And yet there are always some kids who say NYU gave them either the best financial package or at least a perfectly acceptable one. When I was in my teens and 20s, I was dying to be in NY. I decided against it for undergrad, but it was a top reason for choosing grad school in the city.
They’re likely one of the tiny minority of admits who were given full/half-ride merit scholarships for having Ivy/peer elite contender stats. Those scholarships were around when I was applying to colleges, but weren’t considered as great deals* by most classmates as the near-full/full FA packages offered by the Ivies/peer elite colleges they also received admission offers from.
- Both due to the onerous requirement to maintain the scholarship once admitted(Maintain a minimum of a 3.6+) and the much lower perceived academic rep of NYU back then.
If all it took was location, Fordham, Baruch, Pace and Brooklyn College would be the second most applied to colleges in the country.
“It’s only the most applied to because of its location. Purely because of location.”
That’s a pretty bold, definitive statement. Do you have any data to support this statement…or is this just surmise on your part?
There are many many many colleges in that exact location. Private and public. Yet, they aren’t the “most applied to.”
Anyhoo, looking back at OP’s original inquiry, personally I would NOT pay full fare for NYU, or for ANY OTHER COLLEGE, if I could not comfortably afford it. The “1/7th” school would be my hands down choice.
“It’s only the most applied to because of its location. Purely because of location.”
Well, and it’s strengths. But in any case, if you have it, use it.
"And yet it still does a poor job of giving out financial aid, somehow. "
I don’t see how point #2 is connected to point #1 in any way. It should be more generous with fin aid because . . . of it’s location?
To be fair, Fordham, Pace, and Brooklyn College are not in Manhattan, and Baruch is largely commuter. But I get your point.
For all the hype about eye popping internships, there are still plenty of NYU kids selling knives. I’m not kidding.
There’s plenty of kids from every college selling knives. I’m not kidding, either.
Our prep school in San Francisco sends more of its kids to NYU than it sends to any other school in the nation, more even than Berkeley and UCLA.
Except for the ones that go to Tisch for acting, these students appear to have three things in common: 1) their academic credentials are middling, 2) their families are very wealthy, and 3) they really, really want to party in Manhattan. Other than the Tisch students, I don’t think a single one of them chose NYU because of its academic programs.
I know that sounds dismissive, but the more I learn about NYU, the less impressed I am.
I’m not knocking the selling of knives. It’s good experience. I’m just pointing out that NYU isn’t some magical place where all the Stern kids intern at Goldman.
@Chardo -
Pace has a campus in downtown Manhattan and Fordham has one by Lincoln Center on the West Side. Baruch is a top notch school but it doesn’t generally appeal to the same demographic.
Nobody has said NYU is some magical place. But it’s also not the seventh circle of hell that so many on CC like to make it out to be. It’s a globally well-regarded university that enrolls very good students…with the exception (I guess) of the kids from some small, elite prep school in San Francisco. The kids from that particular prep school who attend NYU are only of “middling” academic ability who just want to party.
One of Pace’s two campuses are in NYC. I knew a girl from my HS class who didn’t get into NYU but decided on Pace, and a guy in my HS class who transferred to Pace from UNC Greensboro. Both were purely because of location - the UNCG transfer did so for “job market purposes” - because there is nothing from an academic standpoint that would ever really attract any student to Pace…
But yeah, honestly, NYU is the most overrated school in the nation. IMO. If it were really as elite as it claimed, it would be able to be more generous with FA. Stern probably isn’t even THAT great, NYC just happens to be the king of business…
@ThankYouforHelp: Eh, you can say that about UW-Madison (or a whole host of other schools) as well.
Doesn’t mean that UW-Madison and NYU don’t have top-notch programs or are very good for certain kids.
@techmom99 those are satellite campuses. The main campuses, where most of student life is, are not in Manhattan.
@techmom99 ehh, Baruch isn’t at all a bad school, but I wouldn’t necessarily call it “top-notch” either…
@PurpleTitan UW-Madison is an excellent university, and I certainly don’t think NYU is considered better.
It’s not the seventh circle of hell. Unless you saddle yourself with debt from the $300,000 you spent with the expectation it would make a difference for your career.
@ThankYouforHelp, agree that NYU is an under endowed, highly marketed machine that would likely struggle financially if not for its expansion internationally.
I agree with @prospect1 that NYU seems to get more than it’s fair share of negativity on CC. Maybe people are right and it is overrated, maybe they are wrong and it has a deserved reputation for excellence. I know in my kid’s major (Tisch drama) in a survey done last year, there were more NYU grads on Bway than any other school in the world, in fact, more than the next several schools combined. http://www.playbill.com/article/big-10-top-colleges-currently-represented-on-broadway
Maybe people only want to be there for the location… which is fabulous btw… maybe not everyone wants a traditional campus experience (my kid has zero interest in sororities and football games). what I do NOT GET is the need to bash it for existing, or for charging a tuition that is listed publicly and thousands of people are WILLING TO PAY. As has been said a million times, if you think it’s too expensive, or not prestigious “enough” - don’t apply. The school isn’t hurting you by existing…
@PurpleTitan NYU is not a bad school, and neither is Wisconsin. I think I may have overstated things a bit.
The difference between UWisconsin and NYU is that at UWisconsin you are paying reduced public school tuition for a large public school experience, large classes etc.
At NYU you are paying elite small private college tuition for what seems (at least to us outsiders) to be a large public school experience, and you don’t even get a real campus. I have the same feelings about other very large private schools like USC and Boston University, but NYU in particular stands out to me.
Just my opinion. YMMV