Congratulations on your acceptance! Choosing a school is ultimately a very personal decision depending on a variety of factors. If you want to be a clinical social worker, note that the curriculum for MSW programs are streamlined and very similar to one another since they are all accredited by CSWE. However, there are differences between these schools as well ranging from price, location, overall arching focus and research areas of specializations. Fit is extremely important as is cost and location. What one student values, another may not see any value in it all.
I applied to Hunter, but not NYU since I am interested in macro social work. I know Hunter offers scholarships, but they are quite limited compared to other schools. As an in-state resident, I expect to take out loans to fund my first year and applying for external funding to pay for my second year. I considered applying to Fordham because of its research focus and social justice focus, but the price tag deterred me and they seem to be very paltry in their funding (I've heard of students being offered a measly $2-5K a year in scholarship assistance).
Fordham is a Jesuit school and is very focused on social justice and assisting those at the margins. There's also the option of three campuses and the College is very flexible in meeting the needs of its students. It's also a generalist program offering both clinical and macro courses. Fordham's main campus is on the Upper West Side which is nice, but also has two other locations (Westchester and Long Island) as well as an mixture (hybrid) component.
Hunter is New York City's oldest public graduate program in social work and as such, makes it a priority to focus on the New York community by making education affordable so students can ultimately become agents of change in NYC. Hunter is also very focused on topics surrounding social justice, diversity and various isms and is very involved in local politics and government. I'm very interested in community organization and am very interested in social justice so Hunter's program is a nearly perfect fit for me. Hunter's location is in East Harlem, which some find unsavory (mostly out of state folks), but I have no problem with it and feel comfortable and safe.
On the other end, NYU's curriculum is very clinically focused. If you plan on applying to post-MSW clinical fellowships to accrue your hours for your LCSW and garner experience, many of them require certain courses in psychopathology and theories and techniques of psychotherapy which NYU has.However, you can certainly excel and apply for these post-MSW fellowships if you graduate from any MSW program in the United States that is accredited by the CSWE and have fieldwork experience and enrolled in the specific coursework the fellowship required. NYU's location is superb since it's in Greenwich Village.
For example, Berkeley's Post-MSW Fellowship in Clinical Social Work states the following: QUALIFICATIONS
Applicants must have a master's degree in social work from an accredited training institution. All applicants must have graduated by July 25, 2016. Course work must include personality development, psychopathology, and theories and techniques of psychotherapy. Applicants must have two years of supervised clinical experience as part of their master's training. Candidates with a demonstrated interest in working with multicultural populations are preferred.
http://www.uhs.berkeley.edu/home/joinourteam/cps/mswintern/training1.shtml
Just one thing to note, fieldwork is the cornerstone of MSW programs, so this aspect of our education is extremely important to note. Some folks think that by attending a private or prestigious schools they have better access to fieldwork placements. I've had friends who are attending/who have attended NYU, Hunter and Fordham and they have completed their fieldwork at similar places (obviously, this is purely anecdotal, but I've had plenty of people attest to this).
I think the best thing for you is to do your due diligence, visit the schools, attend an Open House or similar event, contact current students with questions and peruse the website heavily (look at the curriculum, electives offered, focus and mission of the school, etc.) and ask yourself the following questions:
1) How large/small are classes? What is the average class size? Do you prefer larger or smaller class sizes? Do you enjoy a smaller cohort or larger cohort?
2) Where do I want to practice after I graduate? Do you want to stay in the state you attended your MSW for or do you want to move? There can be lots of issues with licensing and rolling over hours if you decide to move to a notoriously difficult state to do so (i.e.: California).
3) What sorts of scholarships are available? Is this merit, need or a mixture of both? Look at the school's endowment to see if they are able to offer substantial awards (schools with endowments over $1 billion tend to be more generous with funding). I applied to over five schools and not surprisingly, private schools with endowments over $1 billion gave me very generous merit and need based scholarships (one offered me a 2/3 tuition scholarship). After securing a GA or RA position, the private school would only cost me about $9K per year in tuition and expenses, which is about $4K cheaper than my state school I applied to. As a second year student, can you secure a GA or RA to pay for your entire or partial tuition at NYU or Fordham? How competitive are these assistantships?
4) What sorts of field placements are available? Do these field placements line up with what you want to do as a social worker and your areas of interest?
5) How many students find a job within 6 months (within 12 months) post graduation?
6) How large is the alumni network? Are there career services for alumni?
7) What is the average salary of an MSW graduate down the time line (1st year, 5 years, 10 years)?
8) What sorts of electives and classes are offered? If you are interested in getting your LCSW and already know you want to specialize in a specific sort of model of therapy (i.e.: CBT), look to see if CBT is offered.
9) What are current faculty conducting researching on? Are there are specializations or concentrations or areas you are particularly interested in?
10) Lastly, finances. How much do you want to take out in loans? Will you be happy with your quality of life if you accrue over $80K in debt and make $45K your first year post graduation? Do you have hefty loans from undergrad? Make sure to use the following link below to estimate your monthly loan payments and how much your initial loan will result in due to interest charges. For example, a $60,000 loan with an average interest rate of 6.8% with a term of 10 years ends up becoming over $82K. Your total interested paid will be in excess of $22K. Nearly all of us in MSW programs will take our loans and accrue debt, but it's especially important to educate ourselves of the reality of repaying back these loans once we graduate. Luckily, there are plenty of resources and programs offered for social workers in assisting us in this process. However, we shouldn't rely on these resources solely to help us. As social workers, we advocate for others, but we must also learn to advocate for ourselves and educate ourselves. Let's be honest. Debt can be crippling and can vastly affect one's quality of life.
http://www.finaid.org/calculators/loanpayments.phtml
http://www.socialworktoday.com/archive/091514p14.shtml
http://socialwork.nyu.edu/alumni/career-licensing-resources/loan-forgiveness.html
Here's a really great thread from 2012 comparing the five big MSW programs in NYC (Fordham, Hunter, NYU, Yeshiva and Columbia):
I wish you the best of luck in selecting a program that fits your needs and wants!
Hey there. Most people use US News as their benchmark in terms of ranking universities in the States and they re-evaluate and rank this list every four years (next ranking will be this year).
http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-health-schools/social-work-rankings
However, there are lots of problems with US News and many universities have opted out of this process or have stated it's quite a subjective list. For example, research productivity is weighed quite heavily in US News' ranking. While research is certainly important part of an MSW program, more students are interested in becoming competent clinicians and have no plans in pursuing a doctoral degree. Furthermore, an MSW is a terminal degree and is quite different than a Master's degree from another discipline/realm such as STEM. The cornerstone of an MSW degree is the merging of both theory and practice and fieldwork is especially important.
If you are looking at US News, Fordham is the highest ranked school at #11 followed by NYU and Maryland tied at #16. If you really value rankings, all three schools rank within the top ten percent of MSW programs in the States (there's really not much of a difference between 11 and 16). However, I would urge you to look beyond the rankings and look for personal fit in terms of the school's mission/focus, location, curriculum, research, student population and other important factors such as alumni connection, graduates' rates of securing a job, etc. Ask yourself those questions I posed in the previous post. This is really important. What do you want out of your education? What is important to you?
You mention you want to eventually live in NYC. So perhaps attending a NYC school is better for you since you already know you want to live here since your fieldwork during your two years establishes lots of networking opportunities. However, if you don't want to graduate in hefty debt, I would go to the cheaper option. I didn't even apply to NYU or Fordham because finances are a huge concern for me. While they both offer scholarships, the general tuition most students seem to pay is around $25-30K a year not inclusive of living expenses and other fees such as health insurance (another $15-20K).
Both Maryland and Rutgers offers plenty of clinically based courses and have micro/clinical concentrations. Please look at both these school's website carefully and peruse everything. If you have questions, ask the Admissions Office, reach out to current students and practice due diligence as this is your education. It's just a matter of fit and what is important to you at the end of the day.
Per Maryland's website:
SWCL 703—Family Therapy [3 credits]
Working with families requires a conceptual base in understanding the importance of transactions and patterns among family members and development of practice application in family therapy techniques with diverse populations. This course extends knowledge in current theory about family interaction and methods of direct intervention in families of various composition, traditional and nontraditional. Among the various theoretical perspectives examined, special emphasis will be placed on structural, strategic, and brief models.
SWCL 722—Cognitive Behavioral Therapies [3 credits] (Additional Prerequisite: SWCL 700)
This course provides an overview of the behavioral approaches to therapy. Students will become familiar with the respondent, operant, social-learning, and cognitive-behavioral models and their applications to individuals, families, and other client groupings. The various settings for behaviorally oriented social work, such as schools, hospitals (behavioral medicine), and others are discussed.
SWCL 723—Couples Therapy [3 credits]
In this course, students will learn to assess and treat troubled couple relationships as they are seen in clinical social work practice. They study how couples’ relationships vary over the life cycle and how couples from diverse backgrounds seek assistance. They learn to focus on strengths as well as problems in couple relationships. The course is taught from a comparative theoretical viewpoint.
http://www.ssw.umaryland.edu/academics/course-offerings/
Per Rutger's website:
19:910:507 Psychopathology (3) 19:910:530 Solution Focused Therapy 19:910:550 Play Therapy http://socialwork.rutgers.edu/current/mswcourses.aspx
Something as silly as rankings should certainly be a tiny consideration, but not the definitive reason why you attend a school.
Here's a great blog post on the rankings of MSW programs and its inherent flaws:
http://sp2admissionsblog.blogspot.com/2013/08/beyond-rankings-assessing-msw-programs.html
