I went to both Binghamton and Columbia U for premed undergrad. One of my professors was a Nobel laureate. I can tell you with certainty Binghamton was vastly more difficult than Columbia. Binghamton is also more brutal than Stony. In Binghamton you compete in premed with engineering students who are generally much better at math. If you do not know math well do not attempt Binghamton Pre Med. The MCAT is third grade level walk in the park with very basic questions (though it’s broad) compared to the work at Binghamton. Stony Brook has gotten more competitive recently due to more Asians going there and living in LI but overall the smarter kids and engineering students make Binghamton more difficult. Also when I was in Physics at Binghamton some of the staff were ex-Cornell professors who directly told us their tests and curriculum was identical to what they gave nearby while at Cornell. So that’s that. The majority of staff at Binghamton are TAs who barely speak English and the text books are a mess written in horrible English by scientists and engineers who can’t write well, making the work load unnecessarily more difficult just because it is so hard to read and understand clearly. The tests can be brutal, you can study all year and still fail due to mass multiple choice questions that are designed to fail you and often have no right answers unless you can mind read the professor. The grades are curved DOWN not up they are deflationary. A lot of this is for academics. I had a lot of friends who went to Stony Brook I saw their workload and tests, it simply is not as demanding overall and students are smarter at Binghamton. Though the increase in asian students who hyper perform at Stony may have reduced that gap in the last 10 years.
Please let me know your experiences.