@TS0104 Excellent point. A trip home from Boston is a mere $10 train ticket. I think this website has warped my perception of college, as I’m thinking more about prestige than my own personal needs.
@penpal11 , that’s excellent insight. That can happen! In my opinion, prestige is a factor but maybe like a 1-3% of the whole pie, for us anyway. You can find stats on job placement, but they seem pretty general (i.e. “90% of graduates are in full time employment or grad school 6 months after graduating”.
Yes. There are over 3000 colleges/ universities. Say there are the same number of students at your high school. What if an organization ranked them 1-3000 on the basis of athletic ability. How different would #40, #60, and #80 be? Would the football coach ranked them differently? How about the soccer coach? The golf coach? The track coach? The wrestling coach? I don’t think there’s any significant overall difference between your 3 schools. Different “coaches” in the stands might rank them differently. Which looks best from your own perspective?
@TTG Probably Northeastern. I visited and I really like the campus. I hope I can get off of Vanderbilt’s waitlist though, that would be nice.
If they are in the same general tier (and tiers really should be pretty broad) I think you should go for fit. And I think these are roughly in the same category. Now if you threw Princeton into the mix here . . .
I think the others have it about right. W&L and W&M are probably a bit stronger academically and in teaching quality (although W&L might be a bit limited on CS courses). Northeastern seems to be the best fit for you based on your criteria.
@penpal11 my son’s best friend is currently a freshman at Northeastern majoring in Math. W&L was his top pick going into accepted student day and was turned off by the W&L greek scene. As mentioned, it dominates campus. We live in a pretty affluent area of NJ, and my son’s friend was the only kid they found at accepted student day that did not go to an expensive private for high school. It’s very small, and social life revolves around frat parties. I think if you’re coming from a lower income household, aren’t looking for greek life and a big party scene, W&L wouldn’t make you happy.
He doesn’t rave about the food at Northeastern, but 2nd semester took a cheaper meal plan and eats off campus more, which is a wash as far as money for him. He just did housing selection for next year and got a nice on campus apartment in one of the cheaper buildings. I think he starts coops next year.
Good luck! You have 3 great schools to pick from!
@IzzoOne does Northeastern lack academic rigor? In your opinion. This is something that is fairly important to me
@NJWrestlingmom thanks so much for your response. I’m definitely a bit turned off by that aspect.
I don’t think Northeastern lacks rigor - my son’s friend took all honors & APs in high school, never received lower than a 90, 35 on the ACT. He is not the least bit bored with his courses freshman year! They also have him credit for a number of his AP courses.
@penpal11 No, I did not say or think Northeastern lacks academic rigor.
@NJWrestlingmom Thanks, my academic achievement is similar to his.
@IzzoOne Gotcha. I hope my statement did not sound accusatory, I was just asking.
Well thank you guys for your comments. I am 90% sure I’m going to Northeastern. Go Huskies! XD
W&M is certainly not a Greek centered party school. But if dues are the only thing keeping you from engaging in greek life, a part time job during the school year will take care of that pretty quickly. Some national chapters also offer scholarships. I haven’t eaten the food on campus at W&M, but partly due to the large tourist trade, there is every chain restaurant conceivable in the area. I know nothing of NE. But W&L is much more isolated than W&M. Its time to have a roadtrip!