College Park Gemstone or NYU? Advice please.

umcp11
Fri, 02 Apr 2010 15:18:57 +0000

Equally respected. There is no difference. Grad school apps are point and shoot GPA combo…then they look at your involvement/etc…comparing between two respected schools is last on their minds. Gemstone, however, would look FANTASTIC on a grad school resume. It’s a lot of hard work to be in that program, and it shows. If it’s MD + Gemstone versus NYU + no similar intensive doctoral like research papers…then of course MD would come out on top.

I know comp sci at MD is ranked higher than comp sci at NYU.

Engineering is probably ranked higher at MD.

My guess is finance is ranked higher at NYU.

It’s not like one is Harvard and one is a Louisiana State satellite campus :P, though. So that ranking crap doesn’t matter.

I think it’s going to come down to what environment you like best. NYU is a city campus, MD is a traditional college campus with access to a nearby city. They’re very different. If you’re into sports, obviously MD is the way to go. If you don’t give a damn, then eh. MD has beautiful green lawns but as engineering major unfortunately your classes are on the ugly half of campus. I imagine the student body is quite different, too. MD has a lot of Average Joes - even the sorostitutes (ahem, excuse me, lol) wear sweatpants to class :). I have this image of NYU students being very hipster or more well-off generally, etc. But I’ve never been there. So I have no clue. Entertaining yourself, eating, housing, etc. in the city is probably more expensive. So you may find it somewhat easier at MD to go out, grocery shop, etc. without breaking the bank, and it may be easier to hold down an internship in the DC-area as opposed to in Manhattan. Considering you got a full ride, though, seems like it’d be fairly easy to work while in school and support yourself in either case.

I would be curious to know what campus involvement is like versus campus involvement at UMD. From what I have heard (second-hand), there’s more of a campus community at MD, in terms of large showing to campus events etc. Makes sense since College Park itself is not so exciting…NYU’s immediate area…well that’s a different story. But, perhaps the campus community makes it easier to be part of the leadership on campus and plan larger events. I dunno. Might wanna look into that.

You have two great options, though…full ride to both…way to go ;).