IU-Bloomington or Villanova?

charlieschm
Wed, 28 Mar 2012 14:17:05 +0000

If you want to go to Nova’s business school, you really need to be admitted as a freshman. I was told is very very hard to transfer into the business school. If you want to minor in business, a student often has to go to summer school. The backup is to major in economics as an arts and sciences student, which overlaps with some business school courses. Both the business school and arts and sciences have an economics major.

(Freshman admission to the business school is harder than admission to arts and sciences.)

Philadelphia is a great city and rail access into the city from Villanova is convenient. However, there is not much within walking distance of Villanova, except a pizza place and a Staples.

Villanova has a housing shortage that won’t be resolved for at least a couple years. About half of freshmen live in double rooms converted into triples. Off-campus housing is expensive.

Villanova is a great size. However, the student body is not diverse - lots of white suburban affluent kids from the Middle Atlantic States. It was the only selective university I visited that had very few Asian students. People joke that the African-American students are mainly athletes.

I’d imagine you will have much smaller classes at Villanova. My son sat in a couple first year science classes with only 25 students. At a large public university, there might be 500.

Villanova has more required classes than a public university, including theology and ethics. Some people complain that it limits choices during your freshman year.