities.</p>
<p>Finally, the money - bucknell is currently 47 you say, so for 4 years, you are looking at = 4*47 = 188,000. However, tuition does increase yearly, bucknell's increase for this year was 5.9%. This is tuition only. the good thing about living in a small town is that housing and food costs remain fairly constant, unlike a big city where living costs can increase a lot. </p>
<p>if you go to case, you'll be paying perhaps half of bucknell's cost over 4 years if you have a 22,000 scholarship for all four years. that's a pretty big point in case's favour. Case is probably just a good university as bucknell is and you'll be saving a lot of money if you go there. At the same time, you'll have to work a bit harder to get things done at a large university. you'll probably be more comfortable at bucknell, maybe. </p>
<p>Fitting in in a university isn't as hard as people make it out to be. everybody fits in eventually, because you are likely to meet so many different kinds of people there. You shouldn't be overly worried about fitting in at case. </p>
<p>if it comes down to finances, then that's a decision for you and your family. just consider the universities and their environments and the opportunities they offer carefully; if all non-financial things are more or less the same, then case would be a better choice, simply because you'll be saving money. </p>
<p>Maybe eric can comment further when he writes.</p>
<p>ilmore-</p>
<p>satn did a pretty good job of answering the question, id say.</p>
<p>questions involving finances are difficult to answer on cc because it really comes down to your familys financial situation. an additional 22k per year is nothing for some people; whats 22k when you make two million dollars per year? however, for my family it would have been prohibitive: short of taking out all of the difference in loans, paying more than about 20k per year for college just wasnt an option.</p>
<p>if bucknell is a better fit, then sit down with your family and maturely discuss what would have to happen for you to go there. what would your parents have to give up? what would you have to do? if additional loans are in the picture, what are your payments going to look like at graduation? if at the end of the day you can come up with a reasonable plan to make bucknell happen, go for it. if not, case is a fine institution that you should be proud to attend. </p>
<p>decisions like these shouldnt be about money... but unfortunately this is the real world... and that means they all-too-often are.</p>
<p>good luck!</p>
<p>Hi I'm and international student who has been accepted into Bucknell.. </p>
<p>1) will there be many other international students like me? If so, which countries are they usually from?</p>
<p>2) Will it be harder for me to fit in?</p>
<p>i am an international student too. bucknell's international population isn't big. i think there are about 200 internationals attending. the international community maybe small, but we are very well-received and made very welcome. </p>
<p>i know there are students from south-asia(india, pakistan, bangladesh, sri lanka, burma),students from europe (spain, england, germany, france, turkey, Bulgaria i think) and also china, japan and south korea. i am sure there are a few more countries as well.</p>
<p>there are also many chinese american & south-asian american students here.
we have international events, mostly dinners: this year, there was an indian dinner, a turkish dinner, chinese new year celebration, asian gala, burmese dinner, and an international food festival kind of thing. </p>
<p>bucknell has a special orientation for internationals only, which is followed later by the orientation for all freshmen. so they do make a good effort to get you to fit in. i missed both orientations, unfortunately, & still had no trouble adjusting. you'll fit in fine.</p>
<p>Would you say that the majority of students are conservative or liberal? How big is religion at Bucknell?</p>
<p>Also, how difficult will it be for someone who is very liberal to fit in? Thanks a lot.</p>
<p>the campus is conservative, generally... but there are still many liberals. Religion isnt that big at bucknell, however if you are religious, like me, there is service every sunday for christians and then another for catholics. If you dont like the church here there are churches in town within walkable distance. I'm not sure about other religions.
If you are liberal, it's fine. I'm liberal and I'd like to say i'm not like a loser outcast.</p>
<p>id disagree with markers and say that the majority of students are in fact left of center... the 'conservative' tag is only true in the context of other top liberal arts colleges... places like oberlin or bard where conservatives are, well, rare. in other words, being a place where a conservative could fit in is what makes bucknell conservative, not its actual leaning.</p>
<p>to add to that, and touch on the religion issue, a vast majority of bucknells conservatives are NOT social conservatives, but rather fiscal ones. think arlen specter and not rick santorum. for context, theyre mostly suburban kids, and suburban philly republicans are actually more liberal than the democrats in central pennsylvania.</p>
<p>as such, a liberal will fit in just swimmingly. im as liberal as they come (registered green, but would call myself a neo-socialist) and definitely enjoyed my time at bu (sans the week after the '04 elections).</p>
<p>Thanks for your replys eric and satn87.</p>
<p>I still haven't decided on where I'm going to go yet. I visited Bucknell on the 14th, and I really enjoyed the experience (minus the extremely long drive). However, I still haven't had the chance to visit Case Western due to my dad's work schedule. The only time I will be able visit Case is after the May 1st deposit deadline. Is it ok to send deposits to both schools?</p>
<p>ilmor - as far as i know, you cannot send deposits to both schools. one reason for sending the deposit, of course, is confirming your intention of attending the school to which you are sending the deposit to. so you see, you most probably cannot send deposits to both schools. since the deadline is fast approaching, you should really start thinking on where you want to go, with whatever information you have. if you cant visit case by may 1, that's too bad, i suppose, but you still have to decide your college. </p>
<p>if you want to be sure, call both schools and ask about the deposit, but i dont think you can send 2 deposits.</p>
<p>Great info, Eric. I'm a highschool senior recently accepted to Bucknell. The tuition is indeed rough, but with financial aid later down the road I should be able to afford it OK. Am I wrong in thinking that you are generally much more likely to receive aid (or perhaps scholarship?) as you become more of an investment and asset to the school and as you spend more of your savings on tuition?
I have also been accepted to the honors college at SUNY Geneseo, and the difference in cost is staggering. However, Bucknell seems to offer a better experience, more opportunities, and an overall better education. I also believe that it looks better to graduate schools, if only because of name recognition.
To compound this decision, I was also accepted to Gettysburg College with a nice scholarship ($13,500/yr. renewable). Although the scholarship helps, I can't help but think that I will make up the difference at Bucknell with financial aid (after all, I won't be a candidate for aid at Gettysburg if I haven't spent as much money there). How would you say Bucknell measures up to Gettysburg academically and in terms of graduate school (I have searched for a graduate summary from Gettysburg, but they only list a few schools that recent students have attended, and these are probably the very best that anyone from Gettysburg acheived)?</p>
<p>since you are interested in majoring in biology, psychology, animal science, and political science, i found some graduate school/job placement info. , basically post-graduate stuff for geneseo. You can compare that with bucknell's post-graduate survey results and see how graduates do.</p>
<p>For biology, post-grad. report : </p>
<p>For psychology: </p>
<p>For political science, post grad. data: </p>
<p>hope it helps.</p>
<p>Eric...my son is a junior at Bucknell this year, currently sleeping in a hammock with the landless migrant workers in Brazil. He said the same thing, that Bucknell is as a whole left of center, but politically apathetic most of the time. The conservatives just tend to be more vocal. </p>
<p>Shane--I wish I could say that the school becomes more invested in you and thus more aid (grant/free money) as you go along, but actually they feel your invested in them and they don't have to sweeten the pot to get you to stay. They will up your grants if your need increases, however.</p>
<p>Gettysburg, F & M and Bucknell have a lot of overlaps, and I would expect their aid packages to be competitive.</p>
<p>Of course I was never expecting to recieve "free" money from Bucknell (unless in the form of a scholarship), I only wanted to be sure that they would not ask for more money than I have. Obviously my savings will quickly diminish after attending Bucknell, and therefore I was expecting the school to increase aid based only upon my need--I don't need them to make it convenient to stay, I only need them to ensure that I can afford to stay.</p>