Can I Get into SUNY Binghamton?

I’ve been looking into Bing as my safety school, since it’s probably the best SUNY and the cheap tuition.

I have a 1940 SAT score:
CR: 620
M: 650
W: 670

I go to a religious Hebrew academy, and I’ve been told that Binghamton is actually more accommodating to those students (for diversity purposes). I take part in my school newspaper, Penn Model Congress, the debate team, college bowl, mock trial, and the hockey team (for one year lol). I also scored a 720 on my Bio SAT II, and a 670 on my World SAT II. I have about a 3.8 GPA. I realize I’m qualified for consideration based on their website’s information, but I don’t plan on applying ED. What are my chances realistically??

You don’t mention which school within Binghamton to which you are applying. I believe your 1270 SAT (Math and CR) score is good enough (but just barely) to get into Harpur College (Arts & Sciences). However, your stats are about 55 to 75 points below average for the School of Management, where 1325 was the average for the SAT Math and CR sections in 2013, and that average has gone up in the past two years, because competition for admittance has increased. Part of the reason is that SOM has spots for only about 300 students, which is much less than most other undergrad business schools at other state flagships. SOM and Watson (Engineering) are the most difficult school within Binghamton to get into. Checkout this link:http://www.binghamton.edu/som/corporate-relations/facts.html Nursing is also difficult because they only have spots for about 20 freshman nursing students. By the way, Binghamton has Early Action, not Early Decision. You would need to apply by November 15 (have all your materials submitted by that date–secondary school report (includes transcript and guidance counselor recommendation), common application (or SUNY app), teacher recommendation and official SAT score report sent to the school. The advantage of Early Action is that you will hear back by January 15. Last year, they deferred a lot of students with top credentials, but many of those same students got accepted later in March.

Yes many are deferred. But on the optimistic side, nearly 80% of students accepted by Binghamton end up rejecting Binghamton’s offer. As a result, many deferred students end up being accepted. Something like 12,500 students are accepted to Binghamton and I don’t think that even includes those offered a slot that allows them to attend community college while living in Binghamton University dorms. I wonder how many that would add if you counted them. Even without counting them, that is a lot of “top students”.

There are approximately 2,167 (1,539 public and 628 private) high schools in New York. Naturally there are OOS applicants and private school applicants but far fewer than those from public NY high schools so private will be included but not OOS). That means that approximately 8 students from each high school could be offered a slot. But of the 12,500 offered slots, 9,898 decline Binghamton’s offer. That means your chances of getting an offer are higher than if the majority of those getting offers wanted to attend.

The fact that nearly 80% reject the offer is not unusual, by the way. That is typical for many schools similar to Binghamton. There are a lot of schools out there! The US News and World Report publishes yields. It lists Binghamton at 21.7%, right above Pepperdine, American, Colorado School of Mines, Regent U and Albany (at 21.3%). Yields for Dayton (20.7), Rhode Island, New Hampshire and Boston U are even lower. It probably just means that top students use these schools as safeties. They don’t intend on enrolling in them but apply as a fallback. A very good school can have a low yield if it is seen as acceptable to top students. So a low yield can actually be a positive statement about the school.