Cal State Northridge or Sac State?

annikasorrensen
Sun, 27 Mar 2011 18:18:42 +0000

In reality, the ranking difference between Sac and CSUN is negligible and both in the state of California and the rest of the US, no normal person could distinguish between the two. They are two fine CSUs in the middle of the pack. People might be able to distinguish between say Cal Poly (tops for many majors) or a CSUDH (pretty much bottom of the pack) but that’s about it. Even grad schools won’t care about Sac vs CSUN, it is a wash.

So, the criteria you should use in my opinion is which sets yourself up for a strong 2 year finish. It may be that staying closer to home where you know the area, can get home for visits easier, etc is better. Or you may find that in your MAJOR, one of the two actually has a better suited program for you–see which offers a better range of classes or subspecialties.

You are right - you have the rest of your life to go exploring and live in strange new places. So pick a CSU that suits your academic needs for now.

You seriously need to do a road trip and visit both campuses ASAP. Check out the dorms/city/parking situation. Does the library feel safe at night? Do you like the buildings you will be spending most your time in? Etc. For example, SJSU has a state of the art brand new library and the pictures online look great. However, when I visited it, there were a lot of shady looking characters hanging out from off the streets and there was a “disturbance” that had an entire floor of people in the library, myself included, hitting the floor in fear. Granted, this probably doesn’t happen every day, but the strange folks off the street are a staple of that library.

Maybe for you “library” isn’t the deciding factor. Pick 2, maybe 3 make or break items and check out the campuses for yourself. Someone else might love SJSU, but it would have never been the place for me.