comment_kp1782y
Comment_kp1782y
Macaulay advantages are:
- Money. Obvious. You will have no need for loans, most likely, so can graduate debt-free. That leaves you more resources for grad school, etc.
- CUNY. You get the enormous resources of an institution the size of the city of Boston. Especially if you have unique or interdisciplinary interests, there will be someone in CUNY who can work with you. You might need to do CUNY BA, but that’s doable. Also CUNY faculty (on average) tend to be better teachers, more dedicated to undergraduates, instead of only caring about their own research.
- Diversity. It might be a bad word these days, but it really is a good thing for your education to have all kinds of people from all over the world, with all kinds of different life experience, in your classes. Macaulay might be less diverse than the rest of CUNY, but it’s WAY more diverse than any Ivy, and you are also in CUNY for most of your classes. In any Ivy, the vast majority of your classmates (practically all) will be white, privileged, and will not have grown up in a major city. Think suburbs.
- NYC. The greatest city in the history of the world. (I know. Columbia is an Ivy. But other than that)
Ivy advantages:
- Name and prestige. It does help. It does matter in your career and your status to say “I went to Harvard” (or other).
- Connections. You meet people whose parents can take you to Switzerland. Get you into grad school. Or get you a job.
- Resources. You won’t have to struggle to get the classes you want. You won’t have broken down buildings with rodent infestations. The administrative offices will be responsive and polite and efficient. CUNY is a huge bureaucracy with no resources (and this is getting worse). Macaulay shields you from some of that. But not all. It’s still CUNY with all the good (above) and the bad.
- The residential college experience. If you want that, you can get it at an Ivy. Most people there will also be full time students, living on campus or nearby.