I’m a community college student who is applying to transfer for the Fall of 2016. I just realized that the application for City College is due Feb. 1 for transfers (much earlier than all my other apps). Both Binghamton and City College are safety schools for me, and I’d rather not shell out another application fee if I can decide now which I would hypothetically prefer.
Can anyone please speak about the rigor of these two school? Which one is the more academically reputable institution? What about their respective Computer Science programs?
I know that their atmosphere is pretty different since City College is primarily commuter (I will be dorming). Can anyone speak about how it affects their college experience?
Assuming Binghamton is affordable, this is sort of a no-brainer. City College has a 4 year graduation rate of 9% and 42% after 6 years. Binghamton is 68% and 81%. That tells you two things 1) the caliber of student attending and 2) whether they like the experience or not. Big edge to Binghamton.
Binghamton is a residential school, City College is not so there won’t be much going on and you won’t get a close campus experience there.
CCNY can justifiably brag about its scholars programs and its honor students, especially in the hard sciences. Depending on the major, you can get an excellent education and support at CCNY. It just happens to be a different environment than at a SUNY system school. The CCNY Computer Science Department is part of the Grove School of Engineering, as in ANDREW GROVE, former CEO of Intel Corp. The Grove School is rigorous and very hard to gain admission to. If you’ve been admitted to Grove, then congratulations.
One word of caution; the dorm at CCNY is expensive!
@LakeWashington would you say that CCNY Computer Science is as good as, and even better than Binghamton’s? Also, if I were to get into the Honor’s Program at CCNY do you think I’d get a lot of leverage?
@sybbie719 There are about 600,000 college students in NYC. People, students especially, overstate the availability and importance of internships, especially early on. “Internships” are not a reason to attend school in a city.
The valuable ones are the summer positions after junior year, and they aren’t dependent on going to school in a city. They are more dependent on grades, so concentrating on school is better. If you can do something on campus that’s great, but you don’t have to be in a city for that.
However, don’t sleep on CUNY; they have infused millions of dollars upgrading building and infrastructure (there has been a large infusion of cash into CCNY to support the City’s and the State’s STEM initiative
@sybbie719 While I guess I was eligible for that STEM scholarship I didn’t apply. I went to a financially-stricken HS with horrible counselors for advisement. Not sure I would have applied either way, since looking at it you have to commit to working in NY for a few years afterwards.
@ScaredNJDad1 If it is, it’s the first I’ve ever heard of it. What I hear is mostly SUNY Stony Brook (which I’m applying to because I get a fee waiver from SUNY, I don’t like it that much).
I haven’t applied to either of those yet… Deadlines are in March/April. I’m most likely applying to to URochester, but not RPI. It doesn’t have what I’m looking for in terms of a school.
All the CS students at Bing will be like the honors students at CCNY. And the BU engineering and computer science department is named for Thomas Watson, as in founder of IBM, so that is a bit of a wash. I continue to run across BU grads here in the PNW and am usually impressed.
