<p>Boston university is offering me 10,000 in grant aid while SBU is offering about 500 per year. I can afford both schools but BU is twice as expensive as Stony Brook (I'm coming in as a sophmore). I'm going to be majoring in math and statistics at both schools. At SBU I'll be registered in their college of engineering and applied sciences and at BU I'll be in their college of arts and sciences. I dont know if BU's college of arts and sciences is good or not but SBU's engineering school is ranked 65th on US News.</p>
<p>I've heard a lot of mixed reviews for both schools. For Boston the usual complaint is on the administration and price. For SBU the usual complaint is on the location of the campus and the people attending. Another difference is that at BU all of the classes are 4.0 credits while at Stony Brook most of them are 3.0 credits so it would probably take me longer to graduate there. Stony Brook is known to offer a very good education in math and computer science. I've also visited the city of Boston (which is very nice).</p>
<p>Please give me your opinion on which school is the better choice and why. I will be making my final decision in a few days.</p>
<p>Choose Stony Brook. Don’t pay attention to rankings.</p>
<p>And if you do pay attention to rankings, Stony Brook might be better ranked than Boston University in math anyway.</p>
<p>For engineers price tag isn’t as big of a deal, but SBU is really good and is still getting better. BU is more just a name brand and is honestly “that great”</p>
<p>I’m not even sure BU is a brand name. BTW, did you look at the graduation requirements for both schools? Do they both require the same number of credits to graduate? Even if so, can’t you just that more classes at Stony Brook?</p>
<p>BTW, correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t Stony Brook’s math department one of the more known ones around?</p>
<p>@PurpleTitan</p>
<p>Boston University requires 128 credits to graduate while stony brook requires 120 to graduate. To graduate on time I have to take 4 classes a semester at Boston University and between 5 and 6 classes a semester at Stony Brook University. To be a full time student thats 3 classes at Boston University a semester and 4 at Stony Brook.</p>
<p>I’m sure I could take more classes at stonybrook but why give yourself the extra stress and headaches if you dont need to? Sure it has at least a known math department but with all the other benefits you get with going to a city with great food and social atmosphere is it really a tradeoff?</p>
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<p>In theory, this means that each BU course, at 4 credits, is 12 hours of work per week, while each SBU course, at 3 credits, is 9 hours of work per week. So you can theoretically take more SBU courses at a time than BU courses.</p>
<p>You can always move to Boston after you graduate if you love it so much. You want to be at a school in the geographic area of where you want to work after graduation, but, IMO, spending extra money just to live in a certain city as a student is folly because you can enjoy a city more when you’re a young working professional with money to spend than when you’re a broke college student (assuming that you don’t have parents to bankroll you). And saving money now means you’ll have more money to spend later.</p>
<p>You seem to like BU better, but go in with your eyes open: It likely won’t give you a leg up or anything like that compared to going to Stony Brook.</p>
<p>Why would you go to a school twice expensive, less academic just because you liked the location and food? College is there for student to learn a skill for the future, you can enjoy you life later once you have a successful career. </p>