<p>I hold Buffalo in high esteem Lilmelonred. One thing that is great about it price wise is that a lot of kids live off campus and very cheaply, if they are frugal because there are a lot inexpensive off campus opportunities in terms of housing. The dorms are pricey, and though there are so many food options there, it can be pricey. Also, a lot of kids work part time, so one doesn 't feel like an outlier doing so. At some schools, it’s tough trying to stay on a budget with so many kids who are well to do.</p>
<p>I am in Texas and I do not like them at all. I am unsure if people consider it to be both UT Austin and Texas A&M or just UT Austin. UT Austin has a lot of issues. It is not on our list. A&M seems quite nice. I also am just not a big university type person. I came from Iowa and always had a good impression of U of Iowa. I went to Iowa State though and yuck! I would not have gone to Iowa State if it weren’t for the fact that my brother was already there. U of Minnesota in MPLS seems quite good too for that state.</p>
<p>Hmm, you say off campus housing is cheap? 
I think i’ll look into that! Thanks! Does this mean I would need to find people I want to live off campus with before I head there? Or Should I meet people at buffalo first? I don’t think it’s cheap living all alone? Yeah, I don’t know how this works…</p>
<p>“I wish more were made of it”</p>
<p>Do you mean the Nanotech college? Obama was here last year and gave a big speech from there. </p>
<p>It’s really an amazing place and if my kid had any kind of interest in STEM at all I would have pushed it - even though we lived 15 minutes away and I never wanted him to stay in the area. </p>
<p>[Welcome</a> to College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering](<a href=“http://cnse.albany.edu/Home.aspx]Welcome”>http://cnse.albany.edu/Home.aspx)</p>
<p>I’m not so sure the Flagship label would impress instate kids. They already believe that a in state U is somehow less impressive than a oos state u. I dare say many NY kids who dont want to go to SUNY, would be happy to go to “pick anyother state U”. and probably vice versa. Its all perception. My daughter will graduate from Oneonta this spring. She and her friends absolutely love the school. She has had a fantastic experience and has already been accepted to a Masters program there as well. High school senior Son is waiting on Buff and Bing, but already has been offered presidentials at 2 other SUNYs. You knock an already comparatively low 20k coa down by another 5k per year, and SUNY is almost impossible to beat. Ive met so many parents whose EFC exceeds the COA so FA is a non issue. Several campuses have become quite selective also. A few friends of my kids went to decent to high end privates when they could not get into SUNY.</p>
<p>I’m not talking about just sticking a flagship label on the school, but making ithe atmospher more like that of schools like UMD, PSU and the such, or like Syarcuse, for that matter. Throw in some 'Bama style scholarships for top students, and there will be folks come a running there even to Buffalo. Oh, if I had billions, I’d try to build that school and city up, So much potential there and it’s just slipping away.</p>
<p>I’ve heard nothing but great things about Oneonta, Penzly. And, yes, I am a fan of the SUNYs, and i think the academic quality is there. I went looking for fault and came out impressed in spite of myself. And for us, too, the price was nearly impossible to beat.</p>
<p>I went to Bing in prehistoric times when it was dubbed “the most selective public university in the nation” by Princeton Review. That was pure hype and completely misleading. It was an enormous disappointment in all ways: too large and impersonal, too much a continuation of high school, cliques and all, and too mediocre academically. Three years later my brother refused to visit a single SUNY and instead attended UVA. He always was the smart one in our family. </p>
<p>I can’t speak to other states’ universities and peers have complained about Cal in similar terms so this may be a matter of a large public school over a small private one. It does seem though that the other state universities’ standings have improved over the years while NY’s have declined. Sorry, but I would do my utmost to avoid sending a smart kid to a SUNY.</p>
<p>Binghamton is a small university. I think of it as a Wm & Mary Wannabee. Needs to have more out of staters, just as the other 3 unis do. </p>
<p>A lot of smart kids I know going to SUNYs. I know one who turned down UVA. Bing has a better accounting program by far and for instate NYers you cannot beat the price. I saw the price tag for UVA for OOers and cringed. I’d have a tough time with my did being the less than 1/3 paying that with the rest of the kids paying about 1/3 of the cost for the same education.</p>
<p>totally agree on the price. I wouldn’t be rushing to enroll my kid at UVA or Cal as an out of state student either. In fact, I outright forbid my eldest from applying to Cal for that reason. I also spoke too quickly and emotionally. There are some excellent programs at the SUNY campuses and the tech programs are, of course, brand new. </p>
<p>My sibs and I went to these schools a zillion years ago when the price tags were not so disproportionate…though I did have a Regents Scholarship that paid my entire tuition.</p>
<p>If SUNY wants to attracts a reputation similar to topflight publics like Berkeley, UVA, UMich, UWisc-Madison, etc…NY state needs to reverse the decades-long trend of budget cutbacks, change the emphasis at some of the flagship campuses so that they focus more on academic high achieving/elite students rather than teaching to the average/remedial students, given more autonomy so it’s not reduced to being a political football for the state legislators, more money for scholarships/FA, etc.</p>
<p>They may want to start by emulating CUNY’s Macaulay Honors which has along with other city initiatives caused CUNY’s reputation to rebound after around 3 decades of decline due to the effects of open-admissions and budget cutbacks from the public purses(city & state). </p>
<p>One funny thing when I was applying to colleges. With FA/scholarships thrown in…many HS classmates and I found it was actually cheaper to go to a top 30 private college than to attend SUNY/CUNY as an in-state/city resident.</p>
<p>I don’t think SUNY cares all that much about their reputation as compared to other state schools. They have no problem filling their seats. I also have not heard of draconian budget cutting at SUNY any where near other state public schools and compared to other OOS Publics the cost of a SUNY education is a bargain. </p>
<p>In addition, since the crash, it has become more difficult to get into the the top SUNY schools and I know many who, where it use to be a shoo in, are not even getting into the Oneonta’s or New Paltz’s of the system.</p>
<p>This is such an interesting discussion. S was just accepted at Bing and Stony Brook but won’t even consider Buffalo or Albany (applied to UB anyway bc the only pain was to my wallet). Deferred from HumEc (contract college) at Cornell, which would be the right compromise between public tuition and private attention. Waiting on some privates and UMich–but as this conversation highlights, it is hard to justify OOS tuition, despite the benefits…I won’t be able to justify michigan without aid, assuming he even gets in. I hear different things about Bing, ranging from ‘13th grade’ to ‘best buy’…it is really hard to know what to do. With only those two acceptances now, though, there may be no choice !</p>
<p>
You know, sometimes it’s really hard to know how to feel about being an alumni of “a school that sucks”. Should one just smile and nod, jump to a defense, be glad it’s a “secret”? Of course, if you also live in a city that is considered an armpit, I guess you get used to it and just chuckle and go on. </p>
<p>Best to your S, Momof, please don’t send him here.</p>
<p>Sylvan, all of us are graduates of universities that some teenager, some where thinks sucks. They are teenagers. ;)</p>
<p>Didn’t mean to offend, Sylvan. My S is a sweetie but still, as MDmom noted, a teenage boy with some not-fully-considered opinions. The hard part is that I will need to work with those opinions when it comes time to choose! In any case, if its Buffalo where you live, cptofthehouse gave you plenty of validating love, and that should count more than my 17-year-old’s opinions. You should hear his music choices!</p>
<p>Im with ya Sylvan…I travel nationally all week, but choose to live upstate. Most of the people who make negative comments about Buffalo, Roch,Syr, Albany and all points in between…have rarely spent time north of the Palisades mall. I work in the downstate often and when I tell people I live upstate, they think Poughkeepsie? wow that is so remote…LOL. Heck…Im north of Syracuse! may as well be another country. I understand people in the south and western US not realizing the size of NY, but for NY’rs to act in such a way is a little insulting and often condescending. 64 schools! 130k plus students attend SUNY. Some stunningly beautiful campuses, some great academics,Value for sure, some have easy academic access,some expose kids to all 4 seasons! Its odd to me that so many would want a Syracuse Univ acceptance in spite of locale, but feel that ESF is a SUNY school in snowy remote city. Newsflash! same campus, Most of the downstate students I have met, love their upstate schools and locales…until they go home and it becomes cool to criticize the “rubes” again. LOL City folk should get out more:)</p>
<p>MomofNEA, your son will likely be offered from Cornell, a guaranteed transfer spot with a certain gpa first year or semester at any college. I’ve seen that happen a lot. They’ll let you know at the end of the admissions process. I have two that turned down in state Cornell, and I’m still hurting about it.</p>
<p>Sylvan, Binghamton is “hot” here. And my kids turned down Ivy, as I just said above, at some instate subsidized prices. And they’ve dissed the schools where DH and I have gone. DH was done with going on college trips with the oldest when he saw that any school DH liked, my son crossed off the list. Freud would have a field day, I guess, with our kids. They don’t know so much and they will pay as they hurt our hearts in learning.</p>
<p>My very pragmatic college kid is now sort of regretting not giving the full scholarship/commuting option more thought than he did when he got it. He dismissed it out of hand, and now sees it through more mature eyes, especially since a large number of friends and acquaintances here took it and are happy and flourishing. He’s grown up a lot in two years and looks at things very differently now. </p>
<p>UBuff did not seem to be hurting in funds a few years ago. FIrst class in all things. I’ve toured a lot of colleges and I gave the school a careful stink eye in terms of looking for fault. Yes, it’s there ,but incredibly not in what should count. What it needs is “pizza” which is something difficult to define. I think the city needs a bit of a lift too. It needs what Syracuse has–ESF is a tremendous value and great choice by the way if you have an 18 year old who can make a commitment to that field of study, mine couldn’t. SUNY Maritime, too offers programs that will pretty much guarantee great employment, but that is a school that needs some amenities. I could not push for a kid to go there, as it is truly not a typical college experience. But the other SUNYs have it all, but somehow have not been able to pull it together to get the attention of the younger generation. I think Bing is well on its way.</p>
<p>I wish UB would do what Alabama is doing with NSFs and other high stat OOSers. It would be great to get a lot more OOSers at that school. That is a turn off to me, that so many of the kids are NYers and so many are from the area. GIves it a suitcase/commuter feel.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>A part of that might be due to the wide cultural/political differences between upstate and downstate NY. </p>
<p>Fielding wacky political candidates like Carl Paladino for starters whose platform and apparent attitudes were such that his main support was mostly within upstate…especially the Buffalo area. Considering his platform and tone, he certainly didn’t help when it comes to negative downstate attitudes towards upstaters regarding politics and cultural values. </p>
<ul>
<li>Yes, my neighbors and I have received some off-the-wall campaign mailings from him. :p</li>
</ul>
<p>We live in NJ and unfortunately for us, our In State tuition is very high. We don’t get a break in this state for living in it. My Son refused to even look at Rutgers. He got into TCNJ and Ramapo which was a safety. I loved TCNJ. He thought it was way too small. We took a look at Binghamton and he loved the SOM program. He got into 7 schools in a few different states but the OOS price and the program at Binghamton was what convinced him to chose this school. What a great deal for New Yorkers to have schools that have great programs at these prices. For what we are paying OOS at Binghmaton is what we would pay at TCNJ. This year, my Son was 1 of 3 students from his HS that picked Binghamton. It is the most at one time that our school has ever sent.</p>
<p>He just started his Spring semester and is very happy with his choice. He doesn’t have any regrets at all even though all his friends stayed in NJ.</p>
<p>And we have kids at our school who went to TCNJ and Rutgers and lamented they lived on the wrong side of the Hudson River! As the grass is always greener. so the schools are ever better. And I’m saying this as one paying OOS tuition right now, in case anyone thinks I’m getting to reved up on my soap box.</p>