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I appreciate the help, guys! Good thing I asked and learned more about Hillsborough. I thought I finally found a perfect place -- great schools, affordable home, safe place, and a convenient commute. You wouldn't know this things (about traffic conditions and alike) unless you ask someone who actually is from the place. OK. Back to the drawing board.
Sayreville - fast commute, very safe place, affordable homes, average school
Hillsborough - very safe place, affordable homes, great schools, horrible commute
Piscataway - fast commute, affordable homes, average school system
How about East Brunswick? I heard the area have great schools, commute by bus, safe place, but a little expensive. Maybe I can stretch my max price to 325K. Can anyone comment about East Brunswick?
Thanks for the help again.
East Brunswick has excellent schools. I have friends that had their children in those schools. It's a good safe town to live.
Also check out South River which is adjacent to East Brunswick. It is one of the best kept secrets. It also has lower taxes.
I appreciate the help, guys! Good thing I asked and learned more about Hillsborough. I thought I finally found a perfect place -- great schools, affordable home, safe place, and a convenient commute. You wouldn't know this things (about traffic conditions and alike) unless you ask someone who actually is from the place. OK. Back to the drawing board.
Sayreville - fast commute, very safe place, affordable homes, average school
Hillsborough - very safe place, affordable homes, great schools, horrible commute
Piscataway - fast commute, affordable homes, average school system
How about East Brunswick? I heard the area have great schools, commute by bus, safe place, but a little expensive. Maybe I can stretch my max price to 325K. Can anyone comment about East Brunswick?
Thanks for the help again.
East Brunswick is around an hour commute, GREAT schools (better than Hillsborough if it makes you happy), safe and a bit more expensive, although prices are dropping. It is right off Exit 9 on the turnpike so you have a good bus service from there and also the NE corridor line.
BTW Piscataway isn't so bad school wise, you have to realize that middle class NJ is very snobby about its schools so people will turn up their noses at schools other states would be more than happy to have.
Look at North Brunswick too.
Also look into Middletown/Atlantic Highlands region and Matawan - not sure about prices (I do know that Middletown has good schools) and they have an express ferry to Manhattan that should keep you under an hour.
Also look at Morris County - Denville is fairly affordable. I don't know the area THAT well but ask someone from the region. Morris tends to be fairly decent commute-wise.
Trouble is - NJ isn't that cheap and you want a lot - great schools, quiet, safe, easy commute and cheap. Unfortunately on some level, something has to give. Probably nothing you can do about the money. Understand that the "second tier" school systems such as South River and Sayerville and Piscataway are still VERY good, the kids with problems in them tend to have less attentive parents. And you should also understand that in the TOP TOWN school systems there is a lot of social/money pressure of kids wearing the right labels, the right shoes and later driving the right cars.
BTW Piscataway isn't so bad school wise, you have to realize that middle class NJ is very snobby about its schools so people will turn up their noses at schools other states would be more than happy to have.
We're not in some other state. We pay the highest property taxes in the country and therefore we expect more. Within NJ, Piscataway/Sayreville etc schools are just average. I could compare them to schools in Bumbledunk, South Carolina, but what would be the point?
Piscataway near Dunellen Train Station area may be a good fit to you, and you can see many houses sold under $300,000 at craigslist.org http://cnj.craigslist.org/search/rfs?query=piscataway&minAsk=min&maxAsk=300%2C000 (broken link)
This area has been highly recommend by Forbes magazine as Most Livable suburb in Greater NYC area on 10-11-07.
Disregard my request for URL, I found it. It refers to the North Stelton area. Surprising.
Also look into Middletown/Atlantic Highlands region and Matawan - not sure about prices (I do know that Middletown has good schools) and they have an express ferry to Manhattan that should keep you under an hour.
Yes--Middletown would be another good place to look. Homes are a more expensive than in Sayreville, but Middletown is HUGE and I know you could find something. Train to Penn is about an hour and fifteen.
I was in the East Brunswick school system and Spotswood (similar to Sayreville and South River). I graduated from Spotswood in the top ten of my class and went on to get my degree from Douglass at Rutgers (3.6 GPA). Given the choice I would not send my child to East Brunswick. Yes, they offer a lot more electives and perhaps more AP classes, but unless you have higher than a 4.0 GPA, you won't even be a blip on the screens of people reviewing transcripts. EB tests well, but there are other factors to consider (class size, ability for all students to participate, etc.) so I don't think the smaller "average" schools should be thrown by the wayside just because they don't rank as high as EB. Just an opinion from somebody who has experienced both.
We're not in some other state. We pay the highest property taxes in the country and therefore we expect more. Within NJ, Piscataway/Sayreville etc schools are just average. I could compare them to schools in Bumbledunk, South Carolina, but what would be the point?
We do pay high property taxes - and our schools show that.
The trouble with the whole "just average" thing with many school districts is that they are judged that way based on average numbers. If you take the time to actually pull apart the statistics on many districts (discounting real horror shows like Camden, Newark, New Brunswick and the like) you will usually find that they have disadvantaged groups that score low and pull the averages down. Comparing like groups (middle class, educated parents) the scores from top school district to middle school district are practically identical. Why? Because school success is predicated more on parental involvement than anything else.
Plus, if you look at the "top towns" that tout college entrance, you will frequently find that the majority of them are legacies - the kids get in because their parents went there or are connected to the school. Joe Shmoe who's mom stays home and dad is an accountant and who squeeked into that district doesn't actually stand a better chance of a better school, in fact he is likely to get pushed out by the legacies.
I just find it a bit sad when people feel bullied/pressured into overpaying (frequently by 100's of thousands of dollars) to live in a certain district by statistics that don't actually apply to them or their personal situation. It may be that less stress and more time with the family would be better FOR their family. And who wants to be the poor kid in a hoity toity district anyway? I know of a couple of poorer kids in Princeton school district who hate it because they are always one step behind financially. Plus those top districts aren't always safer - Princeton High has problems with gangs and violence.
And just for comparison - I send my kids to a regular school district (Franklin) and the school is fabulous, we have more programs and a better student/teacher ratio than nearby "aren't we so wonderful for overpaying for our house" districts. And the district sends kids to Ivy League schools every year and plenty go to Rutgers and other good universities. And funnily enough, our average score is dragged down in part because we have one of the best programs for autistic kids in the region. Many people with autistic/aspergers syndrome kids move here specifically for those programs and those kids are lumped in with the averages. Is everything roses? No. But it is certainly not the black hole that people seem to want to paint. My kids are safe, they appear to be getting a good education and I am not going bankrupt to pay for it.
BTW Piscataway school system is very average. And the homes under 300K are crap.
Oh yah? So, how come there were 10 students at Piscataway High School won #1 in NJ FBLA business competitions over hundreds of All other high schools? They also represent NJ to Chicago compete nation wide...
How many #1 your school got in FBLA competition 2007 ?
We're not in some other state. We pay the highest property taxes in the country and therefore we expect more. Within NJ, Piscataway/Sayreville etc schools are just average. I could compare them to schools in Bumbledunk, South Carolina, but what would be the point?
Really? Colin from Piscataway High School just got #1 in NJ Economics competition win over hundreds of ALL other high school... His SAT got full score and got full scholarship from Rutgers Univ and may go to Columbia Univ. how about your schools?
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