<p>John Jay is basically a commuter school btw. I’d have to get off-campus housing and I’d rather not.</p>
<p>The reason everyone warns you about costs is that universities do not meet need for transfers (ie., they don’t care if you have high financial need, if you can’t pay it’s not their problem except for in-state students) and rarely offer the same merit/financial aid packages; however if you’ve run the NPCs for each college, and know you’re fine…
As for John Jay: John Jay has a lot of CJ majors but criminology is NOT criminal justice. Criminology is indeed academic whereas CJ is a preparation to work in law enforcement (police or prison, essentially). In addition, criminal justice courses are not looked at as “rigorous”, as, say, psychology, biology, history, and philosophy would be whereas criminology would be considered a legitimate, interdisciplinary field.
One of the best criminology programs is Simon Fraser’s.
GWU, Northeastern, UF, and URichmond would be good choices because they’re all strong academically and well-known overall. For grad school, GWU, UF and Richmond would have an advantage but Northeastern would provide you with coops which can be nice, too.</p>
<p>As of the latest USNews rankings released a few days ago, Northeastern is ahead of all of those schools on the national research universities list. I think NEU would be comparable to UF, GWU, and Richmond. Do you think UM is a good choice or not really? It is pretty much viewed as being similarly competitive and rigorous at UF.</p>
<p>deleted post.</p>
<p>Also, NEU has the 4+1 program, is located in Boston, was ranked by Princeton Review as having the #1 career services, has risen drastically in the rankings this year, and there are many top-notch criminology internships available for Northeastern because Harvard, MIT, and Boston College don’t have criminology departments and will likely not have their students sucking up all of the good opportunities during the school year. Also, the co-op program would make me even more competitive when applying for graduate school.</p>
<p>Of course, GWU is in D.C., THE POLITICAL CAPITAL OF THE U.S. Besides that, I can’t think of anything else that would make it stand out except for their brand-name reputation and truly marvelous dormitories. I think of all the schools mentioned in this post, GWU has the best brand-name recognition, am I right or wrong?</p>
<p>UM and UF are in my state but they don’t have very strong criminology departments. At both schools, criminology is just a slightly modified sociology major sprinkled with three or four criminal-themed courses so to me, that is not appealing.</p>
<p>Richmond is the top-ranked Liberal Arts college with a criminology department and they are very competitive, i like the appeal of being in a small school with small class sizes but Richmond is a small no-name town compared to DC, Boston, and Miami. Gainesville isn’t quite in that league but it is a lot better than Richmond, VA.</p>
<p>bump</p>
<p>Bump</p>
<p>I think you should go to U Penn and Second choice GW. Those are the best schools on your list.</p>
<p>Can’t go to UPenn. They don’t take spring transfers and it is the only school that there is a possibility I I wouldn’t get in even with my minority status if they did take spring transfers. Looking back, it was dumb to put that on my list.</p>
<p>I think I have come to a final decision, I am debating between Northeastern and UMaryland. Northeastern is the best private undergraduate criminology program and UMaryland has had the best graduate criminology department in the nations for decades. I would pursue a combined bachelors-masters at either program which one of these two places would be a better choice for someone. Where should I go? If you can, please give a long detailed response as to why one would be better than another. Plz don’t recommend other schools as I am only looking at these two now.</p>
<p>Apply to both and go where it’s cheaper.</p>
<p>Money is not an issue. I feel like I’ve said this way too many times already.</p>
<p>Yes, money isn’t an issue. I’m sure you will be able to attend any school comfortably. BUT, be smart. You shouldn’t force your parents to pay more when you can get the same education for $15,000 less. I mean, that’s just being decent. </p>
<p>^yup, that’s all I meant. :)</p>
<p>It is a shame that you people can put a price tag on an education. Clearly the two of you and I have entirely different beliefs about the investment of an education. Oh well. I’ve pretty much gotten all of the information I needed to on here.</p>
<p>Of course there is a price tag on education.In the US, at least.
If your parents can pay without loans and without any problem, it’s fine, but few families can. Avoiding debt is also important - you shouldn’t have more than $27,000 in debt when you graduate since it’s the most a college graduate can expect to reimburse. Some leeway, but not much, for engineers and CS.
Both programs are good and there’s no reason why you should decide now - applying to both and deciding once you know where you get in is the best solution.</p>
<p>@MYOS1634 I just realized that the OP is a low income student. Which makes this whole “money isn’t an issue” thing even more bizarre. OP, when you have your kids, you will learn to be more frugal. Reading back, I just realized that you are actually LOW INCOME. Your family will need to make huge sacrifices to put you through your dream private school. F.A for transfer students is not something you should rely upon.
Be cognizant of that and realize that they don’t have to give you a dime. Not a single penny. They are being courteous by letting you apply to all these expensive private schools. The least you could do is have the decency to cut the price for them.
The real shame is that you have no care in the world for anyone’s livelihood besides your own. You should be putting a price on education because your family cannot afford to send you to an elite school while being full pay.</p>
<p>It may be expensive but this is what I want, I don’t expect you to understand. Plz leave this thread Annie. All you do is make aggressive posts on CC. Seriously, you just love to pick internet fights because you have nothing better to do with your free time. Like how old are you, 30 something? Are you even in school?</p>
<p>OP, I’m not picking fights. I already have my Masters degree. You are making a huge mistake right now. You are not making ANY SENSE. I’m not picking a fight. I’m trying to prevent you from making a boneheaded decision. You cannot approach this process and say “I’m high need, so I’m not worrying about money”. You are contradicting yourself. The sole fact that you ARE high need shows why you need to pay close attention to financial aid. Please, don’t make a bad mistake. You may not want to talk to me. Fine. But please bring this to the FA forum or speak to or @mom2collegekids @ucbalumnus . They know more than I do about FA. </p>
<p>^PSC2IVY, the problem is that even schools with super generous aid don’t guarantee that aid to transfers, and even there transfer financial aid is never 100% need and is never as good as for freshmen. </p>
<p>There’s a difference between “expensive” and “unaffordable”. </p>
<p>How much in debt are you for now?
Did you use your federal loan amount for freshman and sophomore year?
(If not, you could borrow that amount for junior+senior year; if you did borrow it, then you can only borrow $7,500 in loans plus your Pell grant. That’s it. No other financial aid is guaranteed to you.)
Therefore it’s very important to apply widely - not just to two schools - and to be ready to walk out if costs are unaffordable.</p>
<p>Expensive means that, with $7,500 in loans, a summer job, and 12 hours week working during the year, you can make it if you’re being frugal and make sacrifices on pizza, outings, new clothes, music, etc, etc.
Unaffordable means you would have to work 20 hours a week and/or make your parents borrow for you.</p>