OK fellow CCers. S19 is a junior, high stats, rigorous curriculum, unhooked, white suburban mid-atlantic/NE kid. He’s been working very hard all through high school, did great on the SAT, etc. But for some reason, he’s just not really into the whole college shopping experience right now. So far he has only toured 3 schools (all reaches) and he has his heart set on UChicago. Obviously, we need more options. And given that he doesn’t really know what he wants to study (there’s a general sense of Math/econ/stem/engineering/business - he really seems to like calculus), we need variety. I would love to see him at a small LAC - he’s a great writer when he has time to apply himself, and he could really use some intensive, individualized writing instruction. But so far he seems to want a bigger school in an urban environment (Boston and Chicago seem to be the favored cities at the moment).
I don’t have any doubt he’ll be able to find more reaches as well as a few match and safety schools - eventually. But I think if his Dad and I don’t identify some financial safeties, that’s not going to happen. So, even though we would be OOS, I think I’d like to drag him to a SUNY this summer just to get an idea of what they have to offer. But which one? I know Binghamton is generally regarded as the top SUNY, but I just can’t see him getting excited about spending 4 years in Binghamton. I’m hearing good things about Buffalo, but maybe Stony Brook would be a good option for him too? Do any of them offer a core curriculum or a liberal arts feel?
Geneseo isn’t going to work for engineering. It is more like a liberal arts school from what most people say. It’s also decidedly not urban.
Bing can work for many engineering disciplines, IIRC they may have 7 engineering majors? We didn’t tour it because they don’t have chemical engineering, which is the one my d is most interested in. It would be good for business or sciences. I have a family friend that did tour the engineering dept there and felt it was very run down. It’s not an urban environment.
Buffalo, IIRC, has 11 different engineering majors. We toured it and my d19 was very excited, and this is a kid who had shown little interest in college discussions. I’ve heard lots of positives for business there as well. I would highly recommend a tour. It may or may not be what he is looking for, but it sounds like it checks off all his boxes. It’s more of a busy suburban environment, but very connected to the city of Buffalo.
We ruled Stony Brook out. For us, it’s much further away than Buffalo so would have had to be phenomenal to be worth the inconvenience. Added that so many people consider is a suitcase school where many kids go home on weekends, eh. If she were more interested in pure sciences like physics or maybe computers, we would have more strongly considered it. It might be one to tour though if it’s a more convenient location for you.
My son was not at all interested in college tours/visits either. I made him go to look at two schools. I would suggest looking at some private universities along with SUNY schools. You may find that the small private schools give more generous scholarships and FA than the state schools. If considering Univ. of Buffalo, he’ll need to like snow!
@FlippersMom - we definitely will have private schools on the list. But for schools that consider non-custodial parent, we’re probably looking at needing merit. I think it’s gonna be hard to drum up a competitive school in the NE, much less Boston, that gives a good deal of merit aid. And as much as I think he would do very well by a small LAC, I think he’s going to want a bigger school with more variety and options with regard to social life. I don’t think I can plop him in the middle of nowhere in a school where drinking is the main source of weekend entertainment.
And he doesn’t seem to want to head south, though I think we’re going to have to make him tour a few schools south of the Mason-Dixon. We only have so much time, though, and we’re still pretty early in the process with not so much direction yet. He says he wants to head north (we’re in PA). I have my doubts since the kid can’t even find a winter coat that he wants to wear, but he’ll learn fast enough. Lol!
In terms of your criteria, I’m not sure I’d recommend Buffalo – with close to 30,000 students it is about as far from a LAC as you can get in the SUNY system – it also has an admission rate of over 50%. Stony Brook has an excellent reputation in the STEM fields but people have said it is a bit of a suitcase school with a portion of students going home for weekends (you would need to research that). I think Binghamton (17,000 students) and Geneseo (5,400 undergrads but more rural) might be his best options in the SUNY system.
Perhaps if you provide academic stats, any financial restrictions etc. you could get some other ideas.
He was a 3.93 UW GPA at the end of last year at a school that gives a 4.25 for A+, so I don’t quite know how that’s going to translate. He’s straight As and A+s for his Junior year so far (so maybe a 4.12 for the year?), but we don’t have an updated UW GPA. Basically most rigorous curriculum offered at his school. 4 APs this year (Lang, Physics C, Calc AB, and Macro), he’s taking 4 or 5 next year? I can’t keep track. SAT 1560 first sitting. 780 Chem SAT II, other SAT IIs are kind of a mess right now because he took Spanish, which was a mistake. 700 in Lit with no preparation, says poetry threw him for a loop.
Not real big on the ECs - he has a few at school that he’s pretty dedicated to, but his Dad and I are divorced and logistics are hard, especially with having to split his time between houses. Most of his hobbies/passions play out at home - car repair/restoration, building things, playing guitar, reading, etc. We have always tried to stress balance.
Financial restrictions - honestly, it depends on the school. If he got in to Princeton at full pay, I think the family would figure it out. But right now I’m focusing on identifying some bargain options - or, at least, something short of $280,000 so that he could get a great undergrad education and keep grad school as a possibility. Any need-based school that only looks at FAFSA and/or does not require non-custodial parent would probably be a good financial option for us. Obviously, Penn State (our public option) will be on the list, but we haven’t visited yet, and I don’t know how he’ll feel about it. I’d like him to apply to Pitt because of the stats-only honors college, but he’s got the idea that Pittsburgh is not a place he wants to be. We will probably force him to visit Vanderbilt at some point. Other than that, I’m kind of stumped.
Also keep in mind that if he’s at all qualified for UChicago and Princeton, he must be well-qualified for the contract colleges within Cornell. If you look at the range of majors within CALS, there are options that hit all of his areas of interest - econ/management, math/stats, information science, and engineering if he’s open to the environmental/biological side of things. They just started offering an undeclared option within CALS for students who want to explore their options. So, this should definitely be an in-state possibility for you to visit and consider. https://admissions.cals.cornell.edu/academics/majors Ithaca and Binghamton are only about an hour apart, so doing those two visits in one trip should be very practical.
Most of the SUNYs aren’t in urban areas. Buffalo seems like the best fit for what you want, since Albany doesn’t have engineering, Binghamton isn’t much of a city, and Stony Brook is not really close to NYC. Buffalo also has some of the best merit scholarships for SUNY schools and with those stats I think your son would be invited to apply for them. A few years ago the max merit was $15000 a year, so it could end up being an excellent safety school for him.
@happy1 but the student isn’t the one saying he wants a LAC.
@Trixy34 With those grades, he could likely get admitted to the Honors College at Buffalo as well, which could be a little more of the LAC feel you are talking about. They have FB pages for the university, the Honors College, engineering college, etc.
@aquapt The contract colleges at Cornell would cost the same as the endowed colleges because they live in Pennsylvania.
I suggest he look at Binghamton even though you have a negative impression. The top kids in the state go there. Also look at SUNY Albany. He will get in the honors college and it’s in a medium-size city.
I know that you’re asking about SUNYs but it seems that most of them have been discussed already.
I might add SUNY nanotech in Albany.
Other interesting engineering-type schools in NY that might interest him –
Alfred has I think the only glass engineering program. Funded by Corning glass. It’s worth looking at the website just for the cool video.-- update with editing: they seem to have updated their website and the video is gone. It’s super cool, though because the video showed glass that had incorporated electronics directly in the glass. The glass was used in a number of surfaces, from your fridge to the bus shelter. It’s a whole new world!
He might like RIT because though it’s a tech school it has lots of interesting programs and those divisions make it feel like it has several smaller communities. I would think they’d give him merit there.
In NJ but just across the river from Manhattan (looks at the skyline and is quite pretty) Stevens Institute of Tech. It’s really under most people’s radar and has so much to offer. A quick ferry ride takes him to Manhattan and Hoboken is a cute town. Graduates tend to pull in very high salaries.
Union College would definitely give him merit. It’s a small LAC but has rigorous engineering programs.
U of Rochester has rigorous sciences in a small uni setting. Lots of arts there, as it has the music school too. Nice town. Great FA for need-based people. Unclear about merit. Excellent school.
Syracuse has great academics, rah-rah sports, nice feel to the student body and he’d probably get merit.
Albany just started up an engineering school. With those stats he is a lock for the honors program. I cant tell you anything about it except they moved CS from Arts& Sciences to the engineering school. I thought they were going to merge with SUNY POLY (Albany campus) but that doesn’t look like it is going to happen now. SUNY POLY is a mess due to the financial situation, but if you want to do that type of work, you get in the coolest labs as an undergrad. The governor seems to be behind getting it fixed so the finances should be cleaned up. I’ve gone on the VIP tour. Well, President Obama got the real VIP tour! They shut down the clean room for him.The entire set of facilities are a $20+ billion investment.
Bing will have the most competitive students with the higher stats. The head of the undergrad CS program was a real hoot! She treats the students like her kids. They have really nice dorms for honors kids. If my S22 did not pick another non-SUNY school, he would be there.
Buffalo is a big school, but not Penn State big. My S20 goes there. Math/CS dual major with Physics minor. He takes at least 20 credits per. semester. It is really geared towards engineering, business and science. At least all my kids friends are those majors along with a bunch of pre-meds. They have general ed type requirements so there are liberal arts classes. His APs took care of most of those. He should get into the honors college pretty easily although all his Honors program friends have IVY level stats. Just to give you an idea, his HS GPA was 4.0 UW with a 35 ACT.
You should get merit scholarships from all three. Be sure to apply EA to Bing for Honors/Scholars and Freshman Research (FRI).
I can’t believe he doesn’t like Pitt. Was trying to get my S22 to consider it but he wouldn’t even try.
Apologies again - OP’s post explaining PA residence and dislike-for-Pittsburgh appeared while I was composing my own post, and I didn’t see it until later.
I suspect OP’s son is not giving Pittsburgh enough credit. (Is it “familiarity breeds contempt syndrome,” or has he not seen it firsthand?) He wants an urban college experience; Pittsburgh is not Chicago, and it doesn’t have the overwhelming student population of Boston, but it’s a great small city for an urban college experience, and the Pitt/CMU area, including both campuses, the nearby shops and restaurants, Phipps Conservatory, the river, and the larger city… as someone who went to college in Boston, what I saw at Pitt/CMU seemed absolutely to be a worthy alternative.
Thanks for all the input everyone - good stuff here! I am actually born and bred upstate NY, so I’m sort of familiar with the areas where the schools are, but I went to a private LAC and never explored for myself what the SUNYs had to offer. I just know that Geneseo used to be the place where the top students went. We travel through Binghamton often when we go home to visit family. Never visited the campus, though. I’m planning to take him to check out Cornell this summer, so I’m kind of trying to figure out where else I can drag him while we’re up there. Lol.
As far as the whole engineering thing goes - there was talk about it at one point, but I think he’s definitely leaning away from a straight-up tech school. I mean, U Chicago is where he feels the fit. RPI of course is on our list of schools to visit, as my Grandfather is an alum and it could be a potential financial fit because it doesn’t look at the non-custodial parent. But he says he doesn’t like the kids at his school who want to go to RPI. (Yes, he’s exasperating!)
As far as Pitt goes - he has not visited it yet. He has never even been to Pittsburgh (nor has he been to NYC aside from crossing the GW bridge a few times, and he says he hates NYC too). I desperately want to take a trip to Pittsburgh, as I have never been either. His girlfriend has family in Pittsburgh,so I think that’s where he’s getting his ideas from. (I mentioned this to her mom, and she says the girlfriend doesn’t want to go to Pittsburgh because of the potential for drop-ins from family members) I wouldn’t say Pitt is a definite “no” but I’m going to have to do some major persuading to get him to go look at it. Honestly, I kind of have a gut feeling about it potentially being a pretty good fit. But we’ll see.
(Oh, and I don’t know that he would be applying to Princeton - we haven’t even toured there yet either, and I certainly won’t be encouraging it, but I was just using it as an example - I think if he got into one of the tippy tops, perhaps there would be help from Grandparents and/or aunts & uncles to make it happen)
SUNY Geneseo has a 3+2 Cooperative Engineering Program with several schools… including Case Western, Clarkson, and Columbia. There are also “informal” 3+2 programs with Binghamton, Alfred, Syracuse, Buffalo, U of Rochester. Geneseo is rural but it has a very cute town.
At Geneseo… You receive a liberal arts and sciences degree from Geneseo and an engineering degree from the cooperative institution. Worth checking out if he is interested in engineering.
Binghamton is a very good school. Stony Brook has the reputation of being a suitcase school… but it’s a great school as well.
Let’s see - urban schools with engineering that offer merit aid, but which aren’t “engineering schools”… I might have him look at Case Western, and Carnegie Mellon - yes, in Pitt.