<p>I live in New York, so my public schools are pretty large. I'm wondering if there are any public schools that aren't very very difficult for out-of-staters to get into that are not huge? (and have resonably good programs in general, especially in the physical/social sciences)</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>Are you asking about state and local colleges or high schools?</p>
<p>colleges, sorry</p>
<p>Willam and Mary immediately comes to mind as a "smallish" public school, with about 6000 undergrads. Excellent reputation, has the "tag" of being a "Public Ivy".</p>
<p>yet, I know that W&M is tough for out of staters to get in, right?</p>
<p>Don't undervalue community colleges which can offer serious students opportunities not available at larger state campuses. You can probably do an on line search for smaller public colleges, in state is usually cheapest....why aren't you considering private schools. Some are cheaper than out of state tuition after financial aid settles in.</p>
<p>Most of the schools on my list are private, and I was just looking for other options.</p>
<p>University of Mary Washington is not too huge. College of Charleston (about 6,000 undergrads) isn't all that huge either. We know a bunch of out of staters at both. How about UNC-Greensboro?</p>
<p>look at st. mary's college in maryland - its a small public college (located in st. mary's, maryland which explains the name for the public, not catholic, college) i think it has under 2000 students.</p>
<p>another one to look at is the College of New Jersey (formerly Trenton State) - under 6,000 students</p>
<p>The thing is, as an out of state student, many public schools will cost just as much as the privates.</p>
<p>What makes you think all of the SUNYs are large? Maybe this is the better question: What's your definition of "small"?</p>
<p>I did a CB search and came up with these public schools that have under 2,000 students (61 total):</p>
<p>California Maritime Academy
Castleton State College<br>
Chipola College
Dakota State University
Glenville State College
Great Basin College
Haskell Indian Nations University
Johnson State College
Kendall College of Art and Design of Ferris State University
Kentucky State University
Lincoln University
Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center
Lyndon State College
Maine Maritime Academy
Massachusetts College of Art<br>
Massachusetts Maritime Academy
Mayville State University
Medical College of Georgia
Montana State University: Northern
New College of Florida
New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology
North Carolina School of the Arts
Northern State University
Northwestern Oklahoma State University<br>
Ohio State University: Newark Campus
Oklahoma Panhandle State University
Penn State Harrisburg
Penn State Schuylkill - Capital College
Peru State College
Si Tanka Huron University<br>
South Dakota School of Mines and Technology
St. Mary's College of Maryland
State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry
State University of New York Health Science Center at Brooklyn
State University of New York Institute of Technology at Utica/Rome
State University of New York Maritime College
State University of New York Upstate Medical University
Texas A&M University-Galveston
United States Coast Guard Academy
United States Merchant Marine Academy
University of Alaska Southeast
University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences
University of Maine at Fort Kent
University of Maine at Machias
University of Maine at Presque Isle
University of Maryland: Baltimore
University of Minnesota: Crookston
University of Minnesota: Morris
University of Mississippi Medical Center
University of Montana: Western
University of Pittsburgh at Bradford
University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg
University of Puerto Rico at Utuado
University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma
University of Tennessee Health Science Center
University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston
University of Texas-Houston Health Science Center
University of Virginia's College at Wise
Valley City State University
Vermont Technical College
Virginia Military Institute</p>
<p>"The thing is, as an out of state student, many public schools will cost just as much as the privates."</p>
<p>It depends a lot on the state - some states are fairly reasonable for out of staters (suny's), some hit them really hard (eg. u of mich). some charge considerably more for out of staters, but still end up being cheaper than a private school.</p>
<p>an important factor to look in to is to what exent out of staters get financial aid (if you would be eligible) or merit aid. the College of New Jersey for example, which costs about $5000 more for out of staters, also offers out of staters merit aid based on gpa and sats -(<a href="http://www.tcnj.edu/%7Eadmiss/apply/scholarships.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.tcnj.edu/~admiss/apply/scholarships.html</a>) - out of staters get less for the same grades than in staters, but still pretty generous to out of staters who afterall aren't supporting the school with their tax dollars.</p>
<p>One other thing I would suggest when looking at public colleges in other states - be sure to check out what percentage of the students commute and what percent live on-campus - and even among those living on campus, do most go home every weekend. I know when we were compiling a list for my daughter, some public colleges that at first sounded interesting got crossed off the list when we realized they were largely commuter schools (though some seemed to be actively recruiting out of staters).</p>
<p>St. Mary's College in Maryland and New College of Florida are both (very) small and public. They're both honors colleges, but they aren't too hard to get into. New College only has about 700 students and seems to be a lot like Hampshire College in Mass. (which is private) if you boxed it up, sent it to Sarasota, and made the food worse.</p>
<p>Check out St Mary's ....nice place....good physical sciences from what I recall. Do you like to sail?</p>
<p>Check out SUNY Geneseo. Relatively small, some argue the best of the SUNY schools. If you need to be in a city you will probably need to look somewhere else.</p>
<p>^^^
LOl, good public school but everybody argues best SUNY school, they need to invest in one and make a flagship school, it's so scattered that it feels like a "close your eyes and point" sort of thing, there are many SUNYs that have their specialties, but it still is a complicating state system when from a student's perspective.</p>
<p>The State of NY has invested a lot in SUNY College at Geneseo specifically to make it the small, public LAC alternative to all the other SUNYs.</p>
<p>SUNY Geneseo seems like it'd be perfect for you, any reason why you haven't considered it?</p>
<p>If you're not a California resident, don't consider applying to California public schools--UC's price is almost equivalent to private schools.</p>