UCal, NYU or UPenn (costs, schools, best, easiest)

[stunna]

Hey all,

im currently in business school in australia and thinking of doing either a half year or full year exchange to a college in the states. Ive narrowed it down to 3 colleges at the moment:
1) UCal berkeley (I have family in san francisco)
2) NYU
3) Uni of Pennsylvania

Could people give me some opinions on which they would choose? and some information on the towns they are in plus any other information? would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

[jps-teacher]

Originally Posted by stunna

Hey all,

im currently in business school in australia and thinking of doing either a half year or full year exchange to a college in the states. Ive narrowed it down to 3 colleges at the moment:
1) UCal berkeley (I have family in san francisco)
2) NYU
3) Uni of Pennsylvania

Could people give me some opinions on which they would choose? and some information on the towns they are in plus any other information? would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Personally, I would choose Berkeley, but not for any reasons that are necessarily yours - I happen to like it most of those 3 cities.

"Some information on the towns they are in" is a tad vague for me to go very far with. The SF Bay area is the smallest of the three in terms of populations. Philly has the largest number of colleges and college students. New York, New York has more business going on than the others.

What do you care about? Weather? Number of plays opening per year? Museums, bikability, ease of getting to large chunks of other parts of the US? Average height of buildings, crime rate, percentage of strangers who will talk to you on the public transit? Number of songs written about it, library system, ratio of beggars to pedestrians?

To my experience, Wharton (UPenn) is the best known of the programs - but I confess to having no idea if a) that is true in Australia, or b) it is even remotely important to you.

Do you have specific goals to accomplish in such a half-year or full year exchange? Are there things you want to learn from your institution, beyond the exchange experience itself?

[stunna]

As far as i know wharton and stern business schools are very highly ranked, however i am considering berkeley as i have a lot of family in SF.
I guess the most important things to me are crime rate, weather, night life, ability to easily get around the city- well thats all i can think of now.


The main thing i want to get out of the exchange is to meet new people and have the experience of living in a different environment.

[jps-teacher]

Originally Posted by stunna

As far as i know wharton and stern business schools are very highly ranked, however i am considering berkeley as i have a lot of family in SF.
I guess the most important things to me are crime rate, weather, night life, ability to easily get around the city- well thats all i can think of now.


The main thing i want to get out of the exchange is to meet new people and have the experience of living in a different environment.

Crime rate is lowest in NYC. San Francisco is worse than Philly in non-violent crime, but quite a bit better in violent crime.

Theoretically, Sydney is the equivalent of NYC, but NSW's crime stats carefully excludes calculations of Sydney from their "top 50" categories, because of non-resident crime and the difficulty of filtering out all those tourists!

Again, I suggest Weather.com for looking at and comparing the cities for that. Each of the cities and colleges will fulfill your "new people" and "different environment" desires. NYC is probably the easiest to get around by public transit, but also the one with the most places to get around to! San Francisco is hillier - I personally think it is prettier, too, and that it is easier to get out to 'the country' from.

NYC and Philly are about equally easy as staging grounds for seeing large numbers of touristy things up and down the east coast - and easier for visiting other cities from than SF is, simply because of how the east coast is crammed together. (Look at views of the US from a night time satellite and you will see what I mean, I suspect.)

In turn, SF is easier to start from if you want to get out to natural wonders like the Rockies and the Grand Canyon.

From the sounds of things, I might make the decision based on a) what you want to see more, b) if cost of living is a factor, and c) if you actually want to see that part of your family more or less.

[Mar0]

I think all of the schools are more or less comparable and therefore you should make your judgment about where you want to be location wise. Perhaps research the cities more and make your decision thusly.

[Viralmd]

You might also want to check into costs of living: San Francisco and NYC are WAY up there....

[stunna]

Being from australia i usually just hear about the crime in the US, so my main priority is to be in a considerably safe city. High cost of living isnt really a problem for me.

[K-Luv]

Originally Posted by stunna

Being from australia i usually just hear about the crime in the US, so my main priority is to be in a considerably safe city. High cost of living isnt really a problem for me.

Well, and us Americans think that everyone in Oz is like Crocodile Dundee.

Crime is about the same in both countries; if you feel safe in an Australian city then you can expect about the same in an American city.

UCB is probably the best school on your list. NYU, while a great school, has some problems with student housing; mainly that it is too ridiculously expensive, even by New York standards. And NYU is probably harder to get into then the other two.

[jps-teacher]

Originally Posted by K-Luv

NYU is probably harder to get into then the other two.

On the exchange program, I believe that is not the case.

[pennquaker09]

Wharton is the best business school in the country, and definitely the hardest to get into. Even more so out of the country.