Rutgers or Lehigh CSB

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Male

$15,010 at Rutgers $16,000 at Lehigh

$3,000 parent contribution for both colleges

Computer Science at Rutgers CAS and Lehigh CSB HOnors Program at COE AND SOB

Starting in the fall

Careers goals: Cybersecurity analyst, Database/Systems Administrator, Data Science, IT (Unsure as of now but one of these)

Freshman year start

From North NJ

Rutgers ~200-300 in freshman classes, lots of school spirit, 20 miles from home, many frats and sororities, diverse student body, huge campus where buses are needed, 8/10 food,no internship help

and

Lehigh ~20-50 in freshman classes (from what I know), 80 miles from home, frats and sorority at a smaller scale, not much school spirit the day I visited, majority white/slight asian, walkable campus with steep hills, 4/10 food, much more internship help than rutgers

I’m catering more to Rutgers but wondering what the trade off is for going to a big school with a hated and supposedly underfunded CS department

versus a smaller school with what seems like professors who care and a program where everyone seems to know each other

Applied to Rutgers because of the reputation in the state and the proximity to home, applied to Lehigh because of the ranking for National Universities(#46)

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Nice choices! I think you’ve got the basics of each college right. Your call on which you prefer. I’d pick purely on vibes since you know the pros/cons already. I don’t think you’ll see a material difference in outcomes.

I will say that Lehigh, while smaller, is still a D1 school, so basketball season can be a good time, especially if they’re having a good season. But even when Rutgers is losing, the games are a bunch of fun if that’s what you mean by school spirit. You’ll fight for more classes at Rutgers, but if you’re ok with that, then it’s a great Big 10, D1 college experience in your backyard.

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Unless I am missing something, your career goals don’t indicate much interest in doing something businessy for undergrad.

In that case, I would definitely go with Rutgers if that is the college you overall prefer (and it seems you do).