You definitely are not alone! Living in NYC all my life and seeing this makes me so upset.
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Still waiting too. Everyone we know that applied for Decker Nursing EA was deferred. It is quite annoying when I have 97% GPA, 21 HS college credits including calc, physics, etc, unvelievable extra curriculars and community service and accepted at UB Honors college with merit, Penn State Honors, Albany with merit, RIT with presidential merit scholarship and a bunch more. Still holding out for Penn nursing and Harvard but they donât decide until last of March. Bing should be ashamed. It is not a reach school but affordable is only reason applied.
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I think a lot of the deferrals of Bing applicants is because of the mess at Broome Community College which is closing and unleashing a lot of students and there is some kind of plan to merge some students and faculty with Bing although the details are murky. You can read about in Bing Press Connects newspaper. I think Bing is going to get diluted and now low on my list even if I get admitted.
Binghamton is the top affordable SUNY school for downstate residents. Long Island kids donât want to go to Stony Brook. Buffalo is too far. So Binghamton it is. And theyâre a lot of students on Long Island. They donât call it Binghampton for nothing. With the price of private schools at 70-80k. 28-30k for Binghamton attracts a lot of applicants.
The lack of in state merit aid isnât new of Binghamton either. It also has 7000 less students than Buffalo and 4500 less than Stony Brook.
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Omg I have lived in upstate NY my entire life and literally am just now getting the jokeâŠ. I just thought people spelled it wrong! 
But yes, that absolutely paints the picture.
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Yes, Bing lack of flaship status has a lot to do with it has neither a med school or a dental school. Buffalo has both and associated with a major biomedical research center at the Jacobs center. If you get into Buffalo Honors and want to pursue medical or nursing I recommend it over Bing and the merit money is typically better for top students.
All great points for a downstate resident. I live in the Finger Lakes area and Bing and Buff are equal driving distance. I am leaning toward Buffalo though since I got into the Honors College which is well respected and makes Buffalo seem like a smaller school, plus much better merit money in general and if you want to go into nursing or medical it has so much more to offer with more world renowned clicial opportunities at the Jacobs center and the many large hospitials in the Buffalo area. Of course you have the snow issue. 
Iâm still hoping to visit Buffalo and Geneseo with D23 but it is a 6 or 7 hour drive. And I wish their admitted student days lined up. Argh. D23 got biggest merit award to Buffalo out of all SUNYs as well. She pretty much admitted yesterday itâs probably going to be Binghamton though. Unless some other RD school blows her away.
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Buffalo Nursing, while fantastic, is not direct admit. Thatâs a HUGE difference!
Unless being in Honors at UB changes that?
Yes, Honors College does change that. Then it is direct entry as long as you maintain a 3.5 GPA which is a bit higher than other direct entries. Of the 75 or so nursing intents about 10 get Honors College each year for the entry nursing class.
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The other good thing about Buffalo Honors college is that it makes changing majors a snap. For instance if you first intend to do something like biomedical science as a pre-med track but want to change to nursing before matriculation it is essentially a done deal because of the arrangement with the Honors College. You canât do that easily at other schools.
I would say a possible negative for Buffalo nursing is that it is not at the main north campus but rather at south campus which is about 10 minutes away. Sort of like how Decker at Bing is off the main campus in Johnson City. Other good NY nuring programs like St. John Fisher are right on campus and most buildings connected so winter is not an issue. Of course more expensive even with merit.
Please understand:
There is no reason to complain about not receiving in state scholarships. Youâre barking up the wrong tree.
This is how it works, everywhere: the more desirable the school, the less incentive there is for that school to offer scholarships. UC Berkeley, for example, offers very few scholarships. They donât need to.
Scholarships are bait for the cream of the crop. If you are instate and got a scholarship to Bing, congratulations! You are extremely desirable as a student. You may well get offers to other extremely selective colleges. They KNOW that one way to tempt you is to offer you a scholarship. Itâs the best tool they have.
Most students at Bing are great students to start with. There are many of them. There is no reason for Bing to lure another great student with a scholarship. The students who get a scholarship are offering something the college wants or needs.
Bing knows they will get enough students of a certain caliber to meet their yield. Call them average excellent students. If your child didnât get a scholarship (mine certainly did not) itâs not because Bing doesnât want your child. Itâs because they have limited scholarship money and have to use it strategically to meet institutional goals.
More kids from Westchester, NYC, and Long Island are goals they know they will meet, regardless of scholarships. Tippy top students who could get into Harvard, or hooked students from Florida or California, or geographically desirable students from Illinois or Michigan, might be worth throwing money at though. All these types of student help raise the universityâs profile. Raising the universityâs profile benefits everyone at the university.
Bing knows it has a certain amount of clout, at least in NY state, though it is becoming much more known regionally. The lack of âflagshipâ status is really not that meaningful. As it stands now, Bing is the âhottestâ university in the SUNY system. Itâs still an incredible bargain, even without a scholarship.
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Well, I agree with you mostly with a few exceptions. The Buffalo Honors College is a very big deal and there is really nothing like it at Bing and the merit money for getting into that is in general superior to Bing. The flagship thing also not to be dismissed if you are going premed or predental or nursing. There are so many more research and clinical opportunities at Buffalo at top hospitals and medical research facilities. So as usual it depends. Your comments about needing to provide merit or not is true. That is why the âivyâ schools NEVER offer merit and only need based as they donât need to. But I think that is a huge mistake and means those colleges generally excluse middle class and only the lower income that get need based and the wealthy that donât care go there. That is form of discrimination in my opinion. at least at Binghamton the cost is generally affordable so not so much an issue in either case.
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Actually, to pile on this conversation even more with my âit dependsâ comment I made, please let me go just a bit further and then I will be quite. So, in my instance, I want to do nursing. So if the end goal is getting the BSN and then NP later does it really matter where I go for that terminal goal as all NPs will be employable? I am not sure. Not all colleges have nursing so that limits you right away. But I have gotten into Buffalo (Honors) and a bunch of other SUNY and NY private college nursing programs with wildly varying total COA (cost of attendance). Is financial aid a consideration? Of course but I still want to go to the best cost-benefit and after all in my case my parents will pay for the undergrad at least. Pretty hard analysis I would say. So to the comment on the scholarships being a carrot that is certainly true. Right now SUNY Brockport with nursing through DNP is just about a free ride for me (<10K with Room and Board included), Buffalo is not too bad financially, a couple of private nursing programs are about 10K above Buffalo even with substantial merit and I was deferred at Bing nursing (incomprehensible to me). My top choice is Penn nursing (#1 in the World and the only ivy that offers BSN). But as with all ivy there will be no merit money and they donât decide until about April 1. So 85K vs. 10K for a BSN and nursing license? It will be interesting.
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Thatâs awesome!
Actually, SUNY Brockport has the same set-up, where a very select few nursing intents may qualify for direct admit. Also, SUNY Plattsburgh is a direct admit BSN.
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Yes, got honors and direct entry at SUNY Brockport nursing and it is almost free. Not nearly the college reputation as Bing or Buff but if the end result is an RN/NP I am questioning the reason to pay more. If it was pre-med I could see the incentive to go to highest rated. Visiting there next week.
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Going through this last year with D22, we were very impressed with Brockport.
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Good to get your feedback. Visiting the nursing open house at Brock March 8. They have been very proactive in reaching out so should be interesting.
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Putting on my moderator hat for a momentâŠ
Folks, respectfully, this is a thread about Binghamton. Further off topic posts will be flagged. Anyone is free to start a new thread about Buffalo, Brockport, or nursing in the SUNY system.
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