<p>Which Virginia Public do we think has the most students from the Northeast?</p>
<p>I think it’s a tossup between UVA, VT and maybe W&M. GMU could also be in the running.</p>
<p>I live in southeastern PA, and a lot of kids from our high school go to W&M, GMU and JMU as well. UVA and VT are extremely competitive for out of state students. </p>
On a campus tour of James Madison with 8 kids, 7 were from New Jersey. Friend’s kid goes to JMU, and over 50% of his best friends are also from the Garden State. Everyone on the east coast seems to shift south to go to college, no wonder Maine is having trouble filling sits in its public colleges.
Hmmm…maybe we should be looking at public schools in the north vs. south if we need some merit money?
Can decide between George Mason University and Virginia Commonwealth University. Any suggestions? Plan on majoring in Finance and minor in engineering
@xinn62 — I certainly think GMU is a much better choice given the academics and your desired majors. However, there are always other factors in a college decision which can weigh just as much as academics.
@xinn62 I’ve actually attended both schools. As of now, I’m at GMU after transferring from VCU. The business school at both is good, though I know that GMU is known for the up and coming business program, and I personally enjoy the campus better. I also know someone at VCU majoring in business who was planning on transferring to GMU business, for some academic reasons. Engineering is good at GMU but they are not ABET accredited (I don’t know how much you know about this, but maybe look into it?) It would probably be easier to minor in engineering at GMU (just a guess based on what I’ve seen, once again you may want to make sure you can actually minor in engineering because some places you can’t). VCU does have a good biomedical program. I think one of the most important things is to note how you feel on campus. Someone gave me some good advice once after my bad experience at VCU and they said that a good environment could lead to much greater success. I hoped this helped, sorry it’s long.
@ilovecats12 Good info for xinn62. However, I do believe the GMU Engineering School is accredited by ABET. (At least that is what is states on their website.)
@jughaid Yes, sorry, you’re right. They do have ABET in certain programs, I forgot, I was in mechanical engineering when I transferred and they weren’t accredited in that, so I guess it depends which engineering you want to do.
(Thank you for you reply!) Academic wise I’m leaning towards GMU a little more, but I’ve heard that as a commuter school the social scene for George Mason is drag. There’s is hardly any college experience that one’ll get. On the other hand, VCU has better campus life than GMU (according to past students)and seem to have a good social scene for students, which is where one get that whole “college experience” from. Since you’ve attended both schools, how is the campus life in comparison?
@ilovecats12 (Thank you for you reply!) Academic wise I’m leaning towards GMU a little more, but I’ve heard that as a commuter school the social scene for George Mason is drag. There’s is hardly any college experience that one’ll get. On the other hand, VCU has better campus life than GMU (according to past students)and seem to have a good social scene for students, which is where one get that whole “college experience” from. Since you’ve attended both schools, how is the campus life in comparison?
@xinn62 This is actually a hard question for me, because as of now I am commuting to GMU however, I know someone who is not so I can tell you their experience. So VCU definitely had a lot of frat parties, although not a lot of people were an actually part of sororities and frats. Every Thursday night people went out to these parties because that was really the only thing to do at night. On weekends a lot of people went home or to other colleges. There were clubs and stuff around but during my first week my RA told us that you should never go to those because people always got shot (this was probably an exaggeration) and I never knew anyone who went to those. I’m sure if you had a good group of friends you could just hang out in a dorm, but the dorm I lived in had suites, so the common area was always dead, and only used for studying (I’m sure this is different if you live in a dorm with community bathrooms). There are definitely more commuters at GMU, and I’m not sure about the frat party aspect, but the girl I know goes into DC with her friends a lot to do stuff at night. The campus bus system is good and connects to the metro, so she goes to jazz clubs and stuff like every weekend. There is overall probably less of the “college experience” here, and that is because there are a lot of commuters and people who aren’t the typical college age and already have kids and have settled down. So yes, VCU does have more of the “college experience” and more kids around on off school hours but I believe GMU could still have some depending what you make of it. Have you visited either yet?