@Rkitty1@EENYMum From my son’s experience last year, he was accepted directly to the Honors college (he checked the Honors box on the common app). Sometime in early January he received a letter by snailmail with an offer of a provost scholarship - I think $5000/year. I believe that was the max but they also give out smaller ones as well. As I recall there is another scholarship called “Pride of NY” which is a few thousand a year. My son received the invite to apply for the Presidential Scholarship as well which he did. We were thrilled when he won! The catch is when you are awarded the Presidential, they will take away the Provost and Pride of NY scholarships. They can’t take away the NYS STEM Scholarship (which is tuition only). I do not know how the Excelsior Scholarship is or is not affected by being awarded the Presidential Scholarship.
While my son has been there only one semester, he absolutely loves it there. He is a fairly outgoing kid and was concerned the Honors college would be full of introverts who only wanted to study - especially the other kids who won Presidential Scholarships. Happy to say his fears were unfounded - my son has a tight-knit group of ~20 friends from all different walks of life. They live in the Honors dorm together and I have met several of them. A very mature, confident, and friendly group. Based on my son’s experiences I can tell you they all work very hard but have a lot of fun together too. He applied to a few top 30 private schools but now says he can’t see himself anywhere but UB.
i called the financial aid office to ask when they were sending the packages and they said they are sending them this week and next week.
i have a question, how is life in UB? class wise
@biomedical2023 Based on your username I am guessing you are planning on the same major as my son! From on his first semester experiences within the honors college I can tell you the students are a pretty intense group. They are very diverse - in culture and with interests. All are very intelligent, work hard, and take their studies seriously. However, all of my son’s friends participate in extracurricular activities or clubs as well. Class sizes for the Bio and chem classes are very large - 300 to 400 people for general lecture. However, everyone has a recitation class of only 24 or so students. Those classes are one hour/week in which you review lecture topics/HW with a grad student TA. My son’s recitation met immediately before his lab so he had the same TA and students in his lab as he had with recitation. He thought his TA was awesome - chem PhD student who has done this before. However, he heard a couple of new TA’s weren’t quite as good due to lack of experience. The first semester of general Bio was actually fairly challenging for my son because it was completely about evolutionary biology and relationships between organisms. Both sections were graded on a curve with class exam averages being in the mid 60s. While these are “general” classes, they are met for science and engineering students and seem to be meant to weed students out a bit. If you plan on going to med school be aware that medical colleges will not accept AP credit - college credit only. My son has to take general bio even though he had a 5 on the AP Bio exam. Kind of a bummer. The second semester of this class is supposed to be focused on cell bio. In general, chem and bio are the biggest adjustments and you will have to work at them.
My son found the basic calc class pretty easy since he took AP calc. He’s not a math whiz by any means but if you have had calc in HS it should be relatively easy. However, be sure to take calc and its Applications which is meant for life science majors. There is one higher level that you could take but it is meant for engineers. Some of my son’s friends are taking it and it is more challenging but I guess engineers can handle it with a little effort. Finally, there is a honors liberal arts class: you can choose from several that each have different subject matter. However, the focus in all of them is reading, writing, and class discussion. My son did get an “A” but he complained about it to us all semester long. All of the literature was translations of foreign novelists from second and third world authors that he had difficulty relating to. It also didn’t help that the professor didn’t exactly encourage open discussion - she would ask for opinions then go on to explain how a student’s opinion was wrong and hers was correct. You just have to grin and bare it - just be prepared and know you only have to face something like this once (unless a liberal arts major).
The honors kids really help each other a lot - true community spirit. They have study groups together and the engineers help with math while life science majors try their best to explain bio. You will have to put in the time - you can’t coast - go to class, you’ll do well. My son’s comment was material is presented much faster in his classes vs. HS. In bio for instance, they had electronic quizzes (on a phone app) on that day’s lecture. He had a difficult time with those but fortunately they didn’t count a lot towards final grades. Point is - that’s how fast you are expected to learn and digest everything.
If you have any other questions, please email me directly and I would be happy to answer them. Good luck!
@choguy1 thank you for this well detailed response! I’m kinda scared for bio…My high school schedule for all 4 years were all science based (ap bio, bio honors, biomed, human body systems, etc), I’m pretty scared for first semester bio. How would I keep up?
@biomedical2023 My son has a similar background as yours: 2 years of life science-based classes, one of chem, and one of physics. Evolutionary bio was just one small part of one of those classes. That small part was expanded into 15 weeks with intricate detail at UB. The professor allows you to create a cheat sheet for exams: one-side of an 8 1/2 x 11 paper. My son wrote in the smallest of hand-writing and there were still details he missed. The professor records her lectures so he got into the habit of reviewing each day’s lecture and reviewing notes when he returned to the dorm. He found if you wait even 24 hours to review, you might forget some of the details that she will test you on. A lot of information is thrown at you that’s for sure.
@choguy1 wow, I think the little cheat sheet made it less (little) stressful. What should I do to be successful? Are classes graded harshly at Buffalo? WHat can boost averages?
My S put his tuition deposit down but it looks like the housing deposit for fall 2019 is not open yet? Has anyone been able to put a housing deposit down for fall 2019? Also can anyone who knows give an opinion on a large double vs a quad with a bathroom? He likes the idea of a BR in the room and large size but is wavering on the idea of 4 people sharing…He is selecting Ellicott.
Congrats to those have been accepted to UB. I am an alumnus (as well as former residence hall director/resident advisor) of UB and my son was accepted into the aerospace engineering program prior to Christmas. We are still considering the school as he is OOS. Of the SUNY schools, UB was the only school I had him considered. If SUNY designated a ‘flagship’ school in their system like some other state universities, UB hands down would be that school. It is a comprehensive campus with all educational disciplines available to students. Happy to answer any questions!
@2023collegemama Unless Ellicott went through major renovations (except for the Greiner wing) over the years, I recall each of its buildings had common floor bathrooms. The doubles were nice sizes. Some floors have common kitchens - none in the rooms.
@spqr70nj Thank you. We were looking on UB’s 360 residence hall tours and saw the option for a quad with an in-room bathroom in Ellicott. It looks very large and nice. I am not sure if that is a new addition? @biomedical2023 from what I can tell it depends on which dorms you pick. I read in Ellicott a lot of students share a common bathroom (maybe 14 or so students to two showers-but maybe this has changed since the posts I read?) but the South dorms are suite style with a bathroom shared by only 4 students…Maybe others with experience living there can correct my info, or share more?
@spqr70nj Congrats to your son! My son has also been accepted for aerospace. What other schools is he considering? Do you know if dorms are first come first serve? Also is there a forum to find roommates? Btw, what do you think of UB engineering?
Hi @thessaly1 My son has already been accepted to Rutgers, West Virginia, Penn State, NJIT, as well as UB. He’s still waiting to hear back from Syracuse, Maryland, and Va Tech. I have many friends that graduated from UB’s engineering program and it’s pretty solid. I wanted my son to apply there because of the program and University. Although we haven’t made a final decision yet, since we are out of state (NJ), UB’s costs will be more than some of the other schools I listed. We are still waiting to see if he received any merit scholarship, but not counting on it. He was already offered $17k/yr scholarship at West Virginia. If you are a NYer, you are definitely getting the most for your money.
I recall the forms being first come first serve, or at least generally. If you have a friend that is also attending UB, you can have that considered. I did when I attended. My first year hall was Goodyear on South Campus - all doubles with a shared bath. Clement on a south canpus is the same set up. Afterwards I lived in Ellicott Complex both Richmond and Wilkinson as a Resident Advisor and Hall Director. Had the best time there and classes are close since the University consolidated most of the undergraduate programs on North Campus.
My dd has been accepted to both UB and Oneonta (and others). She wants to be a DPT ultimately. UB requires pre DPT to major in exercise science, and it leads into the excellent DPT program. Dd really likes the Human Bio major available at Oneonta and they have excellent pre req advising and course maps to mesh with that major. But she’d need to apply to DPT programs without the any advantage like UB undergrad. I understand she wants the most interesting major, but how should I advise her? Collegemama2023, I see your son is in the ES major, any thoughts on this?