Anonymous
05/13/2025 13:18
Subject: WVU or CNU?
Anonymous wrote:Seems too soon to try to decide between two schools. Apply, visit, and see what happens next year. Students can still change their mind and I think there are a range of other schools to consider besides CNU and WVU. What got you and your student down to these two in particular?
Out of the schools visited thus far and their interest, these are the two that they thought would be a good fit. Like I said, they didn't like VCU. UMW and GMU are too close to home. Longwood felt off to them. UTK, JMU, UVA, VT are out of their range. We have yet to visit some of the Carolina schools (ECU, Coastal, App State) and Radford is being considered but they feel that their peers think of it as CC adjacent.
Anonymous
05/13/2025 13:13
Subject: WVU or CNU?
Seems too soon to try to decide between two schools. Apply, visit, and see what happens next year. Students can still change their mind and I think there are a range of other schools to consider besides CNU and WVU. What got you and your student down to these two in particular?
Anonymous
05/13/2025 13:03
Subject: WVU or CNU?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:WVU is for guys who like to party and wear boots. Why not JMU?
Sounds like maybe their student’s grades won’t make the cut for JMU.
OP, have you given any thought to somewhere like Loyola MD or St. Joe’s in Philly? They may be appealing options for your student. Solid medium-sized schools that are less competitive for admissions and have D1 sports teams.
OP here. I will look into Loyola MD but St. Joe is too urban. I don't know anything about Loyola, MD.
St. Joe’s is in Philly but right on the edge of the city and straddles a quiet residential neighborhood. It’s a really nice campus and worth a visit if you haven’t been. Loyola is in Baltimore and has a similar feel to St. Joe’s. Both are medium-sized Jesuit colleges with strong sports and nice student body.
Agreed, these are great schools!
Re West Virginia, is the problem that fewer kids from the state are attending college? We live in a Pittsburgh suburb and we have a steady stream of B+ kids who choose to go there.
Yes...West Virginia is last in many things, though I did see they were #1 for obesity rates.
Anonymous
05/13/2025 12:59
Subject: WVU or CNU?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:WVU is for guys who like to party and wear boots. Why not JMU?
Sounds like maybe their student’s grades won’t make the cut for JMU.
OP, have you given any thought to somewhere like Loyola MD or St. Joe’s in Philly? They may be appealing options for your student. Solid medium-sized schools that are less competitive for admissions and have D1 sports teams.
OP here. I will look into Loyola MD but St. Joe is too urban. I don't know anything about Loyola, MD.
St. Joe’s is in Philly but right on the edge of the city and straddles a quiet residential neighborhood. It’s a really nice campus and worth a visit if you haven’t been. Loyola is in Baltimore and has a similar feel to St. Joe’s. Both are medium-sized Jesuit colleges with strong sports and nice student body.
Agreed, these are great schools!
Re West Virginia, is the problem that fewer kids from the state are attending college? We live in a Pittsburgh suburb and we have a steady stream of B+ kids who choose to go there.
Anonymous
05/13/2025 12:59
Subject: WVU or CNU?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:OP here. I want to keep this thread on target please because DC is really trying to find the pros/cons of each of these two schools. They are not interested in VCU. They aren't partiers (yet. As I stated in the OP) but will get into the sports scene if that's offered or the club sports scene if they can participate or even play their sport. They are leaning towards a degree in physical therapy, sports science, nursing, pre-nursing etc.
Fine, OP, but what the hell do you want to know? The two schools could not be more different. One is much smaller, division 3, no fun, no name, no real grad programs, very regional, nobody’s ever heard of it, etc., while the other is big time sports ins fun college town and is party city. With those majors, it doesn’t matter which one the kid goes to. He’s gonna get a job. Just go with your gut and stop pulling your hair out over it.
Fair enough. I suppose I was looking to see if anyone had experience with the type of kid that thrived at those schools or if any parent could speak to their experience with those schools or maybe someone on here tried to make a similar decision or if anyone had more specific insight they wished to share. Just a discussion. It's understood that the schools are different and I tried to explain that DC wasn't a partier so the fact that CNU is quieter is not a negative to us and the fact that WVU is a party school isn't a positive or a negative.
Anonymous
05/13/2025 12:58
Subject: WVU or CNU?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:CNU is D3, so it will never ever compare to D1 sports from a rah rah spectator perspective.
WVU is aggressively trying to attract students because their enrollment has declined by like 1/3 over the last 10 years. You may be surprised what merit they will provide. Obviously, just apply and see what happens.
Very interesting. Is there a graph of the student body population you know of? I had no idea this was happening.
So, there are many negative news articles about WVU if you do a search...they are cutting a number of programs and professors.
Yes, never good...but they are still making a big push to increase enrollment and the normal popular majors are not really impacted. Here is a blurb from an article:https://newrepublic.com/article/176202/west-virginia-university-higher-education-enrollment-cliff-cuts
Some, though, were in outright denial—perhaps none more so than Gee of West Virginia. In 2017, he announced a plan to grow WVU enrollment from 28,409—after a decade of holding steady between 28,000 and 29,700—to 40,000 by 2020, and spent accordingly on debt-financed building projects and industry partnerships. “Of course, we will be careful with our growth,” Gee said at the time. “We will protect the quality of life that we love in this community, and we will not overburden our infrastructure.” The opposite has come true: WVU had a little over 26,000 students in 2023 and was $33 million in debt during the last fiscal year—yet has continued to spend. The future is no brighter: The university projects a loss of 5,000 students over the next decade due to reduced enrollment, costing it $72.5 million.
Omg...very concerning...
I have no dog in this fight and am not a WVU booster...but they are not cutting the popular majors and in a perverse way, they will offer even better deals to OOS students to attend. It is the flagship, so the state will not allow it to implode.
Anonymous
05/13/2025 12:57
Subject: WVU or CNU?
If he likes smaller towns and mountains, has he considered Appalachian State University in Boone, NC or the University of Virginia at Wise?
Anonymous
05/13/2025 12:56
Subject: WVU or CNU?
Anonymous wrote:OP here. I want to keep this thread on target please because DC is really trying to find the pros/cons of each of these two schools. They are not interested in VCU. They aren't partiers (yet. As I stated in the OP) but will get into the sports scene if that's offered or the club sports scene if they can participate or even play their sport. They are leaning towards a degree in physical therapy, sports science, nursing, pre-nursing etc.
I think you’re getting so many different opinions because WVU and CNU are really not similar to each other at all so it’s very hard to compare them to one another.
If your DC likes WVU, would they like JMU or Towson or East Carolina? If they like CNU would they like UMW or Longwood or Elon?
Anonymous
05/13/2025 12:55
Subject: Re:WVU or CNU?
Anonymous wrote:How about U of Mary Wash or Radford? I believe both have programs in health related fields. Don’t really know much account CNU or Uwv
Thank you. UMW is too close to home for DC and we are considering Radford but DC is leaning towards CNU or WVU.
Anonymous
05/13/2025 12:55
Subject: WVU or CNU?
Anonymous wrote:OP here. I want to keep this thread on target please because DC is really trying to find the pros/cons of each of these two schools. They are not interested in VCU. They aren't partiers (yet. As I stated in the OP) but will get into the sports scene if that's offered or the club sports scene if they can participate or even play their sport. They are leaning towards a degree in physical therapy, sports science, nursing, pre-nursing etc.
Fine, OP, but what the hell do you want to know? The two schools could not be more different. One is much smaller, division 3, no fun, no name, no real grad programs, very regional, nobody’s ever heard of it, etc., while the other is big time sports ins fun college town and is party city. With those majors, it doesn’t matter which one the kid goes to. He’s gonna get a job. Just go with your gut and stop pulling your hair out over it.
Anonymous
05/13/2025 12:54
Subject: Re:WVU or CNU?
How about U of Mary Wash or Radford? I believe both have programs in health related fields. Don’t really know much account CNU or Uwv
Anonymous
05/13/2025 12:52
Subject: WVU or CNU?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:WVU is for guys who like to party and wear boots. Why not JMU?
Sounds like maybe their student’s grades won’t make the cut for JMU.
OP, have you given any thought to somewhere like Loyola MD or St. Joe’s in Philly? They may be appealing options for your student. Solid medium-sized schools that are less competitive for admissions and have D1 sports teams.
OP here. I will look into Loyola MD but St. Joe is too urban. I don't know anything about Loyola, MD.
St. Joe’s is in Philly but right on the edge of the city and straddles a quiet residential neighborhood. It’s a really nice campus and worth a visit if you haven’t been. Loyola is in Baltimore and has a similar feel to St. Joe’s. Both are medium-sized Jesuit colleges with strong sports and nice student body.
Anonymous
05/13/2025 12:50
Subject: WVU or CNU?
OP here. I want to keep this thread on target please because DC is really trying to find the pros/cons of each of these two schools. They are not interested in VCU. They aren't partiers (yet. As I stated in the OP) but will get into the sports scene if that's offered or the club sports scene if they can participate or even play their sport. They are leaning towards a degree in physical therapy, sports science, nursing, pre-nursing etc.
Anonymous
05/13/2025 12:50
Subject: WVU or CNU?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:WVU is for guys who like to party and wear boots. Why not JMU?
Sounds like maybe their student’s grades won’t make the cut for JMU.
OP, have you given any thought to somewhere like Loyola MD or St. Joe’s in Philly? They may be appealing options for your student. Solid medium-sized schools that are less competitive for admissions and have D1 sports teams.
Expensive schools not likely to give out significant merit aid to students of only CNU/WVU quality.
Anonymous
05/13/2025 12:49
Subject: WVU or CNU?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:CNU is D3, so it will never ever compare to D1 sports from a rah rah spectator perspective.
WVU is aggressively trying to attract students because their enrollment has declined by like 1/3 over the last 10 years. You may be surprised what merit they will provide. Obviously, just apply and see what happens.
Very interesting. Is there a graph of the student body population you know of? I had no idea this was happening.
So, there are many negative news articles about WVU if you do a search...they are cutting a number of programs and professors.
Yes, never good...but they are still making a big push to increase enrollment and the normal popular majors are not really impacted. Here is a blurb from an article:https://newrepublic.com/article/176202/west-virginia-university-higher-education-enrollment-cliff-cuts
Some, though, were in outright denial—perhaps none more so than Gee of West Virginia. In 2017, he announced a plan to grow WVU enrollment from 28,409—after a decade of holding steady between 28,000 and 29,700—to 40,000 by 2020, and spent accordingly on debt-financed building projects and industry partnerships. “Of course, we will be careful with our growth,” Gee said at the time. “We will protect the quality of life that we love in this community, and we will not overburden our infrastructure.” The opposite has come true: WVU had a little over 26,000 students in 2023 and was $33 million in debt during the last fiscal year—yet has continued to spend. The future is no brighter: The university projects a loss of 5,000 students over the next decade due to reduced enrollment, costing it $72.5 million.
Omg...very concerning...