I need help! I want to pursue an International Relations major and later follow a Pre-Law track. All of these places offered me beyond fantastic financial aid packages. So what do you guys think University of Virginia vs. New York University vs. Lehigh University vs. Boston University. (P.S. I was accepted to Boston College but I don’t think it would be the best for my major) Any help would be appreciated.
Wow, congrats!
Does the fin-aid offered cover monies above & beyond tuition/room & board? What kind of out-of-pocket expenses can you afford?
NYU & BU will have the most expensive cost of living beyond actual school–NYC will be slightly pricier than Boston. You may find, especially if you become friends with privileged kids, that you can’t do all the things they do out and about in the city, particularly NYC. However, pros to both NYC & Boston are you can live there & not have to get a car. Travel to/from home would be easy–fly into the airport, hop on the subway and go to school.
UVA & Lehigh will offer lower cost of living (off campus housing, food, social activities, etc.) BUT you’ll need to factor in the cost of having a car in both places–insurance, gas, etc.
Then there’s proximity to cities/access to internships & special programs. NYU & BU obviously have advantages being directly in major cities where you’ll have opportunities to do a variety of things related to international relations. I’d say NYC has an edge on Boston. Lehigh is pretty close to Philadelphia. UVA is the furthest from a major city, though the closest is a very good one for IR: D.C. That would help most for summer internships & less during the year as you can’t exactly commute from Charlottesville to D.C.
Then, prestige. The two most prestigious are NYU & UVA, IMO. How important is prestige to you vs. cost?
But this is the BU thread & I’m a BU alum, so I’ll give you a pep talk, re: choosing BU & Boston 
So BU is awesome! Life changing for me. I loved all my classes–found them challenging & fun–and had a lot of opportunities. I was a journalism major, but the opportunities weren’t exclusive to that major. One area where I think BU is stellar is its study abroad options. BU offers a plethora of countries & programs you can do, and in many countries BU literally operates its own mini-campus–so you get to do an internship & earn course credit. These programs have some stellar internship hookups. A had friends in London who interned for Parliament. BU also has the Washington D.C. program where you can intern in the U.S. government, among other places. BU has a strong & enthusiastic alumni network, which can help with jobs.
Boston is an incredible city. Definitely more affordable/liveable than NYC, if you end up between those two areas. Boston is small but a major city, with rich history & architecture. There’s a lot of culture, but it’s not so massive & overwhelming as NYC, IMO. It’s a college town, too–there are like 20 colleges in Boston & it’s overrun with students. It has a college town vibe, but in a “this college town is massive” kind of way. I lived in Boston for 8 years, and the only reason I moved to Los Angeles is I got an industry job. Otherwise, I’d still be there & I would totally go back.
I think since all four schools are great and will have lots of merit to their IR programs & options, you’ll want to look at cost of living beyond your fin-aid package + school vibe. What kind of student body personality/campus vibe do you want? It’ll be different for each school.