<p>Yes. “Undergraduate rankings” are uniformly complete and utter ********. Their methodologies are nonsensical and without a shred of empirical support. Ignore them. If you write in your graduate Statement of Purpose “I went to this awesomely ranked university that USNWR said was awesome,” your application will be laughed out of the committee.</p>
<p>What matters is not, to a point, the university you attend, but what you do at that university. If you go to a SUNY, leverage your research opportunities, excel in your courses and develop relationships with professors, you will be in a strong position for graduate school.</p>
<p>More to the point, absolutely nothing other than affordability actually matters, because no matter how much “prestige” you want, you can only graduate from a university that you can pay for. And you can’t go to graduate school until you, well, graduate.</p>