<p>Hi! I've been contemplating for a long long time, and believe me, I've done enough thinking AND research on the internet to last me decades.
I have applied to a few schools, but basically it comes down to these two. I'm currently a NY resident and it seems like Stony Brook would be the best value school for me. Since I'm not getting any aid, the price of Stony would be around $15,000 a year while Rutgers would cost me $28,000 a year.
But aside from the cost of college, both of these are public schools. On U.S. News's rankings, Stony Brook is ranked 98 and Rutgers is ranked 60. Does ranking matter since they're both public schools? I'm most likely going to be majoring somewhere in the business field and a minor in the computer field. Rutgers is ranked number 32 on Business Week on "the top business schools in America", but it's pretty hard to get into. Stony Brook on the other hand, is not ranked at all but I have heard that their newly overhauled business program is gaining ground and accalim. I know that Stony Brook excels at science, so that might be a better school for my computer minor.
In addition to all of this, a MAJORITY of my friends are going to Stony Brook while NONE of my friends are going to Rutgers. This definitely does play a factor in my decision because I ultimately do not want to be lonely when I start my college experience. Please give me your take, your opinions, your advice, your experience or whatever you can do to help me choose. Thank You!</p>
<p>Let me just say this, don't let friends be a deciding factor wherever you choose.</p>
<p>HI, where does the $28,000 per year for Rutgers come in? Tuition and room and board this year was approx. $19,000</p>
<p>he's out of state</p>
<p>TheRoadUntaken is right, I am in need out of state.</p>
<p>NJman, lets say we put the friends aside from the factors. What would be a better school for me?</p>
<p>If you have the money or if you are willing to take out some loans, Rutgers - New Brunswick would be a better choice.</p>
<p>Pros:
(1) Rutgers is a more well known school.
(2) Increasing reputation (and competiveness) of the Business School. (I'm a business student so you can ask me almost anything about it)
(3) Less than a hour away from NYC which means more opportunities for internships and partying.
(4) Top athletic programs like Rutgers Football, Basketball, and Women's Basketball
(5) Great social scene.</p>
<p>Cons
(1) Price is always a factor. If you can't afford to go to Rutgers, Stony Brook is still a good school.
(2) To some people, friends do matter. One of my friends chose Rutgers over Stony Brook but had a hard time making friends. He seriously considered transfering to Stony Brook but decided to stick with it. If you are a friendly and social person, you shouldn't have a problem with this.</p>
<p>Hope this helps.</p>
<p>redshirt1766, your post was very helpful but I still have some questions that aren't at rest yet. BTW, I'm definitely taking out loans seeing that going to Rutgers would cost me $112,000 by the time I'm finished. That's a $48,000 difference in going to Stony Brook. Worth it for a public?</p>
<p>My brother, an alumni of Stony Brook has told me that Rutgers is just as well known as Stony Brook. Is there any evidence that Rutgers is a better/more known school that you can provide besides rankings? (I believe U.S. News rankings are biased and can't account for everybody's experience in the school.) What were some things about Rutgers that can sway one to go there?</p>
<p>The Business School of Rutgers, is it hard to get into? I'd assume you would have to maintain a high GPA average, what was yours? And if there were any, what other criteria did the school look at? (Previous SAT scores, H.S. Grades, etc.) And was the Business school difficult? (Business Week stated this about the school, "Dedicated, high-caliber student body is valuable, but grading curves make it difficult for students to earn As".)</p>
<p>Did you receive any internships during your school years? Did Rutgers help you find one? And was finding the internship relatively easy? Would you consider your self successful now? =)</p>
<p>I read up a lot on Rutgers, and from the looks of it, most of the social scene is on College Avenue. I'm leaning towards dorming at Busch Campus if I happen to go. Could you tell me what you know from about these two campuses? I'm not looking for TOO much partying, but I'm definitely looking for some social interaction. Oh! Could you ask your friend why he decided to stick with Rutgers when he was so close to transferring to Stony Brook? Because... that sounds like something that might happen to me. BTW, how's the buildings there? I heard that some were quite run down... and the Budget cuts that NJ has for Rutgers ($80 million dollar budget cut) isn't good.</p>
<p>BTW, I'm sorry for all these questions, but they've REALLY been on my mind. Seeing that you are from Rutgers, it's great to have a talk with someone from there that can give me a real perspective about how things are. I appreciate you taking the time to respond to the last post. It means a great deal to me because you'll be helping me decide what school I'll end up at, and ultimately my future. I thank you and everyone's comments, suggestions and advice.</p>
<p>The business school at rutgers or stony brook are definitely not hard to get into. They might be harder to get into for someone with a mental handicap, but otherwise you could probably get in with an average SAT of 1500 and with average grades and an average gpa... no way is it hard.</p>
<p>pyrosmokey888, so that means that they will look at my high school grades + sat scores? I didn't do that well on the SATs... I'm hoping my college grades would help me get in. Do you know what college grades you would have to maintain? Thanks!</p>
<p>yantastic: my son is a freshman at Rutgers now, so I have a bit of insight into the university. My first question is this: have you visited both campuses? Repeatedly? Now is the time to be doing that, and talking to a lot of students, and professors. Which school do you prefer? One is half the price of another, I would suggest that you had better love it a lot in order to pay the price difference.
One thing you might be interested in knowing is that many kids go home on the weekends, since they live within close proximity of the school. This has been a major dissapointment to my son, who does not wish to spend his weekends at home. As I understand it, Stony Brook also has a large commuter population.<br>
As far as accessability to NY goes, Rutgers is closer, but the LIRR and the will to use it makes Stony Brook almost as convenient.
Just some thoughts.</p>
<p>I hate to say it, because I love Rutgers to death, but I can't advise for you to go to Rutgers. I think Rutgers is amazing and it has offered me lots of opportunities (honors classes, research opportunties, lots of other stuff), but I chose it because it was cheap-- I got a full scholarship here and I turned down other, more prestigious places to go here (the same situation you're in now, except the difference in "prestige" was much greater). Realize that Stony Brook and Rutgers are basically going to be looked at in the same light by future employers and grad schools... yes, they are ranked differently, but they're both flagship state universities. Same category.</p>
<p>What really pertains to your future success is how well you think you can take advantage of the opportunities a university offers. There will be research opportunities, internship opportunties, etc. at both campuses. Do you think that you can be more successful and ambitious at Rutgers?? If so, I'd advise you to go for it. (I second Bomber's suggestion to visit campus and talk to people to get a better idea of this). If you don't think there will be a big difference in the choices you make for the next four years depending on whether you go to RU or stony brook, I'd suggest to go for the cheaper option. It's what I did.</p>
<p>BTW nice sn redshirt1766 :)</p>
<p>I have to agree with Bomber that you have like the more expensive school enough to justify the cost. Price is a HUGE factor. This is a decision that you have to make yourself; I'm just here to try to give you the information for you to make the decision.</p>
<p>There isn't too much concrete proof that I can give to you that Rutgers is a better known school except for our athletic teams. We've a lot of exposure this past year with the success of our football and women's basketball team. We've been on ESPN numerous times and what other school can claim that they were able to light up the Empire State building with their school color in two different occasions within half a year.</p>
<p>About the business school, I have to disagree with pyrosmokey888. <<they might="" be="" harder="" to="" get="" into="" for="" someone="" with="" a="" mental="" handicap="">> This comment is off the mark. Admittance to the business school is strictly based on GPA and NOTHING ELSE. For the most recent class, the cutoff was 3.4 for Finance and 3.3 for the rest of the majors. Don't let the 3.4 or 3.3 fool you. The business school accepts about 400 people a year and I tell people that the 3.3 or 3.4 is the the gpa of the 400th person accepted and everyone else is well above that. I entered the school with a 3.65 gpa. I can confidently say that the average Gpa of the business school is around a 3.6-3.7. Don't get discouraged by the statistics. It is easy to get in but you gotta work for it.</they></p>
<p>For me, I don't think the business school is too difficult but for some it might be. I took very difficult classes during my first two year of college including Chem II and Japanese, so the amount of course work did not phase me too much. However, many students take the easy way out and take easy classes to maintain their gpa. But once they get it, they might feel a bit overwelhmed. The coursework is nothing compared to the sciences and engineering.</p>
<p>Yes, I was able to get an internship with one of the Big 4 accounting firms and I do believe that I'm successful. Rutgers and Career Services give you the resources for your internship search but it is your responsibility to go out and use it. Since Rutgers is such a big school, they will not go to you and tell you to get a job; you're gonna have to get off your butt and use the resources that they provide for you. Many of my friends also have had successes in landing internships especially with accounting firms and investment banks. Opportunities are plenty here at Rutgers but you have to work for it.</p>
<p>I didn't realize how much I had to say. I have to finish up studying for my exam and I will finish answering the rest of your questions when I have the time.</p>
<p>hahaha thanx supermtt37 RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!</p>
<p>I have to disagree with the gpa being a huge factor... mainly because of the fact that i was accepted, although i did not enroll, in an undergrad business major. My gpa was something like a 3.15 when i applied and i like to think that this quite average gpa isn't the only reason why i was accepted mainly because of my slightly above average 770 math score on the sats. I am fairly certain that they took more than a glance at that.
Anyway, i hope you're not extremely accurate when you say that engineering is much harder, being that this is where i am going to enroll.</p>
<p>No pyrosmonkey888 you are wrong. I know for a fact that admission to the Rutgers Business school for a fact is based on your GPA. I know because I have spoken with the dean and those were the words that came out. What else are they going to base it on, SAT scores and what you did in high school NO. It is only based on the GPA you earned before you apply.</p>
<p>Pyrosmokey888, are you a student at RU or are you still in high school? I think this would clear up any confusion anyone of us might have.</p>
<p>Since everythings pretty much there, College ave is definitely the party scene. I've lived on busch for my first two years and on college ave for my last two so I pretty much know anything about to know about them two. Both have their pros and cons but I've enjoyed my experience in both places.</p>
<p>Everything is on college ave: from frats to 4 star restaurants in downtown new brunswick. It is definitely the most liveliest campus. College ave is definitely a great time. Everythings in a walking distance. Plus the train station is right there so you can go to the city whenever you want.</p>
<p>But my recommendation for you would definitely be Busch. Sometime college ave is tooo much of a party scene. Busch can give you a balance of studying and partying. The dorms in busch can be as fun as the dorms in college ave but the major difference is that you have a place to go to when you have to study like the student center and ARC. My problem with college ave is that it is limited in places to study especially late at night. It will be a pain in a butt to take the bus to college ave to party but if you really want to study then busch is the place to be.</p>
<p>Also busch has the best dining hall, gym, and freshmen dorms (except davidson) and the football stadium and golf course is located on Busch.</p>
<p>I disagree with Bomber's comment about Rutgers being a commuter school. A good number of kids do go home for the weekend but a lot of student do stay on campus over the weekend. Also, a lot of people do leave the campus but not to go home but to go elsewhere. Rutgers being in the middle of everything is a blessing and a curse at the same time. There is a lot of options for student to do outside the campus. NYC is an hour away and Philly is a half hour away. When its warm, you can go down the shore. When its cold, you can go to the poconos to ski and snowboard. There are 4 movie theaters within 15 minutes from the campus and 4 malls withing 20 minutes. We are not in a middle of nowhere like Penn State where you are pretty much forced to stay on campus.</p>
<p>I talked to my friend last night and he said he decided to stick with it because rutgers was "better overall". He added "only thing good at Stony is Comp sci". I told him wanted to go into busines and he said "definitely Rutgers".</p>
<p>Buildings..umm... I am the biggest critic of the buildings here. I think half of the buildings are nice and half are just butt ugly. The worse thing is that the nice buildings are next to the ugly ones. There is really no uniform style here at rutgers like what they have at UVA or Georgetown. The campus just feels random. I think douglass is the nicest campus at Rutgers. Livingston is the worst. I wish they can just tear everything down and build from scratch. Most of the buildings at Rutgers came after 1950 when Rutgers became a public school. They built everything way too fast and without any thought about placement. Basically, they were like "oh, theres room over there. you can build there".</p>
<p>I think the biggest effect of the budget cuts would be lesser sections for classes (meaning bigger classes) and losing the 6 varsity sports. To tell you the truth, I dont think I felt much of an effect of the budget cuts. It is just sad to see crew and fencing get dropped.</p>
<p>busch gym= too overcrowded IMO.</p>
<p>Thank you guys for you very helpful comments! I actually visited Rutgers today, and I got some mixed impressions/feelings about the campus. My first stop was to the College Avenue campus. This campus was somewhat weird to me because the transition from houses to campus buildings wasn't even noticeable. The campus offices looked like regular houses! These offices did seem a bit run down, but the student center wasn't. When I visit the student center, the inside was nice, clean, and somewhat sophisticated. When I left and walked around so more, all I saw were frat houses. Are there actually classes here on College Ave that students (freshman) take? I didn't really see anything around the campus, and it feel pretty suburban to me.</p>
<p>My next stop was to the Livingston campus. It didn't seem as large as College Ave campus because I covered a lot of Livingston's campus in a short amount of time. From what I saw, it was mostly dorms. There doesn't seem to be much around this campus except for a huge Scarlet Knights center and a huge parking lot. The cool thing was that, when I went, there was actually a small concert going on. That was cool. :)</p>
<p>My last campus I went to was Busch Campus. It was here that I started to see some buildings that cleared stated what classes they taught. It seems like Busch Campus was the center of everything. It seemed to have more buildings than any other campus around. There were some nice dorms that I've passed by, but there wasn't that many sadly. Some buildings seem bigger than others, while other departments were small. It did seem like the medical related buildings were bigger than the other buildings such as physics, or mathematics. It made me feel as if their emphasis on the campus was focused more on medical subjects. And the business major (which i plan to take) was extremely small compared to the other buildings. </p>
<p>Rutgers seems really focused on Recreation and sports. Does this affect how the quality of academics? Every campus had a huge recreation center, some had more than one. And the golf course on Busch was HUGE compared to the campus and it sort of felt unnecessary to have on campus (instead of a golf course, Rutgers could have used the course for other things, like extra buildings/dorms/etc!).</p>
<p>Throughout the trip, my brother (who went to stony brook) kept telling me that Rutgers was very unorganized in terms of building placement, and he told me that it'd be incredibly hard to get to classes from college ave to busch. He also told me that most of the dorms are no better than stony, except for a few that they had on busch. If you are a freshman, can you have a chance to get this dorms? what types of dorms do they offer? 2 person, 3 person, suites?</p>
<p>Also, what is the difference between the New Brunswick campus, Camden, and Newark? I looked up the campuses on collegeboard.com and it shows that the most popular major is Business at Newark. Would Newark be a better school for me than New Brunswick since im doing business? And is it located in the middle of the city? How is Newark compared to New Brunswick? And am I allowed to choose Newark instead of New Brunswick or atleast transfer?</p>
<p>Thank you guys!</p>
<p>It's sad that you missed the historic heart of Rutgers on College Avenue-- Voorhees Mall and Old Queen's campus. These are Rutgers' prettiest and oldest academic buildings (the type of things they show you in admissions materials haha). The business buildlings are on Livingston, not Busch. I think you got a really skewed vision of Rutgers because you didn't know where to go!
Unless you're in honors, you won't get the really nice Busch suites as a freshman... but you can later on. Newark is less of a college atmosphere and much smaller. Newark isn't the safest city in the world but it is undergoing a lot of renovation now and there is a lot of business school-related stuff going on there.</p>