BUMP.
I’d prefer NC State but for non-academic reasons. Neither school is academically amazing, but you can’t get better than the weather in NC. Syracuse is freezing during most of the school year.
Technically, however, the city’s climate, even when considered by daily low temperature, averages above freezing during September, October, November, April and May.
(Placed Rated Almanac.)
LOL, the colloquial use of the term “freezing”, meaning freaking cold. 
And “technically,” of course, referred to the literal meaning of the word.
Have you run the NPCs for your whole list? It may be that you need to add a financial safety instead of one of these options. Were you comfortable with the NPC results for Syracuse and NC State?
@happy1 @siliconvalleymom I just got the chance to run the NPC for all of my schools. Syracuse was about $5,000 more than State, before loans (which I do not plan on taking). The most shocking thing about the NPC was finding out that I shouldn’t expect any aid for Boston University…which I definitely cannot afford without!! Wondering why I even applied…hahaha
Glad you ran them…affordability is a very important part of the process. Since BU is probably out of the equation, maybe see if you can find a way to apply to both Syracuse and State…if you have to choose one it sounds like State is the more affordable option, a school you have seen, and one your dad prefers…
@happy1 Me too, I guess I assumed with BU being private and ridiculously expensive, everyone would receive some kind of aid. I’ll definitely be talking to my parents. I hope I’ll get scholarship letters/financial aid letters soon from the schools I’ve been accepted to so far.
Good luck!
I live in NC and NCSU is a fine school (especially for STEM) and a really wonderful campus for me. However it is not particularly flexible for majors since you have to apply to the particular school you want to major in, and it is pretty focused once you are in it (ex. in the engineering school your first year courses are pretty much entirely for that major, so if you wanted to switch to polysci sophomore year, you’d not only have to switch schools but be behind). For an undecided person, this could be a problem, combined with the low availability of aid for OOS students.
On the other hand, NC State is bigger and has lots of major choices and social scenes. Raleigh is also an incredible location both for fun and for jobs/internships. Syracuse is much more difficult to get into, even being OOS for NCSU. I don’t know much about the flexibility of Syracuse.
If you want to know anything about NC weather or NCSU I can answer a lot, since I used to be rather obsessed with attending there.
I am glad to hear that you took the time to run the NPC for your whole list. It is much better to realize the issue now than to be one of the many threads in the spring written by a family shocked by the financial reality.
Are you planning to add some financial safeties? Or apply to more colleges where you might get merit aid?
@BB1313 thanks for the info. One of the reasons I was actually very interested in the school was because it isn’t too far from where I live and its undecided program. When I toured the school I talked with a student who was in the program her freshman year who explained that it helped her figure out exactly what she wanted to do and she wan’t behind in the major she decided to pick. I wonder if this is the case for all of the majors there, because I do agree that generally switching science majors or switching into a science major would be much more difficult. The weather is pretty fantastic. Do you feel that you had a lot of opportunities at state? Also how were the class sizes?
@siliconvalleymom yes, your post actually reminded me to do that, so thanks!! I have already been accepted to USF with a $36,000 scholarship (9k a year) making that really affordable for OOS. University of South Carolina (my state school) has been sending me letters giving estimates of what they could offer me which is around $15,000 a year if I remember correctly. I don’t expect to receive an official offer for a little while since they just began sending out acceptances a couple of weeks ago. Any other suggestions for colleges are welcome, I would prefer to go more North than South 
Please let me know if I should post my stats.
Oh! If you’re looking at the undecided major then that will be a lot easier, though do be warned engineering is very hard to get into later.
There seemed to be a lot of opportunities there in terms of shadowing, internships, and research. There are several companies on-campus where students often intern (https://centennial.ncsu.edu/partners-directory.php), and even more in the research triangle. Research is fairly easy to come by, too. NC State also has one of the only BTEC (biomanufacturing) centers in the nation if that’s something you’re interested in. For social science, I have a friend who is president of the student body in student government and in polysci and absolutely loving it. He has found NCSU to be a great school for the opportunities he wanted for pre-law and politics.
It’s a big enough school that there is something for everyone, and if you can stand out in your class
then it’s even easier. (sorry I got cut off lol). The class sizes were bigger than, say, UNC or Duke’s but they do have small courses once you get into sophomore/junior year and take more specific courses (the general classes will always be bigger)
Go NC State. MUCH warmer weather than Syracuse, more desirable location, and is just as good as, if not better than, Syracuse. Also sort of biased because I’m a northerner who goes to school here in NC lol
EDIT: I see you already made that decision. 
@LBad96 I haven’t submitted any new applications yet but I’m definitely leaning towards NC State. Thanks for the comment!! I appreciate all of the feedback.
Update to anyone following this thread: I had a long conversation with my parents last night and they agree that I should go ahead and apply to both schools. If anyone still has anything to add to this thread please continue to comment!
I wouldn’t call Syracuse a great college town, in fact, it’s rather depressed.