OP:
Stevens has location, Co ops, and strong quantitative content as pluses; gender imbalance, engineering-focused school, fewer business major choices, cost, as minuses.
Look at the way Co op would be impacted by athletics, if at all.
TCNJ has excellent reputation, overall better academics, gender balance, lower cost, as pluses, and less exciting location, as a minus.
School size, class size, % faculty with PhD or involved in industry/business teaching, could be a plus or minus for either one.
You think TCNJ has better “overall academics” than Stevens? By no stretch is that the case. Stevens students take
anywhere from 138 to 145 credits in the undergraduate program (depending upon the major, engineering being the highest) and all the courses are rigorously quantitative with the right amount of rigorous liberal arts to balance the major program. This is arguably the most rigorous academic program in NJ and one of the most such in the US. Stevens students have the highest average SAT/ACT scores in NJ and it is the most selective university in NJ (with only one exception, Princeton U). The fact that Stevens students are the fifth highest compensated college graduates in the nation (Payscale/Bloomberg Business Week “What’s Your College Degree Worth, 2016”) attests to the rigor of the academics and the resulting capability of the graduates.
please your taking a school primarily , that’sPRIMARILY engineering based and trying to compare to a true liberal arts school aint gonna work. First off TCNJ is a well recognized highly regarded school in several areas and if you just compared something like the very very highly selective programs like bio, pre-med, finance etx the scores are completely different. As to the business school directly it is THE highest ranked in the entire state at #35 in the entire nation . In fact accounting alone is #20 in the entire nation. as to the AACSB only 5% of business schools in the world are accredited and its one of them. Not taking anything away from Stevens but for engineering there are many higher ranked schools and for overall its not all that impressive. Things like earnings will always be high for that focused major and really cant be compared to say a teaching degree from TCNJ (one of the the top 5 such schools in the country) or nursing degree etc.,
TCNJ is not “highly selective”. As a technological research university Stevens is of far higher rigor than a liberal arts school. Stevens too is one of those 5% of AACSB accredited schools. College rankings are revenue generators for their publishers such as USNWR and are to be taken with more than just a grain of salt. Even if you believe in them, Stevens is ranked at 75 in USNWRs “National Universities” list out of 200 on that list (CNJ being an undergrad liberal arts college with no research doctoral programs isn’t in that list at all). Two Stevens alumni and faculty were Nobel Laureates for example. Can CNJ make that claim? Incidentally Stevens was the first technological university in the US with a humanities department and students are required to take a substantial liberal arts component (as do all ABET accredited engineering schools) You think that a liberal arts based school is somehow better than a science/engineering based one. I disagree. Science and engineering train you to think and to solve problems.
^^^I think you are doing yourself and your school a disservice by pushing so hard. It is a turn-off – like someone who is trying too hard to make an impression on a first date. If you were to state that Stevens is a fantastic STEM driven private school in a great location with an up and coming newly accredited and analytically-driven business school and that you think the OP should certainly visit both schools and consider Stevens that would have been a more impressive, useful, coherent answer.
Yes I agree with you. AACSB accreditation of any school is still a recent thing when compared as the 145 year history of Stevens in the pioneering development of the now standard methods of scientific management. I would not have been as forward in my comments except that OP who claims that Stevens academics are inferrtor to TCNJ is job et plain wishful thinking. Yes I suggest OP visit Stevens and read the description of the business/technology management curriculum.
Forgive my typos, “is just plain wishful thinking”.
Engineer80: You’re defending your school but you’re not unbiased.
Op however can clearly see - or check posting history - that engineer80 and stone3 are proud students of their respective schools.
Overall, it’s better not to push too hard.qchoolq have different 'fits’for different people. Your perfect school may not even someone else’s. Last year there was a freshman who did the same for his school and it was a big turn off.
As unbiased as OP with regard to tcnj.
Incidentally yes, comparing Stevens to TCNJ is an apples to oranges comparison. I agree that the two appeal to different types of students and one should visit them in order to make an informed decision. I do object however to the assertion that being engineering oriented is a negative.
please TCNJ is ranked #3 regional school by usnwr . That’s what it is , an undergraduate focused liberal arts school and a damn great one. But if you want to talk about highly selective than just look at a specific major like the 7 year pre med program (oh I don’t think Stevens has one does it?) and compare that . You continue to want to compare apples and oranges. Tcnj is a true liberal arts school with various majors in all different fields including art. and depending on majors more or highly selective than not. B -school is #34 in the entire country.
if you want to say the Stevens engineering is overall stronger than TCNJ engineering I am inclined to agree. Having said that , there b- school and chem, bio, pre-med, ed, etc are standout programs and in the state of NJ TCNJ is far the best performing B-school.
I think the OP has received enough information on this.
Now can this back-and-forth nonsense stop?
To address your points:
TCNJ is a small primarily undergraduate non-research regional liberal arts based college. Stevens is a national research doctoral technological university with $66 million in sponsored research annually, including three government sponsored National Centers of Excellence.
Stevens has a 7 year accelerated medical program with the former UMDNJ (now Rutgers medical school). It is truly highly selective. The minimum standards of admission to that program are SAT 1400, 3 SAT Ii tests in top 10%, and top 10% of the high school class. The accelerated students get a BS in chemical/molecular biology or BE in biomedical engineering. The medical school has, and continues to, accept many Stevens graduates both from the accelerated and regular programs in both science and engineering of all disciplines.
Stevens has had a school of business since 1870 (it wasn’t called that until recently). In technology management and financial engineering it is ranked in the top 10 by the major quantitative finance publications. Stevens busineess/QF/FE graduates are far more analytically trained than those of liberal arts colleges conferring upon them superior decision making and problem solving acumen. This is reflected in the rate at which Stevens B-school graduates are snapped up by the major investment banks.
Finally, Stevens accepts only 39% of its applicants and their average HS GPA is 3.9 and average SAT of 1352 (math/verbal 1600 scale) which is the top 11% of SAT takers (that’s the overall for the university, programs such as the aforementioned accelerated medical are higher). Those statistics are the highest of all NJ institutions of higher learning (with only one exception).
I think we can leave it to the OP and her S to look up statistics, visit both schools, and determine which woudl be the better fit.
I’m writing in again about Stevens: we have the rising sophomore athlete. She is from out of state and studying engineering, not business, but I wanted to share more of my general thoughts about Stevens:
Her athletic experience freshman year was excellent - great coaching, good facilities, head coach was understanding about personal issues related to academics, first class uniforms, transportation, etc. She does a winter sport and my husband accompanied her back to school in early in January and attended a competition - his comments were that it was obvious Stevens invested money in their athletes compared to most of the other schools (newness of equipment, size of coaching staff, etc.) They were Empire 8 champs!
Both my husband and I are in academia: Stevens is gaining more and more prominence every year. The other poster wrote lots about that.
Ah, Hoboken! I can’t tell you how much she loves it. It’s a great town full of young professionals. Compact, clean, safe and so close to the city. She loves living in a busy, urban, upscale area. Small mom-and-pop stores and restaurants, great nightlife, the neatly kept up row houses, and great urban parks. Buses and train take you right into Manhattan. We are from out of state and love to visit.
She grew up in the suburbs in a car-culture, and I can’t tell you enough how urban living has matured her and expanded her world view. Compared to her friends who attended our state’s public flagship, she just seems more - worldly? wise? cosmopolitan? It’s been good that she has been immersed in a real city with non-students; she can walk to just about any store she wants to (no need to find a ride to the grocery store like I had to) and is not in a college bubble.
She is surrounded by really smart kids. For what it’s worth, the business majors on her team said the major was pretty easy.
TCNJ is ranked #34 business school in the country by Bloomberg and #1 in nj. Just a fact. Having said that, Stevens
is a stronger engineering school.
@stones3 The Bloomberg rankings are so out-of-whack this year (Villanova #1 and Wharton #16 for example) that Bloomberg has announced that they will no longer being doing undergraduate b-school rankings. IMO rankings are fickle things so best not to have them play a huge part in any decision.
http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/inq-phillydeals/Does-Villanova-really-have-a-much-better-business-school-than-Wharton-.html
That comment is not meant to endorse one school over the other. The OP needs to consider things like location preference (urban v suburban), cost, athletics (coach, facilities, time required etc.), and majors offered. Clearly if the OP lives in NJ a visit to both schools is warranted.
yea, I know the rankings are always "so out of whack " when they don’t yield the result someone wants. nice.
??? I don’t think Bloomberg was looking for any particular result. But I stand by my comment that one should not chose a college based on ranking alone.
STEM-Stevens
Business-TCNJ
TCNJ has a stronger business program.
I think the location at Stevens is better(Hoboken), but TCNJ has a more balanced gender ratio.
Rutgers New Brunswick is also a good choice. Did you apply there?