<p>I live in eastern PA, and I don’t hear people talk about any of the SUNYs - good or bad. </p>
<p>I did look at them for my son because SUNY’s out of state tuition is close to Penn State’s in-state tuition.</p>
<p>“Funny though, in New York, Geneseo and Stony Brook were always considered best/most selective.”</p>
<p>Define “always”. When I was an applicant, Geneseo was not considered such. Stony Brook was, at that tme, but seems to be less relatively selective now than it was then.</p>
<p>State schools in the northeast have a hard time competing with the abundance of private schools. People in the northeast have a thing about state schools that I have noticed doesn’t correlate to other parts of the country.</p>
<p>The “thing” that they have is that the schools are not that “good”, by most measures besides cost . Give those same schools peer assessments equal to Berkeley’s and you would find a quite different correlation. </p>
<p>And yes the abundance of private schools is highly relevant, there are schools with higher assessments all over the region. The better NE publics are no worse in asessment than the flagship in the midwest where I used to live. But in that state, there was no place “better”, for hours and hours away. Consequently not quite so many of the “best and brightest” in that area are bled away, many attend that state U.Which feeds back into local reputation.</p>
<p>Salaries are also lower outside the NE and Cal, fewer people from my former area can afford the tuition of a private college. Which maybe is partly why there are so few private colleges there, comparatively. Another reason why many top students will be at the local state flagship there.</p>
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<p>That, along with massive state funding cuts that have been going on in the SUNY/CUNY systems on and off for at least the last 2 decades that I can remember. </p>
<p>The undergraduate experience also leaves much to be desired from the experiences of dozens of high school classmates and even some old neighborhood friends. This included feeling quite underwhelmed academically even if they were in honors colleges, institutionalized feel/treatment of/from many flagship campuses, rigidity of the bureaucracy, “suitcase school syndrome”, etc. Nearly everyone I knew who had issues with the first ended up “transferring up” to elite LACs like Reed or private universities…including some Ivies like Columbia, Cornell, and Brown after one or two years. </p>
<p>No matter how much my high school guidance counselor tries to say Binghamton is the UC Berkeley of the East Coast, no one believed it for a second. Especially the classmates who ended up there. For them, his comments are regarded as some sort of a cruel sick joke.</p>
<p>“Salaries are also lower outside the NE and Cal, fewer people from my former area can afford the tuition of a private college.”</p>
<p>Salaries may be lower, but so is the cost of living. And, financial aid is mostly based on those salaries and doesn’t take cost of living into account, so I’m not sure that students from the coasts are any more able to afford private schools, unless you’re talking about the top 1% of wage earners (who do tend to be on the coasts).</p>
<p>“Within NYS, there is a stigma associated with them even though SUNY Geneseo, Binghamton, Buffalo, and Stony Brook have respectable selectivity. Are any of them known at all outside of NYS? Are any of them respected?”</p>
<p>Ask the University of Texas where SEMATECH now resides or if they have heard about SUNY Albany. SUNY Albany is home to a $6 Billion megacomplex with 2500 scientists that once worked in Texas. Undergraduates have an opportunity to participate and learn in tomorrow’s technology.</p>
<p>Yes, SUNY Albany (UAlbany) is known outside of the state. Nano Tech will drive green jobs and its home is in Tech Valley New York.</p>
<p>Lets not forget that last year, as usual, UAlbany led all SUNYs in R&D at $350M. Bingo was at about $50M. Learn by doing.</p>
<p>"I think Binghamton and Stony Brook have some out of state recognition. " Really?</p>
<p>You base this on what? UAlbany has had the most success at NCAA D1, Albany has been to the Men’s basketball NCAAs twice. No other SUNY has achieved this feat. UAlbany’s football has had winning seasons for the past 5 years. The track team routinely beats major land grant schools. The Lax coach was coach of the year. The lax team has one of the best incoming classes in the country according to Lax Power. I’m not sure how much more success you could demand?</p>
<p>Add to that a Nano facility that is better then what you’d find at MIT or Cal Tech and other top ranked programs. Let’s not forget UAlbany had $350M in R&D last year, leading the other SUNYs. Do you want to do research or read about it?</p>
<p>All this for $4,900 tuition?</p>
<p>I had multiple job offers when I graduated from my MBA program. Albany has the only HRIS consentration in the country, yet every company runs and relies on HR systems.</p>
<p>Do your own research.</p>
<p>Funny, I live in New York State and I never heard of any 6 billion dollar nantotech megaplex at SUNY Albany. Maybe they publicize it more in Texas?? Does SUNY Albany even have an engineering school? I hear about Stony Brook, Binghamton and Buffalo for engineering, but I don’t hear about SUNY Albany engineering programs at all.</p>
<p>As far as undergrad education, in my day Albany was arguably the most elite, overall, of the four flagship SUNY campuses, it had the highest entrance standards by a small amount. That has changed, today Albany is well behind Binghamton and Geneseo in the admissions pecking order. Also, what did make the news here was not some 6 billion dollar complex, rather it was that SUNY Albany was cutting certain core liberal arts subjects.</p>
<p>Anyway that nanoclomplex sounds like a great thing , seems like they should make more noise about it though, because the SUNY-bound undergrad engineering students around here are targeting Binghamton and Stony Brook, predominantly.</p>
<p>They don’t have traditional engineering at Albany - only the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering.</p>
<p>[Welcome</a> to College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering](<a href=“http://cnse.albany.edu/]Welcome”>http://cnse.albany.edu/)</p>
<p>I have a engineering bound high school senior, and he applied to UB.</p>
<p>But at the same time they eliminated all foreign language majors except Spanish at Albany.</p>
<p>ALT_DANE: Have you forgotten about Bing’s 2008 run in the NCAA tournament? America East champs? Of course, we then had a ton of problems with our program, but hey- we did make it to the tournament!</p>
<p>In any case, I am attending Binghamton because of cost. I got into good privates but got almost zero financial aid so Binghamton was my best bet. It has a great major program for me as well as a good in-state networking ability. I live on Long Island and a ton of adults that I know have attended Binghamton for either undergraduate or graduate school.</p>
<p>I did not apply to Albany. My GC in high school recommended Stony Brook over Albany for political science and the party atmosphere was way too much for me. From talking to friends, Albany is the worst of the University Centers (Geneseo is better and so is New Paltz depending on who you ask). It really is considered a safety for those who really want to go to Binghamton, Buffalo, SBU, or Geneseo.</p>
<p>Here’as the news about Albany I’ve seen:</p>
<p>[Budget</a> cuts at SUNY Albany to hit academic programs | university, programs, suny - Local News - WRGB CBS 6 Albany](<a href=“http://www.cbs6albany.com/articles/university-1278894-programs-suny.html]Budget”>http://www.cbs6albany.com/articles/university-1278894-programs-suny.html)</p>
<p>[UAlbany</a> misses the cut for top 20 party list - Albany Student Press Blog - University at Albany - timesunion.com - Albany NY](<a href=“http://blog.timesunion.com/asp/1530/ualbany-misses-the-cut-for-top-20-party-list/]UAlbany”>http://blog.timesunion.com/asp/1530/ualbany-misses-the-cut-for-top-20-party-list/)</p>
<p><a href=“http://collegeapps.about.com/od/sat/a/SUNY-sat-scores.htm[/url]”>http://collegeapps.about.com/od/sat/a/SUNY-sat-scores.htm</a></p>
<p>Just like to throw in here that SUNY Maritime College is the oldest Maritime school in the country and has the best reputation in the commercial maritime industry, with the possible addition of the US Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point. The marine engineering program graduates US Coast Guard licensed engineers who find well paid jobs. Marine transportation is vital to the NY economy. DS graduated in 09.</p>
<p>SUNY Maritime is well respected virtually everywhere because of the regiment and US Coast Guard license program. Their engineers graduate with real power plant experience which pushes them to the head of almost any engineering job line ashore or afloat. Their business grads with the deck licenses are found almost everywhere. The VP of New York University is a Maritime grad, as are a NASA astronaut, an ESPN announcer, a broadway dance choreographer and more… it’s a great school, unique in the fact that it is small, and creates licensed officers in the U.S. merchant fleet who do well wherever they go.</p>
<p>lets be realistic here, ALOT of schools in this country are well known because of their sports programs first. If University of Buffalo (Which I believe has the most students in the SUNY system) ever became a Division 1 football program and made it to a major bowl, suddenly it would be a ’ well known’ school outside NYS. This is the reason why a school like Syracuse is considered well known. If my son goes to UB or Binghamton for a 5 year Engineering/MBA degree I have no doubt he’ll get a great education with real job opportunities and our family won’t have to go into debt doing so.</p>
<p>It’s a severe failing of the SUNY system that it does not have the name recognition, reputation, ranking and draw that the California universities system has. The system was modeled after the CA system, and though it’s been a success in many ways. it is absolutely not well known outside of NY and even within the state, it does not get the top students. </p>
<p>Part of the reason is that we are in an area where the density is so high of top rate colleges, including all of the ivies. So, in the same area that CA takes up, the choices are exceptional, and not paralleled anywhere else in the world. Tough to compete against HPYCM, right, and we all know what those letters stand for. </p>
<p>I wish the state and the schools would work on the issue more. The SUNYs have ever so much to offer. I can tell you that internationals have discovered Buffalo. Dadrangerfan brings up a point that has puzzled me for the longest time–the popularity and name recognition of Syracuse when UB is hardly known. </p>
<p>What NY and SUNY has done right, however, is make the system so that college is affordable for just about every single New Yorker. With TAP, federal monies, HEOP and just where the SUNYs are located, it is doable for even low income families. Living off campus can cut costs down drastically after freshman year, something one can’t say about some college.</p>
<p>But name recognition is the the pitts for the SUNY/CUNY schools.</p>
<p>I agree, cptofthehouse, the biggest pitfall to SUNYs and CUNYs are their name recognition and perception. While the Ivy Leagues may attribute to part of the reason why they do not match the UCs or USCs, it is not the main reason as Cali also has a lot of elite universities besides state schools (Stanford, Cal Tech to name a few). For SUNYs, a lot of it has to do with the location. While Cali places a lot of their state schools in big cities like Los Angeles, San Diego, Berkeley, and San Francisco, NY places their schools in stony brook, farmingdale, purchase, fredonia, geneseo, and oneonta. When memorizing the names of SUNYs vs UCs, you can clearly see that the SUNYs are harder. Most SUNYs are in undesirable locations in the middle of nowhere which also lowers the internship opportunities offered to students. Also, almost none of them offer any special programs or as you stated, have top recruiting sport teams which makes them less known.</p>
<p>CUNYs on the other hand, are scarred by community colleges and CUNY colleges that offer associate degrees (CSI and Medgar Evars to name a few). However, I believe Hunter and Baruch and CCNY all have pretty good reputation and with the addition of the Macaulay Honors Program (which I am probably attending next fall), CUNY is working to create a better image for themselves.</p>
<p>The SUNY president just announced even less freedom and distinction of indvidual SUNY schools and more leveling and lack of quality. Terrible strategy for SUNY.</p>
<p>With a SUNY in every town, poor administration at all levels and the recent revelations about unethical conduct and failure to take complaints and grievances seriously (about everything from the sports fiasco to hazing), I’d be hesitant to consider a SUNY for a serious or decent student. But it may be the best option for someone who wants a cheap efficient degree and to be done with school. It is certainly cheaper than St Johns and Hofstra.</p>