<p>I have a decent GPA (2.39) and I am looking to transfer to a SUNY school. Here is the problem, I have absolutely no idea what kind of school would be best for me. I will most likely either go in with a liberal arts major or undecided. I spent one semester at an out of state school in Pennsylvania which I hated because it was a commuter school and I didn't know anyone because I lived off campus and I felt like I had nothing in common with the other students. I spent the past 2 semesters at a community college and I am looking to transfer in the fall. I live about a half hour outside of NYC so I am used to having a decent amount to do but I do not know if I can enjoy going to a school in a small, rural town (such as SUNY Potsdam which I visited and liked for the most part) or going to a large school such as Buffalo which I found had alot but seemed hard to meet people because of how big it is. I think that whichever school I transfer to I am going to leave my car at home until a vacation comes up because I want to force myself to meet people and not be tempted to drive home. Does anyone have any advice on what schools I should look into?</p>
<p>Have you looked at Purchase?</p>
<p>It's a little too close to home for me, I would like to be at least 3+ hours away.</p>
<p>How about Oneonta? Its located in a very small city probably about 3 hours or so north of NYC. Kids seem to like it there and there is also another college, Hartwick in the same city. There is probably some things to do (shops, restaurants ,etc) as it is located near the Baseball Hall of Fame and some other attractions. Another popular school that may be worth a look is Cortland. It is located between Binghamton and Syracuse. Again though, you would be located in a small town type of area. Most of the Sunys are located in rural small town areas. I know of kids that are very happy at both of these schools.</p>
<p>Consider Plattsburgh as well. I know several alums who have nothing but great things to say about the school. It also has a very nice location -- Burlington Vermont is just a quick ferry or drive away, and Montreal is an hour north.</p>
<p>Nice article on Geneseo in this month's Kiplinger's:</p>
<p>I know people who love Binghamton, Plattsburg and Stony Brook... I actually visited Purchase and applied there as a safety school...it has very good fine arts programs (Art/ Film/Dance/Drama) and liberal arts but the campus is positively depressing IMO...I would caution you to take a drive there yourself if you are thinking about it although it would probably be too close to home for you....</p>
<p>Thanks to everyone for your imput, I heard good things about Geneseo but I don't know if I should even bother applying because if I'm not mistaken it is one of the harder SUNYs to get into next to Binghamton. Track87, I know exactly what you mean about the Purchase campus, I live about 20 minutes away from there and campus is depressing. I think that I'm going to apply to Potsdam, Cortland, Oswego, Plattsburg, Buffalo, and possibly Geneseo. Has anyone heard anything about Potsdam though? I liked what I saw when I visited but I was wondering if anyone has or knows of anyone's experiences.</p>
<p>I know people who have looked/went to many of the Sunys. From what I have heard kids who looked or are at Potsdam and Oswego like them both very much. Some of the music kids look at Potsdam because it has a really good music program. The school is smaller than some of the other Sunys and kids that have looked at it found that very appealing. Hockey is popular. Another college, Clarkson, is close by so there are a good amount of college kids in the area. Also, there is a lake or river near the campus and kids can go canoeing or get involved in other outdoor activities. The town has both chain restaurants and local restaurants. Oswego overlooks Lake Ontario. We were up there recently(in early April and it was snowing) and they have a brand new union with a very nice ice arena in it. I believe they won the D3 championship last year. It also looked like they were building a new rec center. Small town fairly close to the campus with restaurants and shops. Both places get lots of snow, but they are used to it and can handle/take care of it pretty well.</p>
<p>Hi- my kid is a sport management major at Cortland. She's very happy there.
A big plus for Cortland, is that it is pretty accessible to Syracuse, Binghamton and Ithaca- all within a 45 minute drive.
I'm an Oswego grad- so I am familiar with living in an upstate rural community.<br>
I thought the Oneonta campus was really nice too- small cute town. But it is not as accessible to other parts of the state. I think it is about 45 minutes to Bing.
d has friend at Plattsburg and she is very happy too.
I'm not as familiar with Potsdam.</p>
<p>Another plug for Plattsburgh. Nice location. Of course, you'd better be comfortable with snowy winters. Hockey team games are a campus phenomenon. Students report very positive attitudes about the place. Very good Life Science Department and Environmental/Ecology science if that's your thing. Small liberal arts college feel.</p>
<p>My daughter is a freshmen at SUNY New Paltz and loves it. May not be far enough for you, only 90 miles to NYC. The town of New Paltz is very cool, lots of things to do. The campus is very pretty, nice size school. It is second to Geneseo as far as academics go in the SUNY Colleges. New Paltz seemed to have a different, more artsy feel than the other SUNY's we looked at. Geneseo was a little too preppy for her!</p>
<p>Good Luck!</p>
<p>One more note, we live in the Buffalo area. SUNY Buffalo is huge and planning on doubling their size in the next 10 years. If you are looking for a large university it's great, but can be impersonal and overwhelming if you aren't into that! There is alot to do in Buffalo...great music scene, museums, parks and shopping.</p>
<p>If you live 20 minutes away from Purchase, SUNY New Paltz will be too close, less than 3 hours drive, to you. You may also look into SUNY Fredonia. It is just 1 hours away from Buffalo and Geneseo.</p>
<p>Hope this will help. :)</p>
<p>Well earlier tonight I sent out applications to Potsdam, Oswego, Plattsburg, Cortland, and Buffalo, I just need to have my current community college send my transcripts there and then hopefully I'll have decent results.</p>
<p>wishing you good luck cerealkiller!</p>
<p>I wish CC had sub forums for the other SUNYs or at least one for "other SUNYS" I asked. Maybe if we all wish really hard at the same time...</p>
<p>Good luck on your apps!</p>
<p>Muffy, some other states besides NY also do not have most of their state publics listed. For example, regarding NJ publics, Rutgers in New Brunswick is listed, but Ramapo, R. Stockton, Ramapo College, Montclair State, other Rutgers campuses,and William Paterson are not listed. It is interesting that in VA, many of the universities are listed, such as James Madison, UVA, George Mason, and Virginia Tech as sub forums.</p>
<p>Cereal</p>
<p>I am an alumnus of Suny Potsdam and my brother is an alumnus of plattsburgh.. awhile back for both of us, but i still know afew peole who went there uo to 5 yrears ago.</p>
<p>Since you have been to Potsdam already we saw the layout and except for the new dorm they are putting up near maxcy hall (the gym0 nothing much has changed expept they computers in the former dorm lounges floor in the high rises Bowman and Knowels Halls.<br>
I was a native Long Islander and the winters were cold, but if you keep your head covered, gloves on you should be ok. the most snow i saw was 3 feet with drifts up to the second floor windows.<br>
I probably got to know over half of my original class by that time I graduated meaning i knew a lot of things about them, upstate/downstate/ LI
what they majored in/ what classes they taken with me, etc. Since each class was about 800 or so. i t was not that hard to meet people and to find people to han out with. of course it depended on what type of person you were, but even so I never ate alone in any of the dining halls or the union people were friendly enough especiallly during the winters.
As a LAC it was great study all the fields . I changed my major 3 times from poli sci to history finally ti biology. i never had a TA and had 2/3 Phd's teacing us even the intro courses. There many more majors now just lioke most places. It is a good school to be perapared ffor grad. school.<br>
Potsdam is on the eastern side of the Racquette river and Clarkson university is on the west side. The dorms are about an 1/2 hour walk apart on each side of downtown. But Clarkson's Academic buildings are just 5 minutes north of SUNY Potsdam. I took one course theeand one at ST. lawrence University whicjh is 10 miles west on rt 11 in Canton. If you add all the students on these 3 campuses is around 10,000.<br>
Frats are popular in both schools. i was not a frat boy but some of my freinds were and still they were around even if thet lived in therir houses. I had many of a great times in thrir houses at beer blaasts (yes 18 was still legal in the early 80s) lol and wild parties. Many soroties too. Eben though clarkson was and still a 85/15 guy to girl ratio.. Potsdam is 65/35 girl to guy. I never felt there was a shortage of girls. Thet were on our "turf" to start with.<br>
The crane school of music is awesome. I know have a lifetime apperciation for classical, jazz and musical productions opera, ballet (came in handy when I first met my high browed wife) I went to many events there.
Montreal is 100 minutes away and Ottawa is aboput 70 minutes . Both great cities. Montreal is a fun place to hang out in. Just stay away from Old montreal the french mafia at least when i was there ruled there. The METRO is clean subway system and we can get around the whole city on it. The main drag is St Catherine's Street and a large underground mall stretches for blocks underneath it.</p>
<p>Ottawa is the captial of Canada and has the house of commons. It also boasts may museums and it is a very clean city. They now have NHL team there the Senators.
If you like to ski there are 2 major places all within 2 hours, Big Tupper in Tupper Lake is 75 minutes away, Whiteface Mountain is 2 hours away Lake Placid is also about 1i/2 2 hours away. there a couple of small places within 30 miniutes away too.</p>
<p>If they still have a place they own smack dab in the middle of the Adrondacks called Star Lake they have a few gym classes and you can learn how to build a snow shelter, you build in the day sleep init at night. it wasso warm inside despite being -25 below outside. You cam learn how to snowshoe andshi. Nice place to get away for a ' roughing it'. weekend.
Even though some of my high school freinds went to big schools like Syracuse, University of Maryland, Penn State, I never met their college friends on school vacations or when we graduated, unlikee me when they met mine for years even after school ended.</p>
<p>Plattsburgh. My younger brother went there in the mid 80s. He joined a frat and had a blast. Plattsburgh is a small city and a larger than Potsdam. They always had a good biological sciences programs there. The campus is larger they have a football team too. I remember the best thing about Plattsburgh was Monoples. A nice bar with really good Pizza. it is about 5 1/2 hours north of NYC. It is on par in general with Potsdam and Oswego academically </p>
<p>Oswego.. Really beautiful campus the sunset over Lake Ontario just gorgeeous ( on a clear day of course) I remember getting stuck in Oswego after lake effect snowstorm dum ped like 47 inches of snow from friday night into sunday moring. a lot of Long Islanders went there too. At the time I went to Potsdam Al Roker was at Oswego as a student. </p>
<p>Anyway If you need any more info drop me a line</p>
<p>DadofMAR -- One minor correction: Al Roker was a student at SUNY Oswego in the early-mid 1970s. I was a graduate student at Syracuse University when Roker had a stint as a weathercaster for one of the local television stations (this would have been 1974-75). He may havee still been a student at the time, but you could tell he was a guy who was going places.</p>