I’m a high school senior accepted to Rowan electrical and computer engineering program and have received a 15k merit scholarship renewable for all 4 years which brings the total cost of attending Rowan well under 20k . Also accepted at TCNJ and received 5k merit scholarship. Also accepted to Rutgers and received 2k merit aid… Loved TCNJs campus and it’s generally viewed as the overall better academic school over Rowan and Rutgers but TCNJ engineering is not as highly ranked as either Rutgers or Rowan engineering. Rutgers large campus and class sizes make it less desirable to me. What’s making this an unexpected tough decision is how impressed I was by the Rowan campus, it’s new facilities and it’s new dorm. Is TCNJs perceived overall superiority enough to give it the nod? Or would I be I crazy to turn down Rowan’s generous scholarship and substantial savings over TCNJ? I walked away from from the Rowan tour thinking that Rowan may eclipse TCNJs “name” cache in the near future given all the investment in the campus and it’s STEM programs.
Neither Rowan nor TCNJ have ranked engineering programs. Academically speaking, Rutgers is your best option. If you feel that the merit aid from Rutgers isn’t high enough, you could always email the dean of the engineering school and appeal your merit aid decision by attaching the scholarship offers that you’ve received.
Rowan is known for it’s outstanding engineering program and the school and it’s reputation is growing. There is a very active person on College Confidential’s Rowan page, Spaceman Ed…he can give you some great insight to the program. It is a beautiful campus …I would highly recommend taking advantage of your incredible offer! My DS in a junior at Rowan and could not be happier. Congratulations and good luck!
@mohchan360 Not sure which rankings you’re speaking of, but Rowan & TCNJ engineering are indeed nationally ranked. US News (the most widely-viewed rankings) has Rowan #14-22 (tied) nationally of colleges that don’t offer doctorates in engineering. Some big hitters are in there, too. TCNJ is #69. Rutgers doesn’t belong in that classification.
Rowan’s chemical engineering has been ranked in the Top 5 among those type of schools.
As a longtime recruiter, I rank according to who gets the job (and stays there). Rowan does not take a back seat to Rutgers in that category.
Thank you for the reply. Its a difficult decision to make. Yesterday and today I received acceptance letters from Lehigh and Stevens. Would receive 8k in merit scholarship from Lehigh and my parents and I would have to take out loans for the rest (cost of Lehigh is over 60k). Received 20k in merit scholarship from Stevens but that only brings price down to about 50k. I’m definitely leaning Rowan or TCNJ. Lehigh and Stevens are higher ranked but I don’t think it’s worth the debt. The stats I see don’t show that Lehigh or Stevens grads are making that much more out of school either. I appreciate the input
@SpacemanEd
I see where I went wrong, I was looking at graduate engineering program rankings when I wrote my previous response.
I would still consider appealing the merit decision at Rutgers. One of my friends received and additional $10K after he wrote to the Dean. Choosing a school with a graduate engineering program ensures that more funding is given to engineering students, undergrad and graduate, for research.
My son had the same 3 NJ state school choices and just accepted a spot in Rowan for Fall 2017. He was somewhat overwhelmed with the size of Rutgers (taking bus to class, etc.). Agree that overall, TCNJ has better name in NJ over Rowan…but not with regard to the engineering program. As you know, brand new engineering building just opened. In addition, Rowan’s 8 semester sequence of clinics are wonderful. Large list of corporate sponsors for Junior and Senior clinics. Good luck with your decision! We are lucky to have so many wonderful, affordable choices in NJ!
Like me, did Rowan offer more merit scholarship aid? Does your son live in the Holly. Commons to dorm? How is that going?
Like you, my son is a current senior in H.S. so hasn’t finalized dorms yet. (Although I have a friend who’s son is a current freshman in Holly Pointe and he’s really happy there.) My son will be starting Sept 2017 with a $6,000 annual renewable scholarship. He was also invited to apply to the Honors program, but even if he gets in I don’t think that means any additional $. P.S. Rutgers gave my son $0 merit.
I know of an academically high ranked student who went to Stevens and was disappointed by the faculty’s language barriers. He transferred and graduated out of NJIT. Stevens seems to have issues with their choice of faculty but yet seems to be highly rated somehow.
Rowan is a good engineering school but keep in mind that it isn’t well recognized outside of NY NJ. I’d probably suggest Rowan since really your first job will probably be fairly salaried and if you move on to a second job, it will not be conditioned as much by where you went to school. Rowan is a good choice over Rutgers for that amount of savings.
with all due respect, give serious consideration to the fact that TCNJ is opening a brand new $100million dollar STEM facility this coming Fall 2017. TCNJ has a history of executing its academic plans extremely well.