We live in NJ. Our son will be a senior next year and intends on majoring in engineering. He has a 4.0 gpa, great extra curricular and sports and 1490 SAT. We have visited a number of northeast schools including all of the NJ engineering schools except Princeton thus far. We find that many of schools have positive and negative aspects. We visited Stevens this past weekend and although it offers good career services we were not impressed with its housing and facilities and the Hoboken area especially at over $70000 a year. After finding this site and reading some comments I see that many share similar opinions on Rutgers, TCNJ, Rowan, as well as Lehigh, Lafayette and U Delaware, in terms of quality of curriculum, campus and housing and graduate outcomes and of course cost. My son will apply to maybe 8-9 schools and make a decision after seeing where he gets in and what the net prices are. What we are interested in getting more feedback on from others on this site is Rowan University. We approached the visit to Rowan as a possible safety school. After visiting and sitting through the presentation we left with a much different view. The presentation was more comprehensive in terms of engineering curriculum, graduate outcomes etc than any other school we visited. It didn’t come across as a canned sell. The new facilities and dormitory were the most impressive of any school we visited. Some of the other schools like Lehigh and Stevens have vaunted reputations and were my sons top choices at one point. Were we missing something about Rowan? We walked away thinking that Rowan’s total package was so impressive it couldn’t be considered a safety option. Can anyone provide more feedback?
No bites yet, well here’s a good Rowan summary: http://www.educatedquest.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Rowan-Update.pdf
The things that stuck out to us were the undergraduate focus, the honors college benefits, and the value. In a perfect world, a safety would be in competition for the top slot. Just because admission isn’t competitive, doesn’t mean the school isn’t a good fit.
Good luck.
I’ve enjoyed this exchange and, this is rare, I pretty much agree with everyone.
Nice summary post, @eyemgh. Agree with almost all of it. The part I disagree with most concerns the “entertainment”. Although Rowan doesn’t have a sports arena - just a gym, student center, and two theatres (at Wilson and Bunce) - there is NO lack of entertainment.
When I attended GSC as a communications major in the mid-late '70s, we had Elton John, Billy Joel, Peter Frampton (the “Frampton Comes Alive” tour - the biggest selling live rock concert album of all time), George Thorogood, Bill Cosby, The Kinks, Blondie/Elvis Costello, Arlo Guthrie, and many, many others. Alas, there are fewer tours, more elaborate staging, and cost-prohibitive tix now. Still, the Camden waterfront is 20 minutes away, the Wells Fargo Center in Philly is 25 minutes away, Atlantic City is about 45 minutes away, and the Meadowlands/NYC about 90 minutes away.
Did I mention that my daughter (now a grad student) hung out with Twenty One Pilots (now one of the hottest acts in the country) when they played the Student Center lobby a couple years ago? There are music department concerts and recitals in Wilson and theater presentations at Bunce. But Rowan students tend to DO rather than Spectate. Rowan After Hours (RAH) keeps 'em busy. You just gotta know where to look and be involved.
Hi. I plan to major in electrical and or computer engineering and visited a lot of the same schools. I have comparable scores to your son. I will be a senior in the fall and (for now unless I change my mind) will be applying to Rowan, tcnj, Rutgers, Binghamton, NJIT, Lehigh, Stevens, Rensselaer and U of Delaware. My first choice out of all of them for a lot of reasons is Rowan followed by TCNJ. I know that when all is said and done TCNJ would not be cheaper as they give very little scholarship money on merit to instate students. Rowan’s engineering programs by EVERY account I’ve read and from all I have spoken to are on a higher level that TCNJ at this time and Rowan’s job outcomes have been slightly better the past few years. Rowan and TCNJ are my top two because they offer the best value for an instate nj student who will not qualify for need financial aid. It’s unlikely that the net cost of Lehigh, Stevens or Rensselaer would be anywhere near Rowan or tcnj. Of course, I (and your son) will have to see where we get in before final decision is made. I just wanted to write to let you know that you are not alone in considering Rowan. It was a pleasant surprise for us too when we visited. By the way, U Delaware was a late add to my list after visiting. Really liked it. The campus is much easier to manage than Rutgers! (I hope I don’t have to go there, the campus is way too big and inconvenient)
My guidance counselor told me that Lehigh would be very expensive according to the track record of our school (we keep a tally of college price offers). In the end I got waitlisted from Lehigh for no demonstrated interest even though I was over qualified by stats standards.
I got accepted to Rowan but yet RPI offered more aid than Rowan believe it or not.
According to my guidance counselor TCNJ was also always over priced so I didn’t apply there since it wasn’t worth it for me.
I got waitlisted from Steven’s again for no demonstrated interest.
Case Western offered nearly the same to me as RPI and Carnegie Mellon came out too expensive.
I got a full ride to NJIT Albert Dorman’s but for 5k more I went to RPI.
Just to give you an idea of the costs, hope this helps. By the way there were a number of other schools I applied to but may not be pertinent to this convo.
It’s not at all surprising that RPI offered more than Rowan. Rowan, as a public, doesn’t have the deep pockets RPI has nor the massive tuition to offset. What matters, purely from a dollars and cents perspective, isn’t the size of the award, but the net cost of attendance.
My family will not qualify for need based aid. How much merit scholarship money did you get from Rowan and RPI? Hard to believe that the net cost (NOT including loans, just merit aid) of RPI was less than Rowan
@willc
merit alone was 28.5k for the leadership award, and 13.7k for the rpi grant.
I don’t remember what Rowan was but I think it was about 11k award.
I got a 760 msat and 390 crsat.
average essays.
no extra curriculars.
family income >100k
efc =56521
I’m sorry, but based on your numbers your net cost at RPI is $27932 (cost of att is 70132-28500-13700=27932). Total cost of attending Rowan for '16-2017 was $32689. An 11k award brings you down to $21689. That’s $6243 difference. ($24972 more for RPI without factoring tuition increases and interest over four years). That is a meaningful difference and consideration for someone concerned about debt.
That said. I first need to see where I get in and what the aid packages are before making a final decision. RPI definitely is a better deal for you than TCNJ would be that’s for sure
Consider job placement rates at all the schools mentioned above. While the major is one of a few that has great opportunities out of college, each engineering school’s reputations matter quite a bit when companies are recruiting. A friend is a mechanical engineer for a defense contractor and certain schools’ graduates are more sought after than others. A degree from Rutgers or RPI or Lehigh (which have very solid engineering programs for years) are seen in a better light than one from Rowan or TCNJ (newer programs that haven’t been around as long.) It doesn’t mean you won’t get a job, it just might not be the same level or same companies as the more well-known schools.
Stevens also has a coop program (similar to RIT, Drexel and Northeastern) that is a terrific way to enter the job market with a good amount of experience prior to graduation.
Rowan had a 100% placement rate last year for graduates prior to graduation. About 70% were employed 30% went to graduate school. Starting salaries for electrical and computer mechanical and chemical and civil we’re higher than TCNJ, and about the same as Rutgers, Stevens and even Princeton. Yes, we were surprised by this
Rowan had a 100% placement rate last year for graduates prior to graduation. About 70% were employed 30% went to graduate school. Starting salaries for electrical and computer mechanical and chemical and civil we’re higher than TCNJ, and about the same as Rutgers, Stevens and even Princeton. Yes, we were surprised by this
We spoke to a headhunter for tech positions, and elected official, and someone who works for PSE and G. The headhunter, and this is anecdotal, said that Rowan is up-and-coming and now viewed in light similar to that of Olin college in Massachusetts and regarded as good if not better than Rutgers and Stevens.
@willc, thanks for sharing that great info!
The elected official we spoke to said that part of the consideration in getting the funding for the expanded and improved engineering facilities at Rowan was input and commitment from tri-state and East Coast engineering firms and employers like Lockheed Martin and PSeg and a consensus that there was a need for a top-flight public engineering school in this area that was able to compete with other schools with a more national reputation. And he specifically said that the investment at rowan is in part due to the decline of Rutgers in keeping in state talent as well as its unappealing large campus. According to him, some of Rutgers run down facilities, the problems with the busing system, and increasing complaints about course availability, have not gone unheard. He said the aspiration of many in the legislature is that in the next 10 years Rowan and to tcNJ will be viewed as the east coast equivalent of the University of Virginia and William and Mary.
Strictly speaking, Rowan isn’t quite there yet (and a better comparison might be W&M and Vtech… but we’re decades away from there yet). 
It’s not quite at Penn State’s level yet either but probably above Temple and around Udel for engineering for some specialties (not chemical engineering for instance).
It’s solid for engineering, especially if a student can get into the honors college, and with a good scholarship, I’d definitely pick it over Rutgers for engineering.
However I don’t think it has the alumni reach and network that RPI, Lehigh, Case Western, or even WPI have.
If the choice were Rowan Honors vs. Stevens, I’d pick Rowan. But if the choice were Rowan Honors vs. Olin or RPI or Case, I’d look through details carefully.
Rowan is certainly setting itself up to become a serious contender for NJ students in the years to come. When we visitedast year there was so much building and planning on and around campus. In 10 years, it’s going to be an impressive school.
If the choice is Rowan vs. Stevens I would most definitely choose Stevens. The only advantage Rowan has over Stevens (or any of the private universities you are considering) is cost. In every academic and professional category - qualifications of students, alumni network, impact of alumni, reputation of faculty, student outcomes (Stevens has the highest ROI of tuition of any school in New Jersey, the highest of engineering schools in the northeast, and the tenth highest in the United States on Payscale’s survey - Rowan comes in at somewhere around 500 on that list for example), depth and breadth of curriculum, and in particular research output and impact (Rowan has virtually no engineering research output, and has no doctoral program, at least they didn’t up until very recently, Stevens (and its peers) overshadow Rowan. Having attended three universities including Stevens, and having recruited for several of my employers, I can tell you that a Stevens (and RPI, Lehigh, Case, et al) graduate is going to be considered first. Rutgers for example has a far more established engineering school than Rowan, and is recognized for the quality of its research - why wouldn’t you attend there? Incidentally, if you are interested in chemical engineering in Rowan’s geographical area, U of Delaware has few peers (having been a beneficiary of DuPont largesse for many years). Just because someone makes a big donation to a school doesn’t immediately make up for having no track record in the field. Rowan is a decent up and coming school, but it has a long, long, way to go the match the track record over the past some 150 years of Stevens, RPI, Cooper Union, Drexel, Lehigh, et al.