<p>Hey guys! So I'm deciding which school I should do my Ed on. Currently I have NYU stern, Wellesley and Claremont McKenna in mind. I do pay attention to overall ranking of the school. I don't really have a preference among the three, but i really like cmc's four year BA/MA program in Economics or Finance. Has anyone done this program yet? Is it worth it? I heard Wellesley has a strong economics program as well... But's it's a women's college and I'm not sure if i will like it. New York is probably not an environment I would want to spend my 4 years in college in, so yeah. As I said, I do pay attention to rankings, and cmc has a slightly lower ranking than Wellesley...
Somebody please help? Thanks :)</p>
<p>You should try to visit the schools you are interested in.</p>
<p>Don’t overestimate the significance of rankings. No college is for everyone. You have to feel comfortable in the environment. I think the people who choose Wellesley mostly because it is highly ranked are the ones who end up disliking it. This is probably true of many colleges.</p>
<p>Don’t apply ED to any school unless it is absolutely your first choice. It sounds as if you do not have a strong enough preference yet to apply ED anywhere.</p>
<p>I’m a mom, not a student. My d applied to both CMC and Wellesley, and is going to Wellesley. The two schools could not be more different!</p>
<p>CMC is, let’s face it, very small and ugly, but it’s in sunny SoCal, and the town is adorable. It has the consortium, which is awesome. Academically, the classes I attended were sleepers - not rigorous. YMMV. The kids were uniformly awesome, and so was the admin. I loved it, and lobbied for it. I didn’t win.</p>
<p>Wellesley is gorgeous. The campus is large, and the town is small and cute. Boston is closer than LA for CMC. The classes were rigorous. The people were awesome. The endowment is bigger, and thus, FA is better. The alumni network is much better if you aren’t a white guy in finance.</p>
<p>It has more name recognition, even here closer to the west coast. (I grew up in Boston, but live in AZ - I remember the cold without much affection, which is why I lobbied for CA schools- more fun in the sun.)</p>
<p>NYU is awesome, but HUGE. Not the same experience as the other two.</p>
<p>My d visited and fell in love - I think you really have to see them for yourself. All are great schools.</p>
<p>Sakacar:
Thanks for your reply. I’m still not sure how I feel about all-women college… Was it a hard choice for you and your daughter?</p>
<p>I am a dad, not a student either: I greed with NJsue and sakacar – You must see it yourself. But I believe you can’t go wrong with Wellesley! Just for its campus I guess you will be falling in love with Wellesley since I am not sure which college campus can be more beautiful than Wellesley! In addition to that, which you may not see during your visit, they are small classes, unbelievable small – for example, some of the music classes are “one on one” teaching. They have school shuttle buses every hour to MIT - you can take all 3000+ courses there. If you are interested in politics, there is plenty of room there, just look at Madeleine Albright, Hillary Clinton, etc… I would say the Wellesley girls could be more outstanding and successful in the country or in a company. If you need to know more I can point you to some one know more than me. But I am sure your other schools are very good in some areas, too! Good luck!</p>
<p>Soft - my D was very reluctant to choose Wellesley b/c of the all-women’s thing but ultimately did b/c of everything else it’s great for - pretty much everything!</p>
<p>She just finished her first year and I believe has officially fallen in love with it despite the all-women’s thing. She goes into Boston a fair amount and attends parties and activities at many other co-ed schools (MIT, Harvard, Olin and Babson) so I don’t think the single gender is an issue at all for her. She plays a varsity sport so she’s very busy and I think the all-womens thing ends up being very good for her studies - no added distraction of boys (and all that can mean) during the week.</p>
<p>You should visit all three if you can, but the all-women’s thing has ceased to be an issue for mine.</p>
<p>I’m scratching my head trying to figure out how all those schools can appeal to the same person. They are so different! My daughter visited CMC and hated it. At an opportune time, she slipped away from the tour and said, “I’m not applying here.” </p>
<p>By contrast, she loved Wellesley at her first visit, and this is where she’s headed in the fall. If all of these schools look good on paper, you must see them in person, especially if you are considering ED, which is a legal commitment.</p>
<p>nyu- campus is right in the middle of manhattan. very independent. go there if you want city life. sterns job placement is out of this world. best econ for private sector. stern’s program is more tailored in finance. FA is like literally nonexistent.</p>
<p>wellesley- you get the ivy league status which will be good for jobs. stuck in the small campus though. wellesley’s alumnae association is supposed to be great. Ivy in econ usually means more federal job placement. meets all FA</p>
<p>At Wellesley, there used to be a huge sign in the Econ department hallway: “Economics is not a sex-linked trait.” That’s because the Econ department is so great there. Plus, you’ll have the opportunity to take Econ classes at MIT, where Paul Samuelson (who wrote the Bible on Econ) was on the faculty.</p>
<p>But I would echo everyone who has encouraged you to visit campuses. You have to be convinced that your ED school is The One.</p>