NYU Shanghai Is NYU's "Bad School" Right?

NatSolo
Mon, 06 Apr 2015 03:54:52 +0000

I have a few things to say on the matter that may be of import to you in your decision making process. I am currently transferring to NYU New York for multiple reasons, though those are not the ones I’ll get into here.

1. If you're picking your college experience, and education based solely off "how hard it was to get it" then you're very seriously overlooking a lot of factors that can combine to create a better experience at one university which may not be available to you at another. Each university is unique to the student and provides a different feel. When I first started thinking about college sophomore year, I fell in love with USC on paper. I visited it in April of my junior year and was so perturbed by everything that I left halfway through the tour with my mom. Some schools fit, and others don't. If you're truly curious, come to candidate weekend and see. This decision to affiliate with a school, and its values which it will impart on you no matter what you do, shouldn't just be based on rank. When applying to NYUSH I was accepted to multiple top 20 institutions, all of which offered me scholarships and opportunities that this school did not. It was not that I was considering rank when I chose to attend NYU over any of those schools because if it were only about rank than I would have gone to Georgetown for instance. Someone commented that this school is very based in experiential learning and I believe that, that is 100% accurate. NYUSH is for a type of student that wants to get a different experience out of their collegiate education, namely that of moving to Shanghai and trying to immerse themselves in a different community. Diversity is truly its greatest asset, and I know I would not have achieved that dream attending NYU New York.

2. I don't think anybody, even yourself, can attest to the difficulty of admissions at NYU SH because so little data really is available, and if you ask me whether or not the data released is skewed I wouldn't be able to affirm or deny. That being said, I know many of the American students who came here turned down Ivy League institutions, I have never really been disappointed in my classmates' intellects. Certainly at this level of institution you'll be meeting the same students at NYU New York that you will be at Shanghai since most students were accepted to either location.

3. For business there is no better location than Stern in NYU, and I know many of my classmates do regret not going there instead. That being said, regret is a funny word, one can regret not taking a different opportunity, but had they not gone here they may have regretted it as well. As the first class of NYUSH many of us felt enamored with the opportunity to do something that nobody else had yet, and to be a part of something that hadn't been fleshed out. If these things don't appeal to you, then don't come. Every class is pioneering in their own way.

4. I'll be leaving for a multitude of reasons, but for me I found that I could not experiment with my academics, or with my interests as often, or as deeply here, and after two years with such a small class size, I found myself fitting in better with people who would come to study abroad here, than I did with my classmates. Which is not to say that I don't value and appreciate them as people, many of them are wonderful and well meaning, just that I had more in common over the last year with my friends who studied in New York, and with the people who visited our campus. Transferring into another NYU school wasn't difficult for me, but I also managed to keep my GPA up freshman year, which if you're taking STEM or are in Business classes can be much more difficult for students. I would advise you not to come if you think that transferring will be a backup route, especially since internal transfers to STERN and TISCH are very difficult in the first place.

5. I found the nature of your question to be very rude. It was as though you had already made the decision that NYU Shanghai was remedial NYU and are looking for affirmations from students and those around you that, because you're choosing between NYUSH and Stern you've got something over the students who've chosen differently. I think it would serve you well in the future to be less judgmental of different opportunities that may not appeal to you, and of the people who take them. One thing that NYUSH has taught me, which I am uniquely glad for, is that all life paths are different, and every person needs to follow the one that makes them feel most lively at the end of the day. It's easy to forget when applying to college in the same cookie-cutter way that everyone else is, that college needs to be an enriching and individual experience. This all being said, I think you should consider Stern because if you're going to come to a school with such a small class size, and think you're better than everyone there then you're not going to get anything out of it. Keep an open mind.

I’m not proof reading this so excuse my comma placement. I put them in whenever I pause as I write and often forget to remove them after.