Being at Lehigh, Bucknell, Gettysburg or Lafayette is in no way an impediment to getting a summer internship. The alumni networks at these schools are incredible. Even if the internship were in NY, Fordham’s proximity means nothing. Seriously. Kids that go to Colgate, NESCAC’s that are from the NY area do it all the time.
For our junior year program a Fordham student would have to be pulling all As to get a spot whereas other schools B+ kids get serious looks and offers.
@ScaredNJDad1 The subway ride from the Bronx to mid-town is 15minutes tops. Its a piece of cake and SO convenient for internships. The subway stop is right outside the gate… Way more convenient than driving in any town.
Agree that Fordham is expensive, but you really can’t ask for a BETTER location. The campus is gorgeous - so gorgeous that Hollywood films there weekly for college backgrounds (Madam Secretary etc, where Fordham does the backdrops for Georgetown). Fordham has the best of both worlds, locationwise- in a major city, but in a beautiful campus with a real university feel.
Fordham has a pretty extensive core curriculum -not sure if that is a pro or con for the OP. It was a con for my son - there are a lot of gen education credits you have to fulfill before you can get deep into your major.
@ScaredNJDad1 - A big reason why Fordham’s yield is so low is that the school offers non-binding EA and the school accepts all qualified candidates (no “Tufts Syndrome” of rejecting over-qualified candidates who they believe use Fordham as a safety school). This leaves Fordham as an excellent safety school which will give an EA acceptance to those applying to very competitive colleges. Fordham hopes to get a few of those kids (and they do) by offering scholarships and the honors program. But it does lead to a low yield. In general, I don’t think one can compare the yield of an EA school that accepts all qualified candidates to the yield of an ED school (which has a built-in virtually 100% yield rate for at some schools up to half of their accepted students).
In terms of some of the comparisons above, my S graduated from Fordham and my D is a senior at Lafayette and I’d say they are both wonderful schools. My S wanted business and wanted to be at a mid-sized university near a major city so Fordham a fantastic college for him (Lafayette does not have a business school). My D is a science kid who wanted a LAC and Lafayette is an amazing school for her. I’ll leave the “prestige mongering” to others. I am equally proud of both of my children and both of their college choices.
Blossom is talking about during the year internships, not summer. It would be easier to get to those from Fordham than from Bucknell or Lehigh. Summer is a different situation. Kids I know at Lehigh were not doing during the year internships, but got summer positions which led to post-college jobs.
Did not mean to “prestige monger” Happy. Just responding to information that was inaccurate based on my experience.
Fordham made it to our short list. We have not been out to visit. In our excitement about the school we managed to overlook the divided campus. We were picturing ~8000 undergrads at Rose Hill. Oops. Need to work on our reading skills.
@suzyQ7 I am a native NYer. 15 minutes from Fordham to midtown Manhattan by helicopter sounds right. The B, D, or 4, 5 to the Grand Central area is well over an hour plus any walk. Well over an hour.
I don’t see any value in internships during the school year. Summer internships are great but nothing I have seen puts a kid at a rural or suburban school at a disadvantage. Companies want a broad group.
@ScaredNJDad1 Because its much faster to get into mid-town Manhattan from East Orange NJ or some other suburb than the Bronx. You can take metro north to grand central and be at Grand Central in 17-20 minutes according to the site below. Also, you can take the Ram Van and be there in 30m. Totally doable.
The nice thing about Fordham is the proximity to the city, while having a traditional (beautiful) campus, period. Regardless of the reasons for going into the city (Internships or otherwise) it is a PRO being near the city - if that is important to a prospective student. The con is the cost (although they do offer some aid and some merit), and for my son, an additional con was the extensive core curriculum. I’m not a Fordham parent, just someone who took a tour and knows a couple people there, so have no ‘skin in the game’.
Metro North
The Metro-North trains that run from Grand Central Station to Westchester County and Connecticut are accessible at the station right next to the Third Avenue gate (by Walsh Library). Tickets and information are available from the ticket booth on the ground level of the brick structure or the machine outside the station. Avoid buying your ticket on the train since it is substantially more expensive. Travel time from Fordham to Grand Central is around 17-20 minutes and the cost is $4.75($3.00 seniors) at non-rush hour times and $6.75 ($3.00 seniors) during peak hours. Check out schedules and service advisories at www.mta.info
Ram Van
Fordham’s Ram Van shuttle runs between the Rose Hill and Lincoln Center campuses every half-hour and costs $3. To reserve a seat, you must sign up on a sheet in the Ram Van office located in McGinley Center, second floor (or at the security desk in Lowenstein at Lincoln Center) to assure a seat on the van. The drop-off location for the Ram Van is at Columbus Ave and 60th St in the Midtown West neighborhood. The ride takes about 30 minutes.
Villanova is popular here too, but no one denies it lives up to its “Vanillanova” moniker. Kids who are happy there still say, “It’s all the same kind of people.” I expect Fordham would be much more diverse, which would be a plus for many students.
Yes, D is still interested in classics and Latin, though is starting to lean in another direction too: archaeology. Fordham doesn’t have that as a major, and its anthropology dept. isn’t strong in archaeology offerings. We’re still trying to figure things out. But D did a summer internship in NYC. Her mentor, who was very impressive and sweet, was a Fordham grad.
@ScaredNJDad1 My S went to Fordham and we are native NYers as well. From Fordham one can take Metro-North and be in midtown in 25 minutes (including the two minute walk to the train station, waiting for the train etc.). The subway is longer. The RamVan can be quick or slow depending on the time of day (traffic).
My S (who went to Gabelli) only did summer internships. Still he felt the Bronx location was a benefit
as he was able to easily visit/interview with companies in NYC during the school year, attend some functions at the companies etc. He did have friends at Fordham who had very successful school year internships and a number of those led to full-time employment upon graduation – this was particularly true for his friends who were liberal arts majors.
Note while Fordham’s location is a plus for some, it does not make Fordham or any city-based school right for everyone. In fact my D preferred not to college in/near a city. Every location has its own set of pros and cons. And location should be only one of many factors to be considered in the college search process…
“Fordham made it to our short list. We have not been out to visit. In our excitement about the school we managed to overlook the divided campus. Picturing ~8000 undergrads at Rose Hill. Oops. Need to work on our reading skills.”
That’s about right actually. 7,000 undergrads in the Bronx; 2,000 in Lincoln Center.
Back when I went to Rose Hill decades ago, the schools were completely separate. I never set foot once on the LC campus since I didn’t know anyone who went there. But I did go visit my friends at NYU and Columbia often.
I’d suspect it isn’t all that different now. If you’re interested in the Bronx campus, the LC campus is pretty irrelevant to your decision. And vice versa.
If diversity is an issue, Fordham is definitely diverse, reflecting its NYC location. Much more diverse than “Vanilla-Nova” which we toured and did find to be very monochromatic. NYTimes had an article about observant Muslim and Jewish students feeling more at home there because of the spiritual orientation compared to secular / public schools.
@TheGFG if your D is interested in Classics she would be at Rose Hill but with her interests in Archaeology would easily be able to visit places like the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the American Museum of Natural History.
I have one friend who has a kd there now and loves it and one who transferred out asap because she was mugged 3 times in the first semester.
Fordham is only marginally more diverse than Villanova. Fordham has more Hispanic students, that’s really the only difference.
Fordham is still 75% non-hispanic, non-african American.
@ScaredNJDad, according to the figures on collegedata.com (links below) Fordham is 64% White 15% Hispanic 9% Asian and 5% Black. (Of those 15% Hispanic, a significant percentage could also be Black considering that many NY area Hispanics are Dominican and Puerto Rican.)
Villanova is 76% White 7.5% Hispanic 7.3% Asian and 5% Black.
I’m not sure how you are adding up the figures to say that Fordham is only more “marginally” diverse than Villanova, and maybe on paper the difference between the 64% White at Fordham and the 76% White at Villanova doesn’t look like much. However, after being on college tours, seeing current students, other prospective students and their families, I have to say that as a person of color, I felt that the difference in diversity was significant, and not just marginal.
Both Fordham and Villanova are great schools. However I take issue with your statement that Villanova is “significantly harder to get in than Fordham.” In fact, it’s not.
For Villanova,
49% of 15,705 applicants were admitted http://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/college/college_pg01_tmpl.jhtml?schoolId=185
For Fordham,
48% of 40,912 applicants were admitted
http://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/college/college_pg01_tmpl.jhtml?schoolId=1148
Villanova: 33% score 700-800 Math SAT
60% score above 30 ACT.
Fordham: 19% score 700 - 800 SAT
32% score above 30 ACT.
I see a big difference.
Fordham is more diverse. I said that but the difference is very small.
My D is a senior at Fordham, the Rose Hill campus. She has been having a wonderful college experience in every way. All of the classes are small (there are no lecture halls) - the largest class that she has been in had about 35 students in it. Every professor has known her name and she has felt that they have been genuinely concerned about her achievement. She is double majoring in two humanities subjects and has been expected to do lots of research and writing. The academics are rigorous but the atmosphere is not at all cut-throat. The expectations are high but there is much support and assistance if a student wants it.
She, and all of her friends, have done community service almost every semester. She has had internships in her field each summer and did one during the spring semester last year. Most of her friends have also had internships during the school year. Grand Central is a 20 minute metro north ride (the station is a few steps from the campus gates) and the Lincoln Center area is a short ride on the Ram Van. She and her friends travel around the city frequently to take advantage of all that the city has to offer.
When we went on the tour, there was a lot of talk about how they are concerned about the whole person, and they really are. I am sure that not everyone there is nice, but my daughter has encountered wonderful people. At the end of one of her summer internships, she had to give a long oral presentation and two of her professors attended the presentation. Her roommates and friends are kind, caring people, who are also super smart and fun.
We are not Catholic and that has not presented any problems for my D. Religion is there for those who want to participate but no one is made to feel uncomfortable if they don’t get involved. There is a lot of respect for religion, in general. My H and I encountered Fr. McShane at family weekend and stopped to chat to tell him about the great experience our D was having at Fordham. We mentioned her religion and he immediately asked if she felt comfortable there, and seemed happy to hear that she was.
Fordham gives merit money including full scholarships to NMSF, so there are a lot of students with super high stats who might not qualify for need based aid at any school, but still are not wealthy enough to pay full tuition at other schools, who choose to attend Fordham. There are many high school valedictorians and top students from very competitive high school in attendance. In my opinion, the academics are much stronger than one would expect from its US news ranking.
I would be happy to try to answer any questions that anyone might have about Fordham.
Thank you for all the helpful replies so far. Please keep them coming.
Hen4763, could you please elaborate on the support and assistance available to students?
“Fordham gives merit money including full scholarships to NMSF”
I think that is full-tuition scholarships, not full ride. R&B can be expensive in the city, especially for what they offer, getting sardined together with 3 other roommates.
And as I recall, Fordham is notorious for ratcheting down any grants after freshman year. Non NMSF’s may still get grant money to offset the high tuition, but even if the grades are kept up the grants don’t keep up with tuition increases.
My D looked at Fordham a few years ago, and we all liked it. She applied and got some merit aid there. It was not a school that was on my personal radar (I’m not Catholic or from the NYC area originally, although I had heard of it). I liked it better than BC, which we also visited. It seemed less sports-crazed, and the students were both serious and down-to-earth. The Rose Hill campus is very lovely.They take their Western Civ gen ed curriculum very seriously (a nice feature of many Catholic universities, IMHO.) I remember being a lot more impressed than I thought I would be.
@3puppies Not sure where you heard that Fordham “ratchets down” grants after freshman year but that was absolutely not the case for my S or any of his friends. A students needs to keep a 3.0 GPA to keep the scholarship but that is certainly do-able (and if a student falls below that mark he/she can get the scholarship back by bringing the GPA back up over that mark). However you are correct in saying that scholarships do not increase to match tuition increases.