Seton Hall University, South Orange, NJ

Seton Hall University is a Catholic university in South Orange, NJ with about 5300 undergraduates.  It is 14 miles from New York City, which can be reached by train in thirty minutes.

Financial Aid - The big news at Seton Hall might be the financial aid. 96% of students get aid and 86% get grants or scholarships, which don’t have to be repaid. Students in the top 10% of their high school class, with 1200 on their SAT (Critical Reading and Math) who apply by 12/15 get the “Public Tuition Rate” (i.e., they pay the same tuition as in-state Rutgers students).

Academics and beyond – Most Seton Hall University classes are small with an average class size of 21. Seton Hall has over 80 majors to choose from and hands-on learning is stressed. 75% of students have at least one internship.

The School of Arts and Sciences has dual degree programs in Physician’s Assistant, Physical Therapy, Occupational Therapy and Athletic Training.

The School of Diplomacy requires 2 internships or an internship and a travel abroad experience.

The School of Business boasts a 91% placement rate within six months of graduation. In addition to the usual business majors, they have a sports management major.

Seton Hall has the oldest and largest school of nursing in New Jersey. The program is a direct admit program and includes eight clinical rotations.

The College of Education and Human Services includes Education majors with 75-hour placements in four different school environments, as well as Speech and Language Pathology majors.

Freshmen are assigned a professor, as a mentor and an upper classman, as a peer advisor.

The school gives everyone a new laptop or tablet as Freshmen and again as Juniors.

550 employers come to the Career Fair.

Campus - The architecture on campus is mixed. The gym is currently being expanded and the new facilities should be open by the Fall or 2013. The science building was renovated a few years ago. The entire campus is wireless.

Residential Life - 82% of Freshmen live on campus. Students get to pick upper class housing based on a point system, with points for GPA and points for participation in activities. There is a free mini bus that takes students to South Orange; downtown South Orange is about three quarters of a mile from campus.

Extracurricular activities – Seton Hall University has over 100 clubs and it has Greek life. Students perform over 25,000 hours of community service each year. The NCAA Division I Big East Conference basketball team is popular. They play at the Prudential Center in Newark, with the university providing bus transportation for students. The day I visited Seton Hall, the students were hosting a health fair on the lawn.

Admissions – Seton Hall University accepts the Common App and does a holistic review of applications. On the average, students have a 3.4 GPA and an SAT score of 1100 (Critical Reading and Math). Seton Hall has Early Admissions with applications due on 11/15 and 12/15 and Regular Decision with applications due 2/1 or 3/1.

St. John's University - Staten Island Campus

St. John’s University is a Catholic University with its main campus in Queens, NY. They have a small, satellite campus on 16.5 acres in Staten Island, NY. The Staten Island campus is primarily made up of commuters, with 20% of students living on campus. Students wanting a small school with a small class experience might consider this campus. The average class size is only 15. Students often intern in Staten Island or Manhattan. The school provides students with a free laptop.


A unique program that the Staten Island campus offers is a three-year Bachelor’s degree including fourteen majors to choose from and a study abroad experience. Students in this program attend class for six fall/spring semesters and two summers.

Be aware that some St. John’s undergraduate majors are unavailable on Staten Island and that students, playing on one of the St. John’s Division I sports teams, should be on the Queens campus.

Greek life and community service are popular in Staten Island. There are over 40 clubs with club meetings typically take place during club hours, on Mondays and Thursdays between 1:50 and 3 PM. Students often go to New York City on the weekend; the school provides a shuttle to the Staten Island Ferry, which takes students into lower Manhattan. There are intramural teams on Staten Island and the fitness center is open seven days a week. St. John’s also provides a shuttle bus between their Queens and Staten Island campuses.

Staten Island students join the Queens students for study abroad and often study at the St. John’s campuses in Rome and Paris. Close to half the students will study abroad for at least two weeks.

Campus housing is adjacent to campus and consists of 83 apartments. Each apartment is a furnished, garden apartment with one or two bedrooms, a kitchen with refrigerator, microwave and stove, a bathroom and a dining/living room area. Three students share these apartments. A meal plan, wireless internet, and cable connection are provided. No alcohol is allowed in the apartments, even if the students are over 21. Students can have a car on campus in the freshman year. Daily mass is available.

If you attended the Staten Island campus of St. John’s University, what was your experience like?

Third Anniversary Sweepstakes

Slosberg College Solutions LLC celebrated our third anniversary this week.  In honor of our anniversary, we are sponsoring a sweepstakes.  Like the Slosberg College Solutions Facebook page for a chance to win.

You can win: 

• Grand Prize - University of Mary Washington paperweight, mug and pennant (shown above)
• First Prize - Lycoming College mug
• Second Prize - Seton Hall University drawstring bag.

Winners will be selected on 5/3/13 and need to pick up their prize by 5/9/13 at Slosberg College Solutions LLC in Bridgewater, NJ.

Wagner College, Staten Island, NY

Are you looking for a small, private, residential New York City liberal arts college with small classes, a beautiful campus, Division 1 sports, Greek life and a great theatre program? If so, Wagner College may be for you. Located in Staten Island, the school has 1850 undergrads and eighty per cent of them live on the 105 acre campus all four years. The school provides an hourly shuttle to the Staten Island ferry which takes you to lower Manhattan, providing great internship, social and educational opportunities. There are plenty of opportunities for travel abroad (from 10 days to a semester), service learning, and internships.

If you walk onto the Wagner College campus and it looks familiar, it may be because you’ve seen the Main Hall portrayed in the movie School of Rock.

Wagner Plan: Wagner has a unique educational program, the Wagner Plan. As part of the Wagner Plan, every freshman is part of a Learning Community of a maximum of 28 students who take three linked courses which explore a theme or problem from different perspectives and includes learning through experiences outside of the campus. Students also take part in a Learning Community during the intermediate years, and in the senior year, in their major.

Majors: Popular Wagner College majors include biology, business, psychology, nursing, physician assistant, and theatre. An unusual major is arts administration.

Admission and Financial Aid: Accepted freshmen have an average GPA of 3.5 and an average SAT of 1720 (Wagner is test-optional) and 72% of students applying are accepted. The school offers need-based aid and merit aid (up to 24K per year).

What's your experience with Wagner College?

University of Mary Washington, Fredericksburg, Virginia

Earlier this month, I had the pleasure of having lunch with Shelley Hillberry, Assistant Dean of Admissions of the University of Mary Washington who is the admissions rep for New Jersey. Shelley described Mary Washington students as intellectually, civically and socially engaged.

Physical campus / history - The University of Mary Washington is in historic Fredericksburg, Virginia on 172 acres. Before the school became co-ed in 1972, it was the woman’s college for the University of Virginia. The buildings are of Jeffersonian and Georgian architecture. There are no public roads through campus. The college is about 50 miles away from Washington DC and Richmond. The school’s location means there are plenty of internship opportunities.

The basics - University of Mary Washington is a public state college in Virginia. It is a mid-sized school with 4000 undergraduates and 1000 graduate students. The school has undergraduate colleges for Education, Business, and Arts & Sciences. There is an 83% retention from the freshman to sophomore year and 77% of students graduate in four years with a Bachelor’s degree. Students abide by an honor code.

Courses - Students have 40 credits of general education requirements, 40 credits in their major, and 40 credits of electives. The 40 credits of electives allow students to pursue a second major or a minor. The general education requirements include experiential learning (i.e., students must do at least one internship, study abroad, research, or community service learning).

Class size - Most classes have 22 to 24 students per class. The first year seminar is capped at 15 students. There are twelve larger general education classes with about 60 students.

Majors - Students don’t declare their major until after the sophomore year. Mary Washington is only one of six schools in the nation with an undergraduate historic preservation major. Popular majors are business, English, psychology, biology, history, international affairs, political science, historic preservation, computer science, foreign languages, and geography (with a GIS certificate).

Admissions - Admissions are holistic. The mid-50% of SAT scores for Critical Reading and Math are between 1050 and 1250 with the mid-50% of GPAs between 3.2 and 3.9. The school admits about 70% of the applicants. Interviews are recommended and are informational.

Students from outside of Virginia - The University of Mary Washington does not have an out-of-state quota. About 25% of the students are from outside of Virginia. There is merit aid available for out-of-state students. This year there were 114 applications from New Jersey with 24 depositing.

Honors Program - There is an Honors program, which takes about 50 students a year, typically students with SAT scores of 1300 or higher (Critical Reading and Math) and GPAs of 3.9 or higher. Students in the Honors program receive a $1-$2K grant.

Pre-med/Pre-vet - Pre-med students take advantage of internships at the hospital across the street from the campus. 80% of them go on to medical school. The pre-vet students often do an internship with whales.

College Admissions Trends 2013 - Part 4

The high school guidance personnel on the NJACAC panel spoke about their experiences with college admissions trends.


Bernice Hornchak, School Counselor at Bridgewater-Raritan High School indicated that caseloads had grown in the sixteen years she had worked at the school, with the current caseload of about 260 students per counselor. Counselor time is spent about 50% on college counseling, 30% on academic/career counseling, and 20% on other issues including school phobia and depression. Students have the same counselor all four years and the school uses Naviance, including eDocs. She indicated that some parents are misinformed about the application process, are anxious and want to get started on the application process in the 9th or 10th grade, and are overly concerned with selecting electives. She sees increased interest in education, criminal justice, and allied health majors. More students are taking advantage of Raritan Valley Community College, the local community college, and the NJ STARS program.

John Semcer, Director of Guidance (Emeritus) Mother Seton High School and Montclair High School commented on growing college wait lists, merit scholarships being offered by some colleges requiring applications by September 1, colleges wanting commitments for wrestlers and football players in 10th or 11th grade, kids graduating high school early to get a head start on college sports, college application fees rising, and high school guidance counselors having less and less time for college counseling. John indicated that at public schools guidance counselors spent an average of 24% of their time on college counseling and in private schools they spent an average of 55% of their time on college counseling.

If you are a high school guidance counselor or an independent college admissions consultant, do you have any other trends that you would like to share?

College Admissions Trends 2013 - Part 3

The college admissions personnel on the panel spoke about their schools.  This focuses on the trends shared by admissions personnel from Rutgers University, Stevens Institute of Technology, and Manhattanville College.


Paul Johnson, Assistant Vice President, Research and Enrollment Services at Rutgers University, indicated that applications were up by 6% this year. Rutgers has a new president who oversaw the merger of Rutgers and the Medical School. On the Livingston campus there is a new residence hall and a new business building. Rutgers handles 32,000 applications and values the right high school courses, grades, and standardized test scores. They admit by school with mid-ranges for GPA and test scores varying by school; this data is on their website. Rutgers would like more out-of-state and international students. While 50% of students change majors, it is very difficult to transfer into popular majors. School- to-school transfer requirements are on-line.

Shane Topping, Director of Admissions at Stevens Institute of Technology, spoke of a 22% increase in applications this year. A new president started in July 2011. The most popular major at Stevens is Mechanical Engineering. There is increased interest in Biomedical Engineering and Environmental Engineering. International applications are up. The school has a popular 5-year Masters program where the scholarship and financial aid from the undergraduate years continues to the 5th year. Stevens students have an average high school GPA of 3.8. A 20-25 minute interview is required and is important. For engineering and science majors they are looking to see students who have had 4 years of Math and Science.

Kevin O’Sullivan, Director of Undergraduate Admissions at Manhattanville College said his school is known for its international students and diversity. One thousand of their 5,000 applications are from international students. The school has students from 56 countries, with the biggest representation from Ecuador, Vietnam, China, Brazil and Canada. Thirty percent of their students study abroad in their European Union (EU) program based in Southern Germany, in which students visit every EU country. Manhattanville has NGO status, allowing their students access to UN programs. The school went test-optional four years ago. The size of the freshman class has grown from 407 to 608 students in the last two years. The undergraduate Sports Management program is new to the school. Manhattanville is working on developing a new accounting major. Management is the most popular major. Manhattanville values demonstrated interest. Admitted students have a solid B average with an average SAT score of 1100 (for Math and Critical Reading).

If you work in Admissions or Enrollment Management at a college, do you have any trends you want to share about your college?