Chris -- SUNY Marketing

Colleges and Universities A-Z Stony Brook University - SUNY
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<p>Several weeks ago I asked several questions about SUNY marketing to prospective students both in state and out of state on another forum but got few responses. Perhaps you can help.</p>

<p>I observed that my D has been receiving scores of informational brochures and letters from non-NYS public colleges and universities. In addition to schools from nearby states -- we live in NY -- she has heard from both flagships and second-tier state schools from as far away as Florida, Texas and California. I was curious as to whether many OOS students on CC had received similar marketing literature from any of the SUNYs. The few responses to my post seemed to indicate that no one outside NYS has received any "recruiting" literature from the SUNYs. Does Stony Brook, or any other SUNY to your knowledge, target high-achieving OOS high school students with informational material, or is it up to the OOS student to contact the SUNY they are interested in?</p>

<p>Along the same line D, who is a rising senior, has been intrigued by the seeming lack of any rational pattern to the SUNY mailings she has been receiving. Her high school profile would suggest she would be a good fit -- if she wanted to stay in-state -- at Stony Brook, Binghamton and Geneseo. She has heard from Stony Brook and Geneseo. She has received mailings from SB and Geneseo, but not Binghamton. She has also received literature from Brockport, Westbury, Oswego and Oneonta, but not Fredonia, Cortland, New Paltz or Purchase. She also has received mailings from schools such as Morrisville, which I have always thought of as a two-year college. This seems to indicate that individual SUNY admissions offices are given considerable latitude as to how to market their individual colleges in-state. Are they also given a free rein in marketing to OOS students?</p>

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<p>Great question.</p>

<p>SUNY, as a system, is really starting to stretch out of state. The bigger campuses go everywhere; we do a lot of combined programs with the Buffalo/Binghamton/Albany folks across the country, as well as individual travel. Each campus has their own leeway to do whatever they want, though.</p>

<p>The big focus now is on New Jersey, for logical reasons: proximity and the fact that they're one of the largest student exporters in the country. But in my travels across CT and RI, I see Albany a lot, Binghamton a little, and Purchase closer to the NY border.</p>

<p>Marketing is tough, because it's expensive. We have resources, so you'll see Stony Brook ads in the Boston Globe and the Hartford Courant and in national publications like Sports Illustrated and the Southwest Airlines in-flight magazine. But a smaller campus doesn't have that ability, so those campuses, like Plattsburgh and Old Westbury, partner with the larger SUNY programs, like specialized college nights and guidance counselor programs.</p>

<p>And really, in-state outreach is just as costly; New York's a big place. It's easy to hit the big fairs in the big cities, but not so easy to hit all the local high schools and their college nights. So we do a little of both; we target high schools based on a variety of data, and we contact students through College Board/PSAT score searches and things like that.</p>

<p>There really are a ton of factors that go into where we go and what students we target. Mostly financial, but also programmatic and practical reasons as well. Either way, though, every campus does it themselves, because all of our campuses are very different, and offer students very different things. It is interesting to see who's found your daughter and who hasn't, though!</p>

<p>Thanks for the great question.</p>

<p>-Chris</p>