You don’t have to go through all of them because there’s a lot, but maybe just the top schools and what they are known for/the major they “specialize” in. Thanks!
I will provide my opinion of the four SUNY research universities. All provide a solid education. Binghamton is known for liberal arts. Strong pre-law and pre-med (and interdisciplinary neuroscience) and English and History departments. They do not have a Communications department so if you want that you need to major in Rhetoric and English. I am sure they are strong in other departments but those stick out in my mind. Also for Accounting the school of management is the best of the SUNYs. Almost all of the students live on campus. Stony Brook is noted for engineering and the sciences–its physics, chemistry and biology departments are top notch. A lot of students go home on the weekends or live at home and commute so not as much residential feel as the other SUNY centers. Albany and Buffalo have strong business schools. Albany has a strong political science department as it’s in the capitol. And it has nanotechnology center. IMO Buffalo is the most well-rounded having the most course offerings in everything and the largest campus. It is strong in communications and in engineering and in the sciences. Also it has the best pharmaceutical school of the SUNYs. You should visit all four because they each have a very different feel. See where you feel most comfortable and fit in.
There are 64 SUNY schools.
What are you interested in? You can go to suny.edu and do a search of all campuses by major or keyword and find out which schools offer what programs.
If you are a junior now, over the summer you can make an appointment with a SUNY counselor (I know they have an office in Manhattan) who will review your unofficial transcript and your test scores and discuss your interests and wants with you. Then, they will help you come up with a list of schools to apply to.
For instance, my D was interested in education and music, but not music education. The counselor we met with told us about direct entry programs, helped her think about what size school and program she’d be interested in and the like. She was accepted into a school he suggested that we were unfamiliar with. I took S17 as well. He suggested a school for his major that I had only known about as a music education school (not his major, either). If you can do this, I highly suggest it. I also emphasize looking on the suny.edu site for your majors and then browsing the websites of the the schools you find. The suny site will also give you info on stats of accepted students so you can see where you stand.
Oh, I wasn’t asking for any particular major… I was just curious as to what each specialized in, as stated in the question.