SUNY Albany vs Cortland?

Colleges and Universities A-Z SUNY - General
1

Hello Everyone,

I’m a sophomore in college already and a friend of mine that I’ve been mentoring through the college process is a senior in high school and has gotten into both SUNY Albany and SUNY Cortland. He is not sure where to start in terms of deciding where to go. I thought I’d help him out by making it clear how these two schools differ. He is not sure what he would like to study in college and even less sure about what kind of job he would like to have. Both schools have the same instate-tuition, so that’s not an issue,

Here’s what I got so far. Let me know if you have any personal preferences between either school or any more perspectives on how they are different.

ENROLLMENT

  • Albany is almost 3x bigger than Cortland (17k versus 6k)

LOCATION

  • We are from Long Island, so Albany is about an hour to an hour+half closer than Cortland
  • The actual city of Albany is much bigger than the city of Cortland

ACADEMICS

  • Cortland seems slightly more selective than Albany with acceptance rate of 42% vs 56%
  • According to US News, Cortland has a strange focus on Education majors (36%) and Recreation & Fitness Studies majors (15%). Albany seems to have a much more typical distribution, with 27% Social Sciences, 13% English, 11% Psychology, and 10% Biology

Any other perspectives on the two schools?

2

Cortland is a city of about 19,000 out in the countryside (at least 30 miles from both Binghamton and Syracuse) while Albany is a much larger city (of about 97,000) and it’s less than 10 miles from the city of Troy.

Cortland started as a Normal School (it was a teachers’ college) which is, no doubt, why they have so many education majors. Since your friend isn’t sure what he wants to major in, the more options he has to choose from the better.

Does either have an accepted students’ day or an overnight program he could attend? Those can help students get a feel for what a college is like.

3

Cortland does have a reputation for being a “gym teacher” school but people tend to like it. It is smaller than Albany and you won’t have as many giant lecture hall classes but you are in a pretty rural location. Some people are concerned about student safety at Albany (both on campus and in the student ghetto) while this isn’t really an issue for Cortland. Albany is a city and you’ll have more to do. Both schools are known for their social life but Albany’s is sort of infamous after the kegs and eggs scandal. Albany is more diverse so if that is a concern Albany is a better choice. Both schools have large numbers of stusnets from long island. Visit both schools and see for yourself.