Touro VS Stern

Better question is which is better for shidduchim.

I can say anecdotally that all the women I know from touro honors are married, and I don’t know anyone married from stern honors.

shebbesonian: Are you considering Stafford loans, and other subsidized Federal loans , or the Hope Tax Credit (which covers about a third of the tuition at most public universities)?

There is a lot more to Federal aid than Pell grants

If you aren’t from the US, you should consider going to your home country for college. The US is somewhat on the miserly side in terms of paying for college. Most feel that going to a university in a foreign country is a luxury.

@BMHEE Both colleges are aware of how FAFSA works. They factor in financial aid based on the amount of sibilings (At least stern does). What I would suggest is calling up their respective financial offices and talk to them because they will be able to answer your specific questions and work with you. Asking us over here is not going to help unless you talk to them.

Touro will most likely give your daughter a full scholarship, and I would guess that Stern will give her at least $20,000/year (can’t be more precise than that, sorry). I think that Touro is a bit nicer than Stern when it comes to merit and financial aid in general.

akuperma: thanks, for an american they could probably get them but i don’t think i qualify. either way though, i didn’t want to go back to my home country for college because there is no yeshiva/college program that offers a bais medrash anywhere near as serious as the ones in america. but for me the cost doesn’t matter, not because i’m filthy rich, but because i did qualify for substantial academic scholarships.

Popa, anecdotally, I know people married from both, but I know more people from Stern who are married than I know people who are married from Touro.

BMHEE: I speak from a LOT of personal experience here. (I’m basically about to blow my cover on here, but as I barely post here anymore I don’t care so much. In fact, if your daughter goes to my school she may know me.) I just went through this process, and I know a lot about each school.

I’m assuming your daughter’s in eleventh grade- otherwise you’re a bit late.

Stern currently costs $36,600 plus room and board (mods, please let this link through- it’s all of the information they have sorry, no links ). I actually think that Touro may charge per credit- I cannot make head or tail of their website (located here sorry, no links – mods, again, please let this through)- plus room and board. Stern’s room and board costs more than Touro’s does.

Apparently Lander Honors has gotten more picky this year- they raised the SAT score necessary for scholarships. What’s your daughter’s CR+M score? Both Stern and Touro ignore writing.

Stern no longer gives full scholarships- they give up to $30,000. Touro does give full scholarships. Your daughter is definitely in the running for one- I know people with similar stats who received them.

Your daughter will NOT be overshadowed with her current stats. Most of my friends- who got into both colleges with generous scholarships- had similar or lesser stats and did absolutely fine. A better SAT score will not hurt you, but it may not help either.

Both do take applicant interest into account. If you really want to get a good scholarship to Stern, apply ED- they get a lot of applications from day school kids who apply as a safety if they don’t get into Ivy League schools, so if you show you’re really interested you’ll get first dibs at the scholarship money. Same with Touro, but as they have a built in student base (the kind of students who won’t consider Stern at all) they also have the luxury of being able to turn people down who are on the fence. Either way, apply to both ED- if you cannot swing it financially after receiving scholarship offers, you will have the opportunity to back out within a certain time window.

Both also rely on interviews for their honors programs. In Stern, the interviews are a BIG DEAL. Your interview can REALLY make or break your scholarship package. In Touro, it’s somewhat less so- the interviews are more chilled and I’m pretty sure they carry somewhat less weight.

All else being equal (which it may or may not be for you), I’d say that Touro is more likely to give a better scholarship.

(For full disclosure, I applied to both schools’ honors programs with the same SAT but a worse GPA. I’m going to Stern with a scholarship.)

Hatzlacha to your daughter! If you have any other questions about the application process at either school, please let me know.

Oh well, mods, it was worth a try… BMHEE, the sites I linked to (attempted to link to, that is) are pretty easily accessible on each college’s web site, though it can take a bit of maneuvering to get to the right part of the Touro site. (I therefore picked Stern… 🙂 )

Also, sorry about the somewhat incoherent style above- I was trying to corral all of my thoughts together in the ten minutes I had before Shabbos :). If you need any clarification of what I wrote or have further questions, PLEASE let me know.

I’d honestly advise that your daughter apply to both schools early decision. There is no downside that I can see besides for earlier deadlines.

Popa: Saying that I know more people from Stern than from Touro who have gotten married is not erroneous or flimsy. It merely means that my friend who I’m going to Stern with has a bunch of sisters and sisters in law.

Actually, based on this totally empirical study we seem to have set up here, judging from my perfectly researched evidence, the most people get married from Sarah Schenirer. After all, my cousins…

BMHEE-

I went to Touro Flatbush, but I’m pretty sure that Touro Manhattan works the same way. They are primarily concerned with composite SAT scores from the critical reading and math sections.

I got a composite 1480 from those two sections, and I had a 99 GPA in high school. They gave me a $13,500 scholarship for the year (the total tuition was $15,000 at the time). They told me that if I retook the SAT and got 20 points higher, they would give me a full scholarship. I decided it wasn’t worth it, since I got $1,500 from the NYS Regents scholarship, which covered the rest of my tuition.

At the time that I entered college, from what I hear I could’ve gotten a full scholarship to Stern based on my SAT scores. However, they apparently no longer give full scholarships. You would have to check out all these details.

In the long run, I think that Touro Manhattan is the better deal, since it gives you what you need without the outrageous expense of Stern.

stern is MUCH easier to get into and MUCH easier to get scholarships compared to the college im thinking of which is highly looked upon and many people come here to go to that college since its very high reputation. im not going to say the college because otherwise youll know where i live. i know someone who got full scholarships to stern and did not get into the honor program or any scholarship to that school. its looked upon like harvard is. the obvious reason why im going to a school the same level as stern is because the school im referring to is MUCH harder.

Stern no longer gives full scholarships- they give $10-25000 depending on scores and when you apply. They have a big commitment to financial aid, but non-FA merit money is dwindling.

I go there and it’s a great school- I really love it. I also have friends who love Touro. I’m currently a bio major and I chose Stern for that reason- their program and guidance are top-notch. For other departments, Touro can easily be just as good. There are pros and cons- Stern is more rooted and has more amenities but Touro has more cash flow. One is bigger (though nowhere near huge) and one is smaller. Both are very yeshivish-friendly, but one will have a much larger yeshivish population, which makes a difference to some people. Both will have class material which may be objectionable- PLEASE do not think that because you’re going to a Jewish college, and kal vachomer Touro, that everything will be al taharas hakodesh. My Touro friends complain all the time about extremely inappropriate things they were forced to read in English classes.

YU in general is very easy to get into because they see themselves as a flagship MO institution and therefore want to attract as many such students as possible. To get into honors is harder, but no, it’s not nearly the same level of difficulty to get into as Harvard. Almost no schools are as difficult to get into as Harvard. (Though my friends at Harvard tell me that while there’s a lot more pressure there, they don’t believe that the classes themselves are more difficult there than at other colleges. They feel, after sitting in on classes in other schools, that the classes are equally rigorous. And my friend at Barnard who takes Columbia classes finds them not to be more difficult than how I described some of my current Stern classes.)

Stern isn’t harder or easier than anything- or you wouldn’t know it until you tried every single class to compare to every single other class at every single other institution.

It’s very academically rigorous.

I’m in the bio program- currently taking chem 1 and cell biology (took AP bio so placed out of bio for majors)- taking chem 2 and microbio next semester. (First semester after seminary, though I’m technically a sophomore.) The bio track is very good, with generally excellent professors who are close with and helpful to the students, letting them work in their labs, answering career-related questions, etc. The premed advisors are also super helpful. I’m really happy I chose to come here.

The chem track is apparently also good, but it’s much less popular than the bio track so apparently if you want to take higher level chem (like analytical, inorganic) it can be more of a patchke to get a class together.

There are plenty of girls here who go on to med school (a LOT), dental school, different therapies, optometry school, pharmacy school, etc. They all have great support networks. (I’m currently considering my options- working toward med school but not fully sold on it yet.)

i actually heard the exact opposite.

writer soul – out of curiosity why do you think i am majoring in chemistry? i happen to like it a lot but that doesnt mean im majoring in it i have considered it but that doesnt mean thats what im doing at this point im probably more likely to get a degree in bio.

writer soul – the pre pharmacy program requires as much bio as chemistry than you could have assumed i was doing a bio degree as well.

With the caveat that my information is a few years past:

I was accepted to both Touro and Stern Honors programs. I originally wanted to go to Stern, thinking the academics were better.

However, I planned to pay my own way through college, and Stern offered me a financial aid package that would have left me deeply in debt, and I wasn’t going into debt to get a BA, which is basically a high school diploma nowadays.

So I went to Touro Honors, where I got multiple scholarships which covered my entire tuition minus a few hundred dollars a year plus books. I did a lot of research before picking classes and professors, and never had a professor without a PhD in my major and minor areas.

Touro is cheaper in general, but the quality of instructors is more consistent in Stern.

I am very pleased with my Touro undergraduate education. I think Touro is better for the self-motivated student who knows what their goals are and has a plan to get there. It is definitely better for a yeshivish girl who wants to remain yeshivish.

Trust me, it’s still very often frequented 🙂 – it reopened (to everyone’s relief) a few weeks ago.

It also has Mendy’s, Tiberias, and Eden Wok.

Torah: I agree with most of what you say (and the self-motivation part is one of the reasons why I didn’t want to go to Touro- one of the higher-ups there called me to convince me to go and talked a lot about how individual people had taken initiative, and not that there were frameworks in place to help. I’m not a huge get-up-and-go person and I didn’t want this to seriously hamper my college experience) except for where you imply that it’s harder to stay yeshivish in Stern. I haven’t found this to be true- as I mentioned, I know a very yeshivish girl- a senior- who, while not dorming, is very involved in Stern, to which she commutes from Lakewood every day. She is friends with many different girls from many different backgrounds. If you want to be more likely to have exclusively yeshivish friends, then definitely go to Touro. But not having that doesn’t predispose stopping to be yeshivish. (That said, people who are mindful do often take precautions- like my friend, who is either very yeshivish or very RWMO- she can’t decide which- and is currently in a “Bais Yaakov room” with girls from BY seminaries.) There are plenty of yeshivish and VERY RWMO girls who stay the same throughout (and I plan to be one of them).

The girls who change with peer pressure are the ones who weren’t solid in their specific hashkafos to begin with. Perhaps more like-minded girls might help preserve status quo, but no more than that.

Also, apropos of nothing- just curious- I only mention this because my friends both at Lander and Flatbush both complain about this, but what was your experience with objectionable content in your courses? Specifically, was anyone ever successful in appealing to administration? (One of my friends is at her wit’s end and wants to know if there’s anything she can do.)

writersoul- about your friend from Lakewood, it’s very different when you’re not dorming in Stern.

writersoul- fair enough.

Thanks for conceding it’s not a den of tumah! 🙂

You’re right, it’s not ideal for a yeshivish girl who wants a yeshivish sviva. But it’s still not to be dismissed as a viable environment for a yeshivish girl.