Carnegie Mellon or TCNJ?

[VeggieForce]

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SAT-2050. GPA about 4.68 (I dont know the GPA on 4.0 scale) Live in NJ.
Assuming that I don't get accepted into any med programs, I would like to go to TCNJ. I visited their campus and i immediately liked the feel to it. It's like a small community with a nice campus. TCNJ also attracts the smarter kids and is a good school academically I've been told and researched. However, I also looked at some "better" non-ivy league schools and I'm starting to like Carnegie Mellon too. I didnt visit, but took the virtual tour. However, Carnegie Mellon costs 50k and TCNJ costs 24k. And there are a lot smarter kids there which could be harder to maintain a higher GPA. And I still have to take the Math SatI Subject Test. I feel TCNJ is a really good fit for me (really good small, school, with good science program), but I feel I could learn more at Carnegie Mellon and be better prepared. What do you experienced guys think? Does this small difference between Carnegie Mellon and TCNJ really matter that much?

 

[indya]

SAT-2050. GPA about 4.68 (I dont know the GPA on 4.0 scale) Live in NJ.
Assuming that I don't get accepted into any med programs, I would like to go to TCNJ. I visited their campus and i immediately liked the feel to it. It's like a small community with a nice campus. TCNJ also attracts the smarter kids and is a good school academically I've been told and researched. However, I also looked at some "better" non-ivy league schools and I'm starting to like Carnegie Mellon too. I didnt visit, but took the virtual tour. However, Carnegie Mellon costs 50k and TCNJ costs 24k. And there are a lot smarter kids there which could be harder to maintain a higher GPA. And I still have to take the Math SatI Subject Test. I feel TCNJ is a really good fit for me (really good small, school, with good science program), but I feel I could learn more at Carnegie Mellon and be better prepared. What do you experienced guys think? Does this small difference between Carnegie Mellon and TCNJ really matter that much?

education is what you make of it. just because you go to carnegie mellon doesn't mean you will be learning more than at tcnj. go to whichever is cheaper.

 

[Richardh]

to veggieforce-it sounds like you're mind is leaning more towards for tcnj 🙂 i think you can make up the small differenceof being better prepared and learning more (by studying independently on your own, doing more extra-curriculars over the summer such as going abroad, researching at an institution, etc.) so i wouldn't worry about carnegie mellon. i personally prefer small classroom settings where i can interact closely with the professors and also my classmates 👍

 

[deleted316655]

I agree with the above poster. You definitely sound like you're leaning more towards TCNJ. It's a really nice school with a beautiful campus and friendly people/professors. You'll have a good time there if you end up going.

 

[VeggieForce]

Thanks! lots

 

[image187]

Go to TCNJ, you'll love it there, trust me. I've actually heard that it's extremely hard to get even decent grades at carnegie mellon, and I've known kids who went there and completely messed up their chances at med school just because it's so hard.

 

[Igor4sugry]

I am currently in med school, and I would advise to go to a good local university that is cheap. TCNJ is 24k/yr as you said and you will get good education. Remmember, you also have 4 years of med school at $30-50k/yr, so you don't want to be graduating med school with $300,000.00 (which some people are doing now).

Also, Carnegie Mellon is a hard core science school, and it will be much harder to maintain a good science GPA. Med schools don't factor in how "difficult" a school is when they look at your grades. An A from a local university is the same as an A from Carnegie Mellon, Yale, etc...
Also, don't assume you will get better science education just because the school has a big name.