@willc: congrats on carefully making this important decision; it’s the mark of a great engineer!
BTW, I attended Rutgers back in the stone age. I was an engineering student living on College Ave most years, so I often rode the bus to attend classes on Busch campus. I also spent some time on Douglass and preferred to eat in their dining hall. I don’t think I was ever late for class on account of the busing and most times I didn’t even think about it (except those hot days when the buses were packed and standing room only). OK, it sucked a little. But in the grand scheme of things, it was not a major factor for me.
I’m not saying this for you @willc, since you already made your decision, but for others reading this and considering Rutgers. Rutgers gets bashed a lot on CC, but many of us cherished our time there and wouldn’t change a thing if we had to do it all over again.
The TCNJ vs Rutgers vs Rowan argument comes up very often on CC. There is rarely a clear winner. This tells me that they are all great schools but they all have their own idiosyncrasies. College is what you make it.
@willc, I’m impressed with all your research. What did you think of Ramapo and their School of Business? I went to visit with my daughter as well. Would love to hear your thoughts and others on this thread about Ramapo.
@willc As a Rown alum (back when it was Glassboro State!) congratulations! I can tell you in the business wod, the Rowan engineering department has a great reputation. My son is a senior trying to decide between several schools. We toured over the summer and he was turned off by the construction. Has that died down now? He wants to be a teacher but won’t make the cut at TCNJ but has been accepted to Rowan, Ramapo and Stockton. Rutgers was never in the running for the same reasons you point out.
I really focused my choice based on the engineering major at Rowan and not the other majors. With respect to Ramapo, their business school, nursing and computer science programs are highly regarded and the price to attend is about 26k. Choosing a campus is really subjective but the Ramapo campus and dorms really in my opinion and also my parents was the nicest that we visited and bergen county in and around mahwah was really nice
Tpcrd66: I really liked Ramapo. The dorms were the nicest of every school we visited with no community bathrooms , even compared to the expensive private schools I looked at like Lehigh, Rensselaer and Stevens. All the buildings and facilities feel new and clean, the Bradley center gym is awesome if you want to workout, Bergen county is very nice. The campus is fully contained so you can walk to every class and you can have a car on campus. Again, my focus turned out to be engineering but I think Ramapo is a great option to major in business or education. By way of comparison, many of the more expensive schools I looked at were dumps compared to Ramapo, TCNJ and Rowan for the price they charge.
My kids (both now at Rowan) concur on the niceness of Ramapo dorms. Their argument is around how tiny the campus is - one dining hall etc. Again though, that may be right for some kids!
@NJWrestlingmom : I, too, went to GSC in '74-78 and have visited frequently since. Lots of construction then, too (all the dark brown brick buildings). The latest phase is now complete. New freshmen apartments, the new Business building (goodbye most of beloved Lot A), new Engineering building are now open. Very nice. Visited Wednesday.
I have a feeling that construction will never be “done”. There is a new hospital to be built down near the Route 55 ramp. I can see the day where the athletic fields will move down there, too, to make room for further expansion on the main campus. But, if it’s true, it’s a few years away.
Construction will also continue linking Rowan Blvd and downtown. But the big stuff there is complete.
Having visited many campuses over the years, I’ve found it scary when there’s NOT construction going on at a campus.
@willc@NJRoadie Little known fact: Longtime Action News Trenton correspondent (ABC Channel 6 Philly, sometimes ABC7 NY) Nora Muchanic is a grad of Ramapo, tops in her class. We worked together 30 years ago. Her commencement speech was legendary:
“When I tell people where I go to college, they picture a little 2-year school in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of slackers and drunks, and I have to set them straight: It’s a 4-year school.”