<p>What is the best SUNY overall?</p>
<p>What is each one knoen for? (e.g. business, pre-med, pre-law, engineering)</p>
<p>Which one has the best campus life? Best Location? Most selective?</p>
<p>How prestigious are the schools (or the system as a whole?)</p>
<p>Plus, where are most of the kids from in New York? I live on Long Island and alot of the kids here seem to gravitate towards Binghamton, Albany, and Stony Brook</p>
<p>any feedback would be helful</p>
<p>"What is the best SUNY overall?" Binghamton seems to have the better overall reputation but I believe that Geneseo is the better place to learn. </p>
<p>"What is each one knoen for? (e.g. business, pre-med, pre-law, engineering)" Genseo - liberal arts, Binghamton - sciences and engineering, Buffalo - a bit of everything as well as Albany. </p>
<p>"Which one has the best campus life?" Geneseo</p>
<p>"Best Location?" buffalo or albany</p>
<p>"Most selective?" huge tossup between genseo and binghamton. </p>
<p>"How prestigious are the schools (or the system as a whole?)" The highest ranked SUNY according to US news is all the way back in the mid 80's (Bing.). The schools seem to suffer alot when it comes to prestige as their reputation and the strenght of research comming out and the strength of their incomming student bodies is far below that of other top public institutions. The one thing that makes them appealing is their price - great value for NY state students. </p>
<p>"Plus, where are most of the kids from in New York?" Pretty much long island.</p>
<p>Binghamton has a great b-school, and Stony Brook is good for sciences. A lot of my friends turned down top schools for Binghamton and Stony Brook honors.</p>
<p>binghamton and geneseo both did well in a recent kipplinger magazine report on top values in public colleges: <a href="http://www.kiplinger.com/tools/colleges/%5B/url%5D">http://www.kiplinger.com/tools/colleges/</a></p>
<p>many top students often compare the two -- geneseo is smaller, liberal arts college. binghamton is one of the university centers. geneseo is also VERY rural.</p>
<p>a lot of your questions really depend on what you are looking for. best location? depends -- do you want to be near skiing, a major city, etc. best overall? depends on what you want to study - stonybrook has strong reputation in sciences, albany is great if gov't internships appeal to you, etc. </p>
<p>the choices within the suny system are vast -- you need to know what it is you are looking for.</p>
<p>Binghamton, Albany, Stony Brook and Buffalo are the university centers. They are, to anyone out of state at least, including employers, regarded as better schools. If you want a smaller or more rural environment, you have many choices. Be advised, however, before you go to a college satellite such as Geneseo or Plattsburgh, that you will suffer in comparison if you want ever to leave New York State.</p>
<p>I'll take issue with redcrimblue's comment as regards SUNY Plattsburgh. Clearly it's a regional college that's not well known outside of its immediate area. But take time to investigate it and you'll learn it has fine programs and is a overall very agreeable place to spend four years for an education. Biology and environmental science programs are comprehensive and are enhanced by the school's location near Lake Champlain. SUNY Plattsburgh is a fine liberal arts school within the state university system.</p>
<p>I am a graduate of SUNY Plattsburgh (early 1980s) and went on to be quite successful with a major company in the financial field before leaving to raise my family. As an aside, many years later, at a company Christmas party with my husband, it was discovered that the then President of this particular company, was himself a Plattsburgh graduate. </p>
<p>I loved Plattsburgh.</p>
<p>You determine your path. Not necessarily the college you choose.</p>
<p>Binghamton definitely has the best reputation, and it has a good business school</p>
<p>Stony Brook is the best for the hard sciences and mathematics, Buffalo for engineering</p>
<p>Stony Brook improves every single year. It keeps getting better and better. The WSJ considers it a top 10 public university. Several others publications have been lauding the school as well.</p>
<p>It is far and away the strongest in science, and, in the near future (considering who's running the school and funding it), it should be tops in most other areas of study as well.</p>
<p>I didn't mean to single out Plattsburgh particularly. If one wants to freeze to death eleven months of the year...no, seriously, I don't think outside of NYS that there is a dime's worth of reputational difference among any of the various venues of the non-university centers. Things like geography and size make the difference among those schools in a student's consideration. If you want a smaller campus closer to home, go for it. </p>
<p>My caution is that if one goes out of state, or as Lake Washington points out, more than four score miles away, no one will have heard of your school. That does not mean that the school is bad; it does mean you have to overcome the burden of an unknown school with an absence of reputation and the likely presumption by employers and others that it is not particularly good.</p>
<p>
[quote]
"What is the best SUNY overall?" Binghamton seems to have the better overall reputation but I believe that Geneseo is the better place to learn.
[/quote]
I agree, but Stony Brook is moving up on Binghamton as having the best reputation.</p>
<p>
[quote]
"What is each one knoen for? (e.g. business, pre-med, pre-law, engineering)" Genseo - liberal arts, Binghamton - sciences and engineering, Buffalo - a bit of everything as well as Albany.
[/quote]
Sounds good. Stony Brook is really well known for the sciences and that's pretty much it. Also, I think Buffalo has business (for undergrads?) which is decent. A few other mentions: Purchase has a really awesome theatre program. Crane school of music in Potsdam is decent, especially for music ed. Some other random things like that.</p>
<p>
[quote]
"Which one has the best campus life?" Geneseo
[/quote]
If it stopped at the word campus, Geneseo is the prettiest. Campus life, Geneseo is one of the worst. Albany is the party school. Buffalo seems very nice for a non-hard core partier. Geneseo is apparently almost dry and they are d-III sports.</p>
<p>
[quote]
"Best Location?" buffalo or albany
[/quote]
I would disagree. Albany is the best. Stony Brook is closest to NYC, but you have to deal with Long Island. Buffalo and Bing are...there. Geneseo is wicked small but alright. I don't know about every little one like New Paltz, so this is just for the 4 unis and Geneseo.</p>
<p>
[quote]
"Most selective?" huge tossup between genseo and binghamton.
[/quote]
Agree, except Purchase has lowest acceptance cuz of the theatre program.</p>
<p>
[quote]
"How prestigious are the schools (or the system as a whole?)" The highest ranked SUNY according to US news is all the way back in the mid 80's (Bing.). The schools seem to suffer alot when it comes to prestige as their reputation and the strenght of research comming out and the strength of their incomming student bodies is far below that of other top public institutions. The one thing that makes them appealing is their price - great value for NY state students.
[/quote]
I agree, except I would again bring up Stony Brook, which seems to be "prestigious" in the sciences.</p>
<p>"Plus, where are most of the kids from in New York?" Pretty much long island.</p>
<p>Geneseo is probably the best, it's been featured in many different publications lately so it may be gaining recognition out of state.</p>
<p>yeah, i always forget about stony brook, especially for the sciences. It's up there as well. </p>
<p>"Campus life, Geneseo is one of the worst. Albany is the party school. Buffalo seems very nice for a non-hard core partier. Geneseo is apparently almost dry and they are d-III sports."</p>
<p>The only reason I disagree with this is becuase I have multitudes of friends at Geneseo (really, at least a dozen or so) and they ALL really really love the place. I spent the night there once and had a great time. On the other hand, my friends at Bing. are all rather miserable and just want to graduate already. My friends at Buffalo are also having a good time, they just seem less focused on the campus and more on the urban environment. </p>
<p>"I would disagree. Albany is the best. Stony Brook is closest to NYC, but you have to deal with Long Island. Buffalo and Bing are...there."</p>
<p>I would go to Buffalo over albany any day. Albany is the capital but other than that, it's just ... there. Buffalo at least is a very large city with professional sports. Perhaps I'm a little partial to the Sabres and have always had a great time when visiting relatives in Buffalo, but I think it is a great city. At nothing else, buffalo wins simply becuase of the "Mighty Taco" restaurants that adorn the city - the reasons stop here.</p>
<p>I think Stony Brook is a school to watch!! They are just opening up the Stony Brook/Southhampton campus and seem to be doing a major expansion in the field of marine bio. Graduate school in Journalism is in the works. Commuting distance to NYC via LIRR for those kids who want the excitment being near NYC, yet have the security of a real residential campus on Long Island.<br>
It also seems that most of the colleges have their own special niche--
Purchase- Performing Arts
Cortland- Sports Management and Rec
Platsburgh/Fredonia - Music
Oswego- snow (only kidding- Oswego is my alma mater) I think they have a 7 year physical therapy doctorate program with Upstate med
and don't forget ESF at Syracuse U. </p>
<p>Get the SUNY viewbook from your guidance office-- and check the websites. Lots of good info is available.</p>
<p>i really think that one thing that someone can conclude from the responses on this thread is that there really isn't just one suny that is "the best" -- so much depends on what you are looking for.</p>
<p>OMG, I was considering SUNY plattsburgh as a good option, but now I'm not sure. The climate scares me, also it's very far from NY.</p>
<p>Andriuxs, you need to investigate Plattsburgh in detail. The campus is pleasant looking. As for the weather, my impression is that overall, the students just integrate the colder months into their campus lifestyle without any anxiety. For example, the hockey team is quite successful and the matches are a wildly popular campus event.</p>
<p>
[quote]
also it's very far from NY.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>ah!! rule number one if you are going to go to a school upstate -- or for that matter go to any suny where you will be with students from outside of the nyc metro area:
plattsburgh is not far from ny -- it is IN ny. it is far from new york city.</p>
<p>(and fyi, while most would probably accept the designation of plattsburgh as "upstate" ny -- i found that for most people, "upstate" is north of where ever they grew up. for those from long island, westchester was "upstate;" for those from albany and syracuse, plattsburgh was "upstate.")</p>
<p>I think in New York, upstate is basically not the city. I refer to Albany as upstate.</p>
<p>In terms of SUNYs, Geneseo is definitely the best. It is a college on the rise too; in about ten years it'll be up there with the other top public schools, UNC CH, UVA, UCLA, etc. A degree from Geneseo will be worth much more than what you paid for it.</p>
<p>That, dear Silver, is lunacy. Geneseo might be a nice little campus but to compare it to front level flagships is extraordinarily ridiculous.</p>