DS is a junior who is very indecisive about what kind of college he wants, except that he wants to run track. We’re focusing on the SUNY system for reasons of economy (plus there are good schools there) but without any guidance from DS at all, it’s hard to narrow things down. It’s also hard to come up with a few extra options for him to look at.
So, I thought I’d take him to see some schools of different types to see if he can narrow things into categories, at least. Large state school or smaller liberal arts? Urban or rural? But does anyone have suggestions on which NYS schools (especially SUNY) would fit different categories?
I’m thinking Buffalo for large school, Geneseo for a smaller liberal arts feel. Does Stony Brook have an urban feel? Maybe Oneonta for a more rural feel? We’ve already visited Binghamton, and since the boy hates cold, Plattsburgh might be a hard sell.
The only requirement at this point is a boy’s track team. Stats: 3.3 GPA, 194 PSAT (no SAT yet), and competitive track times for the middle of the pack of all the boys’ SUNY teams I’ve looked at. I don’t think he’d be a top recruit but he could be a contributor to a lot of teams.
(On the side, if anyone has suggestions for a meets full need school that is further south, where he’d have a shot at acceptance, he’d love you for that.)
@mom2twogirls Undecided. This is part of the issue! He really has no idea. His highest grades are in math and science (he has a 97 in physics and a 95 in precalc this year) but he’s also very artistic. I’ve always thought he’d be a great architect but he doesn’t seem interested in that. Which may be just as well, since I hear the job prospects aren’t so great there right now .
I think Catholic would be fine…the NPC doesn’t work for us for most places, though. We’re a pastor couple so about $40k income (family of 5, two older in college) and while enough is saved up to make a SUNY school doable with TAP and Pell, the only other schools we would apply to would be schools that meet full need. The NPC for many of the upper LACs works but I don’t know if he’d be a very competitive applicant there. He isn’t taking the hardest course load at our school so his GPA might not cut it.
visit both UB and BuffState-- they have very different vibes despite being in the same city. BuffState has more of an urban feel, while UB is a bit suburban.
@mom2twogirls Thanks for the Canisius tip. The NPC comes out a bit too high for us, but the Common Data Set shows a surprisingly high avg athletic award and DS’s Jr year times are better than all of Canisius’ current times in his event, so maybe it’s worth a shot.
I hope it at least gives you an option to look at. I looked and it doesn’t seem like Niagara has track, although they so have cross country. I’m not enough of a rubber to know if people tend to feel very strongly for one over another. Niagara looks similar in price to SUNYs and it looks like merit could be possible.
I know some people whose kids went to Canisus. I went to St. Bonaventure so there is a bit of rivalry there. Bonaventure is an hour and a halfish south of Buffalo and definitely has track. I’m not sure how good their financial aid is these days. I will say, when I went there it was pretty good. I probably has similar stats to your son and although I got very little need based aid since my parents owned a business, I still got nice merit aid. It might be another to look into especially if you want a very different location for comparison. It’s a beautiful campus that is in a rural setting.
DS runs cross country as well, but he excels in mid distance and thus wants a college that has track. So Niagara is out, but maybe we’ll combine a UB visit with a Canisius visit. SB is already on our list as well . Thanks again!
Stony Brook is suburban, not urban (it’s in Suffolk county on Long Island.) There is pretty easy commuter access via the LIRR to NYC if he wants to go visit for the day it’s 90 min - 2hrs by train. Stony Brook is most known for strong science and pre-med programs.
Here are results from a recent PSAC indoor track & field championship with mostly PASHEE schools and Pitt Johnstowm and Seton Hill (private) competing. Thought you could see if your son would be competitive (most likely since he is competitive for Canisius) in case you were interested in looking into PA schools.
@mommdc I put the housing allowance into the NPCs as untaxed income, since we pay social security taxes on it but not federal income taxes. That is how my older children’s school handles it. But yes, we’ll have to check on individual schools when we have things narrowed down a little bit. And thanks for the link!
@thermom Thanks for this information; this is exactly the kind of thing I need to know.
And I need to make a correction based on an email I just got from our GC. Apparently DS’s GPA is 3.5 by our school’s reckoning; we use a 100 pt scale and I thought his 88.98 gave a lower GPA than that.
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. Thanks again!