Yet another plee for help =/

College Search & Selection
1

<p>I have not been a member here and generally sifted through threads looking for people in similar scenarios. After looking through at sooo many factors, im just confusing myself more. My options right now are Rutgers, RIT, and BU. According to my parents, money is not the problem and they will have enough for me either way, i have a feeling they are just being modest and not telling me the truth. I have around 60K for school already saved up. I am planning on majoring in BME (biomedical engineering) with perhaps a minor in business. Anyways I should probably give a rundown on each school:</p>

<p>BU
The cost for this is around $28,000, close to $29,000 (with loans its closer to $22,500). With all the grants I got, I still have an uneasy feeling that this is more than I can afford. I looked around and the students seemed to be pretty good and the people who were accepted weren't too bad and very intelligent. I am close to the city, which is great, but I don't know if I can take all the noise from the subways and such. I looked up rankings and they are classed 9th, for BME, which is a plus, and a pretty decent business program if I want to major in that, but that is just one opinion.</p>

<p>One positive thing about BU is that after freshman year I may be able to commute and my brother lives close to the city and I can take the T around, but overall, many of my friends say its not worth saving 7k per year since the experience with meeting people in dorms is essential to college life. Overall I am leaning towards this school.</p>

<p>Rutgers
The campus is nice and I especially love Busch. In terms of overall ranking its not too far from BU and it is a more traditional campus, which is a plus. Unfortunately I didn't really get too much money here, except to one grant, making the total cost $19,023 a year. I have many classmates going here, but unfortunately they are all going into the pharmacy program (I didn't get in there =(, though its something that I am looking to transfer). If I am rooming in Busch, I probably will see them there though.</p>

<p>I am mostly worried that the classes are too big and that the people there aren't going to be as focused. I have to say when I visited it, I hated the library, which isn't good considering I would probably spend a good amount of my time there. The biggest pro though is that I will receive a nice amount of transfer credit (at least 18 they tell me) which is absolutely great! This isn't even including AP credit, which if they all come out right I can get an additional 16, which is almost one full year of college!</p>

<p>RIT
This is the cheapest school, but least accessible. With all their scholarships and such, the cost is $16,525 a year, which is even cheaper than rutgers (not even including loans which will amount to $13,025 and the year after $10,025, since I accidentally didn't take one of the subsidized loans). I have been up there and it seems pretty nice with interested professors and overall the best student to teacher ratio out of all of them.</p>

<p>Unfortunately, I dislike that the school is so far away from any of my family and coming back home is going to be a hassle. From one student's opinion of the school, I heard that it was an easy school to be unhappy in, because of environmental conditions there. On that I immediately rejected the school out of consideration, but after persuasion from my brother, he advises me to reconsider the potential benefits, so i reopened the books on this. </p>

<p>Honestly, I have been looking at each of these schools OVER AND OVER and I am just confusing my self more with the pressure to not put any financial strain on my parents and looking in my personal best interests.</p>

<p>One important note is that I really want to transfer, each of these schools is a safety, but when going there I will go there thinking that I will spend 4 years there and not that it is a temporary transition (in case every thing goes wrong again). </p>

<p>Finally though, if anyone actually gets this far, thank you for reading this and to any contributions at all. I really appreciate it and it is so great that people are taking time out of their busy lives to help in decision students with such a difficult process. Honestly I commend you! </p>

<p>Just post anything really including factors that I haven't considered if you can't say any definite best fit school. Again, thank you.</p>

2

<p>Nice writeup. </p>

<p>Rutgers dude. </p>

<p>Only thing is check some things out. First off you don’t minor in Business, you minor in something within business such as finance, accounting, etc. Second, check out the viability of doing that. With programs in different schools, it can be very difficult to schedule the classes you need, when you need them. That said, your transferable credits should help greatly with this. Also, check to see the viability of transferring to the Pharmacy program i.e., how viable/likely is that?</p>

<p>Good luck.</p>

3

<p>RIT is a fine school but it is dominated by men so if you are looking for a typical college atmosphere, it might not fit your needs (this from a young woman I know who attends). </p>

<p>I think the BU location is fantastic–Boston is a terrific city and full of college kids–but I agree the campus isn’t as “campusy” as one might like. </p>

<p>I think Rutgers sounds like it fits all your requirements but I actually think it’s NOT a great thing to go to school with a lot of friends there already. JMO. </p>

<p>Where do you envision yourself going/“see” yourself?</p>

4

<p>@ctyankee
Im leaning towards the finances - but this really isn’t definite… Its just something that I am a little interested in. Looking at the transfer into the pharmacy program, I might be able to do it since there will be dropouts and in such a BIG school, there will people who leave the program.</p>

<p>@Jamiecakes
Well my brother, who has been great help to me, thinks that Rutgers is too New Jersey and I wouldn’t be able to grow up enough to face the real world (ironic since he wen there). I go to a small school so, when I say a lot of my friends will be going there I mean 10, which is 1/6 of my grade. As for RIT being dominated by men, I go to a school where the ratio is a lot worse, so im used to it and it would probably be an improvement in ratio.</p>

<p>Unfortunately my current schools are all big schools, so adjusting from a class size of 10-15 in my current high school will be difficult. In that aspect RIT has a great professor availability, which I like if I will be asking for a transfer and need the teacher recommendations.</p>

<p>I will have to ask around for transfer credits as well from BU and RIT, but so far it looks like BU doesn’t like community college credit. RIT hasn’t really responded much…</p>

5

<p>Rutgers is a big school, but the pharmacy program is fairly small and is a 0-6. Afaik, they do not admit people beyond year 1, although they might take you next year and have you restart as a freshman (you wouldn’t have to retake gen ed classes though). This is the way of things in 0-6 schools. If you’re really interested in pharmacy take the standard prerequisites, which are generally the same as most bio/chem/pre-med programs, and the PCAT and start applying to other schools during your second year.</p>

6

<p>what sk8rmom said is right. you have to apply to another pharmacy program (at any school thats 2+4 or rutgers) and try to transfer into the program. You need to meet all the prerequisites which can be found on any school website and take the PCAT, get an interview, and basically pass another application.</p>

<p>The only downside is 0-6 programs like rutgers don’t like taking a lot of transfers, as they get most of their students as freshmen out of high school. But the seats open up when students can’t meet the GPA requirement after their second year before their P1 year</p>

7

<p>I would go to Rutgers.</p>

8

<p>Hmm well I guess transferring to Rutgers Pharmacy is still viable, but more difficult than I imagined. </p>

<p>Anyways - I have more complications since my brother just got a house in Boston. So since my dad is paying for part of the house anyways, on an overall scale if I commute to BU, itll be cheaper as a whole than if I went to Rutgers, but still a tad bit more than RIT (a few thousand).</p>

<p>**My question for now is this: Would you advise commuting? ** Some people from my school don’t advise it, but it would make things a lot more affordable. The problem I still have with BU is that I will need to make a lot of sacrifices in order to go there. I think the education would be great since their BME program has a reputation - but then I think of RIT and how much easier it would be just to go there, not have to commute. In terms of the transfer credits to BU and RIT, I think that I would be getting around 14 credits from BU and RIT still won’t contact me about their transfer credits (in terms of community college credit, I have 29 though of course some won’t transfer, and I will be taking AP Bio and AP Calc BC, on top of taking linear algebra during the summer)</p>

<p>So looking at that either way i can get a nice chunk saved in terms of money… </p>

<p>=( only got one more day to think about this =/</p>

9

<p>Rutgers will be cheaper and is better than those schools you have listed. Go with RUTGERS!!!</p>

10

<p>Well since I made my decision anyways…</p>

<p>I decided to still go with BU. True it is expensive (but in a whole with my commuting its very doable and cheaper than Rutgers), I think it is particularly diverse with most people coming from out of state places, with different aspects of life. It may not be the “best education”, it is still a nice place and the change in environment might allow me to change my perspective on a lot of things, ones that I think I have been very narrow minded with in the past. </p>

<p>In the end, Rutgers isn’t entirely out of the picture, but I need time to get out and at the very least experiment with life. If BU isn’t good, I will still have an opportunity to transfer back. I didn’t get any money awards and I know a lot of people who go there already(thank you Jamiecakes for mentioning that in you post), so it wouldn’t be so much change if I just transferred in. Hopefully this tumbling economy will fix by the next year… But heres hoping XD</p>

<p>THANK YOU EVERYONE WHO CONTRIBUTED, I COULDN"T HAVE MADE THIS DECISION WITHOUT YOU</p>

11

<p>Good luck!</p>

12

<p>BU is a fine school. Best of luck!</p>

<p>One final suggestion. Talk your dad into letting you stay in the dorms freshman year. By doing the 700 building you will meet tons of kids and get the chance to bond with kids outside of your classes and potentially make friends for life. Being off-campus will keep you out of the loop on some things. Then go off-campus second year. </p>

<p>Also, take FULL advantage of BU’s community service opportunities before classes officially start. IIRC, this is the two weeks before classes officially start. A BUNCH of BU freshmen will be doing this and forming friendships BEFORE the regular group of freshman arrive on campus. This gets you also to explore Boston and get things set up before Boston becomes crazy busy.</p>

13

<p>Well I have to live on campus in their dorms freshman year, but thats just for the first semester. I don’t need to live on campus for the second semester of freshman year, where I would be commuting. Apparently its a very short bus ride from Central Square (whereas I assumes i would be traveling by T).</p>

<p>By commuting, I will make sure that I try to make a social connection with other the first semester. Hopefully I can do it, but if not I guess I can live there for another semester. It would be fairly expensive though =/.</p>