My son is being recruited for both of their D3 Varsity teams-TCNJ is a state school so money really isn’t available (we would never get financial aid due to our income) and Steven’s is a private school which will give him money. It ends up being about the same cost with Stevens being a a few thousand more I think. Which Business school is better?
TCNJ is much better. The business school at Stevens is not a core field of study and was only recently accredited by AACSB.
Social life is also dramatically better at TCNJ.
Thank you. I did noticed that Stevens is more of a Engineering school and has a city type of atmosphere so campuses are completely different.
Does your son really want to go to an engineering school where boys are 65%, two out of three, of the student body? TCNJ has a much broader curriculum and better gender balance, more girls actually due to nursing and education majors.
I read that too somewhere. I agree and it will actually cost us more than $20 k more per year.
TCNJ. I’m not too far from Stevens, and I often hear about the gender imbalance/lack of social life.
without question TCNJ . TCNJ is the #20 accounting program in the entire country.Im not even sure if stevens is ranked at all
Agree TCNJ. My answer probably would be different if your S wanted engineering – but for business TCNJ.
TCNJ by no means is comparable to Stevens. Firstly, the business school of Stevens is not new as the other commenter states incorrectly. Stevens had one of the first schools of economics of engineering, which later developed into the management science school, then most recently to the School of Business. Since 1870, Stevens has been a pioneer in scientific and technological management and developed the now standard methods of scientific management of Taylor and Gantt. Stevens is a major research university and offers up to the Ph.D. in the field. TCNJ is just an undergraduate liberal arts based college. Stevens business/financial engineering graduates are in high demand from the major investment banks, government, and industry and the average starting salary of the graduates last year was $72k. A few started at over $100k. That record is far superior to TCNJ and is in fact the 5th highest in the nation.
With respect to AACSB accreditation, most undergraduate business programs do not have this accreditation as it originally was specific to MBA programs, Research doctorate and technology management MS (non MBA) management programs were not covered by AACSB until recently. Stevens has the distinction of being (among the 5% of business schools that are AACSB accredited) one of the very few to hold the accreditation for every undergraduate and graduate business program from the BS to the Ph.D.
Stevens’ curriculum is far more rigorous and quantitative than TCNJ, and is more selective (37% admissions rate vs 44% at TCNJ). 60% of the undergraduates are from the top 10% of their high school classes and have an average HS GPA of 3.9. Nothing in NJ and few elsewhere come close to Stevens.
You talk of Stevens being engineering oriented as a negative. Stevens of course started as an engineering school, one of the first in the United States. Engineering students are among the brightest of all intended college majors. Your classmates being of this caliber is a huge plus not a negative.
You really ought to do a little research.
Stevens does not have an accounting major.
Agree. I think TCNJ has a more well rounded business program and that it is a more well rounded school in general.
@Engineer80 I would disagree. I went to an undergraduate b-school and have recruited from undergraduate b-schools. I’ve been in the business world 30+ years. In my experience most (if not all) top b-schools do have AACSB accreditation and that the accreditation does have value as it shows the school has met a set of defined standards.
I have a rising sophomore athlete, but an engineering major. Lots of business and quantitative finance majors on her team. I highly recommend the student-athlete experience at Stevens. Lots of perks, ‘swag’ and great coaches, much better than at some other Div3 schools.
Stevens has an extremely well rounded program, of course, as a technological research university the curriculum is weighted and rooted in science and mathematics and the mathematical based theory of economics. The typical nontechnical “business” student such as that of TCNJ and other non hard science/technology based schools isn’t as well equipped to solve the complex problems in the field as are those of the former. Stevens students are well versed in the calculus and probability/stochastic processes that drive financial markets for example, something that few at TCNJ and similar colleges even touch in their studies.
@happy Your comment regarding AACSB is off the topic I addressed. Yes, many top business schools including Stevens have AACSB accreditation for their MBA programs which was its original purpose. That’s not the point I was addressing. Very few are AACSB accredited in their undergraduate and non-MBA graduate programs. Stevens is one of very few universities that is AACSB accredited for every degree level in its business school, including BS, MS, Master of Technology Management, and Ph.D. in addition to its MBA. I believe that there are no other schools (including TCNJ) that are AACSB accredited at the undergraduate level. Since TCNJ has no MBA program I doubt it has AACSB at all.
That is, no other schools in NJ that are AACSB accredited at the undergraduate level.
@Engineer80 Do you realize you have no idea what you are talking about? Besides TCNJ, Rowan, Ramapo, Rider, Rutgers Camden, Rutgers NB and Seton Hall are AACSB accredited at the undergrad level.
Its right on the AACSB website. I didn’t check them all. I signed up just to tell you this.
Stevens has a very good quant fin program but it is very weak in traditional business curriculum. TCNJ is considered a top program in the Northeast especially in Accounting.
Actually the “member profile” page only lists the available programs and the number of students in each. It doesn’t explicitly state which programs are accredited. Despite that, TCNJ isn’t Stevens.
@Engineer80. Just admit you were wrong.
Why would TCNJ be a member of AACSB with an undergrad major only if it weren’t actually accredited?
The whole point of the member profile page is to show exactly what is accredited. Why show the undergrad choices at all if they weren’t accredited?
That seems logical however I’m an engineer. In my profession we seek verification. It is possible for a school to be accredited for some programs but not others, for example.
Stevens does not offer the fluff that passes for “business” at many schools. Stevens intends to he graduates to have the top notch hard analytical skills that has proven their value in the optimization of business and finance. Your claim that Stevens somehow is weak in “general business” is just completely wrong. Since you place value on AACSB they wouldn’t accredit a program that is weak in a general sense. Also,however good TCNJ may be in accounting is irrelevant since Stevens students do not aspire to do something as pedestrian as accounting. One of my classmates was the Chief Information Officer of Goldman Sachs. Do you think that they would have hired a graduate of a “weak” general program for that position? I highly doubt it.
My point was not to take anything away from Stevens, but to say that almost every reputable undergraduate b-school is AACSB accredited. And as noted by others, that is the case.
A good friend of mine is a professor in the b-school at Stevens. He thinks the school has strong program but also understands that it does not have all of the traditional b-school majors – and because of that he feels that the school has to be the right match for what a particular student is looking for. I’m not sure why you find that train of thinking offensive.
Anyway you have made your point in spades – you would pick Stevens over TCNJ. We all hear you loud and clear. In fact in virtually every single post you have on CC you are a strong advocate of Stevens. It is great that you love and support your school but at this point we are off on a tangent and I think perhaps should refocus on the OP’s original question.