URI vs. Northeastern vs. Rutgers

Started by colegebound793
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Hey there, went to URI for undergrad- pre med though.

What I do know about the pharm program is that if you don't get into the O-6 program your chances of getting into the pharm program are very slim- Sure a few students get in but its not a backup plan that many wouldn't bet on.
Great program, lots of opps to do research if that's your thing. Great faculty. Sweet new pharm building is coming soon- if not already.

Hope this helps
 
Regarding the con for New Jersey...I don't exactly know what you mean by "nothing to do". You would be within driving distance of both NYC (~40 miles) and Philadelphia (~70 miles) and also have access to Atlantic City when you turn 21. Of course this has nothing to do with the actual education, but I figured I would throw that out there for you.
 
I remember seeing a post on here about a guy who is accruing $300k in loans by going to Northeastern. That alone is why you shouldn't go to Northeastern. They sometimes give big scholarships, but even with those it's often more money than most other schools.
 
colegebound793 said:
no football team
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People actually care about college football in the northeast? Big East is a joke. (TCU will probably stomp everyone else year after year as long as Patterson is there.) Rutgers is much better value than NEU. Boston itself (not including Cambridge) is a city that happens to have many college students, not a "college town."
 
I went to Rutgers undergrad and for the most part.... there isn't that much to do BUT you make the best of it. Keep in mind you'll be in the pharmacy program (tough!) so theres not that much free time but here's a preview of what is there. For the most part, Rutgers is a small college town:

grease trucks - my absolute fav rutgers thing... yummy (unhealthy) fat sandwiches
NB downtown - small shops, plays (george st theatre), bars, clubs, restaurants
Shopping - they have buses on the weekends (at selected times) that takes you to the nearest nice mall - menlo park mall? (i'm not sure if thats still available).

It is a bit difficult without a car but the NE Corridor is down the street from campus and many students head to NYC on the weekends for the day. Sometimes if my friends want to go to the next city, we'll just cab it and split the bill. Eventually by our 3rd year, most of us had cars so things were much easier then.

Thinking about it now... I can't recall what I did in my first 2yrs at Rutgers but had a GREAT college experience at Rutgers b/c of my friends.
 
colegebound793 said:
But as a student, I wouldn't have access to a car. In Boston, the transportation is available (the T) and I would be able to walk to most places. The surrounding Boston area is more of a college town so I could find stuff to do almost any day of the week, right? I was just wondering what there is to do in New Jersey without a car?
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Well, besides the Rutgers bus system which takes you between the four campuses...there is also a train station located on college ave (I believe) which you could take to places like NYC (my friend does it all the time). I don't live on campus however so I'm just giving you the info that I know of from speaking to some people that do.
 
colegebound793 said:
Yeah, Northeastern is about 50,000 a year including room and board. I only got a 16,000 dean scholarship. The tuition is one of the biggest cons for me. :-/ But I wonder whether the benefits of Northeastern are worth the cost.
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I feel you 🙁 I also got accepted with scholarship but man, they're expensive. Even though the co-op sounds great for experience (one in hospital and one in retail), I heard it doesn't bring in much money so you can't count on that to help pay for tuition.

I got a chance to visit both NEU and RU so I'll give you my thoughts.
Northeastern
pros: co-op, boston is a fun area with tons to do, liked the campus, T is great transportation, in the heart of a medical area, heard hockey games are a lot of fun, you live in a LLC (learning and living community) with people in similar science-y majors
cons: expensive tuition and living costs, far from home

Rutgers
pros: cheaper tuition, prestigious program, good internship/research opportunities in NJ
cons: campus seemed pretty blah, not as much to do in surrounding area
 
011lxu said:
I feel you 🙁 I also got accepted with scholarship but man, they're expensive. Even though the co-op sounds great for experience (one in hospital and one in retail), I heard it doesn't bring in much money so you can't count on that to help pay for tuition.

I got a chance to visit both NEU and RU so I'll give you my thoughts.
Northeastern
pros: co-op, boston is a fun area with tons to do, liked the campus, T is great transportation, in the heart of a medical area, heard hockey games are a lot of fun, you live in a LLC (learning and living community) with people in similar science-y majors
cons: expensive tuition and living costs, far from home

Rutgers
pros: cheaper tuition, prestigious program, good internship/research opportunities in NJ
cons: campus seemed pretty blah, not as much to do in surrounding area
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I graduated from Northeastern this past year, but not for Pharmacy. Their program is really, really good and the Pharmacy I worked at on co-op (when I was trying to transfer into their Pharmacy program) loves NU students. There are countless pharmacies and internship opportunities in the immediate area and the school just keeps getting better each year. It is expensive but it is #1 in the country for internships, and it's one of the nicest campuses in the country as well. Hockey games are definitely a blast, although I wish NU would finally win a beanpot.

Hope this helps 🙂
 
Thanks for your input xsc614!

@colegebound793: Oh and I just remembered another con for northeastern...no summer vacation after freshman year. It's either classes or co-ops.

All of the other college campuses I visited had most buildings within walking distance. Rutgers was much more spread apart and you have to take buses most places, but I heard they come by something like every 6 minutes. The gym looked nice, and I think you can apply to honors the second year. The tour didn't stop by the pharmacy building so I went by myself afterwards. It was very plain and small. I guess all the labs and stuff were upstairs but I wasn't really impressed and kind of confused because I hear how good the program is. The people there seemed pretty nice. Since the pharmacy program has such a small class I bet it'd be pretty tight knit 🙂

Still waiting to hear back from Rutgers too:xf:. For pharmacy school, I'm between Rutgers Upitt (cheapest for me since I'm instate) and Northeastern. I applied to a few other regular colleges too, top choices of those are Johns Hopkins and Carnegie Mellon.
 
Same, I applied to the regular colleges on a whim during the second week of December. Which means my transcripts will arrive a bit late, but I sent them an email explaining why and am also going to do interviews so hopefully that helps. Some colleges have Jan. 15 deadline if you want to apply last minute haha.

I've been set on pharmacy since the end of junior year, but I know a good amount of people in college change majors, which is understandable. You still have the first two pre-professional years in pharmacy school to figure it out though 🙂 Luckily those courses overlap with several other health care majors.

Thanks, best of luck!
 
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