<p>Ditto what Shoshi says, but your time is limited for this year. Also, a general word about financial aid for transfers: it's usually at a premium unless the candidate is truly exceptional. Good luck, but Shoshi does offer some solid advice.</p>
<p>Princeton Review one ranked Binghamton for "Most Unhappy Students" (I'm not sure if it's still or not...) point being that Bing was filled with ivy league rejects or student who couldn't afford ivy...and who can blame them?! With good schools in New York like Cornell, NYU, Columbia, Rochester</p>
<p>All of the schools you mention are fine private schools with much superior reputations and resources than any SUNY. There are a # of public univesities than can compete with this list but unfortuantely you have to leave NY to find them.</p>
<p>but we should't have to leave new york to find top notch good affordable schools...which is the sad thing...we have to.
schools like UNC chapel hill, UMD college park, Mich ann arbor are all flagship schools. our state is too stupid and ignorant to technically make one suny school a flagship</p>
<p>well, the results are in and Binghamton certainly wont crack the top 70 anytime soon until major improvements are made. In the 2007 US News rankings, Binghamton dropped 12 places to #86.</p>
<p>When are the politicians in Albany going to wake up and make Binghamton the flagship campus of the SUNY system? What a tragedy for all those bright kids who have to go to school there. Until Albany throws Binghamton a lifesaver or two, it'll go down like the Titantic.</p>
<p>This thread is sickeningly elitist and bourgeois. SUNY Binghamton continues to be a great school academically, and it continues to attract great students. It also feeds students to good graduate schools. According to the Thursday, August 31st issue of "Inside BU," "82% of of Binghamton seniors who applied to law school during the 2004-05 admission year gained admissions to one or more law schools, topping the national rate of 67%." This included admission to schools such as Cornell, Columbia, Harvard, and Yale. </p>
<p>It is safe to say that it no longer has the reputation it did 20-30 years ago, but that doesn't preclude its status as one of the public bargains of the nation. Binghamton is devoid of some of the luxuries of private schools, but it still has a competitive, strong academic programs.</p>
<p>It is fallacious to write this school off on the basis that it was much better before: It continues to be an affordable alternative to most good schools, and it continues to have great professors and students, though probably in lesser concentrations than certain schools traditionally considered "elite." Binghamton also suffers from "Tufts syndrome," because of nearby Cornell. The fact that IBM relocated also didn't help. </p>
<p>SUNY Binghamton is not as horrible as many people on this thread are claiming it is. If it were so terrible, it wouldn't have so many applicants. Moving to college is a big decision, and people wouldn't put up with it for four years if Bing were unbearable.</p>
<p>I agree with many parts of the above post. </p>
<p>One thing I want to make clear is the fact that I don't believe any of binghamton's big flaws are due to the University itself but rather the state of new york. I think that Binghamton is a great way to get a top-notch education at an affordable price. </p>
<p>NY needs to pump money into Binghamton to make it a flagship campus. Binghamton can boast about a high law school acceptance rate, but the cold facts are the school isn't sending its students to top schools ... bing. averages sending 1 person a year to harvard law school while the schools it often compares itself with typically send around 20-25 students a year. When NY wakes up and starts pumping more money bing's way, then maybe things will start improving. Until then, the school won't be able to attract the best professors and wont be able to give them the resources and the facilities that they need to do research. More notable professors may get binghamton's name on more nationally published papers which could help with peer assessment. Also, more teachers would lower student:faculty ratio and this would help with the US news rankings. This, in turn, will help attact better students rather than just the "ivy league rejects" as I often hear. More funds could also improve the campus and provide more activities for its students (this is often a complaint I hear alot about from bing. students). </p>
<p>I do believe you can get a great education at a place like binghamton, but I also believe the school is struggling to keep up with its peers (not from reasons of its own, though, blame NY).</p>
<p>A quick word to joshnewcollege about Binghamton. It's only a good deal if you're from New York and if you plan to stay in New York. Also, notice that you're from Florida where the exceptional U of Florida at Gainesville is in dire financial straits (due to lack of state support) -- if Gainesville doesn't watch what happens when a state hedges on its support, all it has to do is look at Binghamton -- and then watch it drop. It's purely stating facts, not elitist or bourgeois about it.</p>
<p>Collegeparent. Your claims are correct, but they paint an unnecessarily gloomy impression of Binghamton that I feel is unfair to all of the stellar students and professors who reside at the university. </p>
<p>Yes, I am from Florida. I have numerous friends who go to U of Florida, and the undergraduate program is far from "exceptional." I am a student at New College of Florida, as you may have inferred from my username. It is an amazing institution (recently ranked #1 public liberal arts by US News), and Binghamton doesn't compare to it in terms of faculty accessibility and student motivation. I am doing a semester at Binghamton University through the national student exchange. You are right that there is a lack of pride and school spirit here. This truly was the safety school for many of the smarter students with whom I associate. But many of them chose Binghamton as a strategic option, confident that it will feed them into an elite graduate school- And I don't think they are wrong to assume that. Being at Binghamton has made me appreciate New College a lot more, but I don't have it in me to say that it isn't a great school: The classes and the coursework are challenging, the competition is surprisingly fierce, and the professors are more approachable than I thought they would be. The professors here are not as stagnant in their fields as some of these posts have suggested. If Binghamton has declined, it primarily reflected in the funding, the location, and the students. The professors are still good. </p>
<p>I have made friends who are in the Binghamton Scholars honors program, and they report good things about it.</p>
<p>Binghamton may be better recognized if more OOS students attend.</p>
<p>my old...very old... prof once told me, back in the day, the only public schools top-flight students would consider were UNC, Berkely, and Binghamton. Not sure what happened to binghamtons reputation, and if the decline was gradual or precipitous... but something went wrong. I think the SUNY system has something in the realm of 64 schools, so all available funds are woefully depleted and one school cant stand out. For all intents and purposes, binghamton should have been marked as SUNYs flagship campus years ago therby cementing its place as a top 40 national college. For lack of action, it has payed dearly.</p>
<p>It looks like UConn is taking Binghamton's place....o well...</p>
<p>Binghamton is dropping on the list, however it is still an awesome school with a lot to offer.</p>
<p>Alum need to be more generous w/ the annual giving</p>
<p>As well as, SUNY w/ their endowment, as previously said... with more $$$ binghamton could crack the top 50 as it excels as a top public research/ liberal arts university... Stony Brook is also a rising star, as said, and is a top 10 public science university in the nation along w/ UMichigan Ann Arbor UVA etc</p>
<p>Wow it seems like collegeparent has something against Bing. Did your son or daughter not get in?</p>
<p>collegeparent is correct.</p>
<p>Its sickening that we are one of the most highly taxed states in the nations and us students can't even depend on a good public school that gives cheap tuition.
In other states students can always depend on this.</p>
<p>I mean North Carolina has UNC-Ch, Virginia has UVA, Michigan has UMich-ann arbor and California is perhaps the most successful with the entire UC system especially UCLA and UC Berkley.</p>
<p>We should really try to copy these schools.</p>
<p>CUnY's are at least a lot better.</p>
<p>From Times Union - "Spitzer has big plans for SUNY", <a href="http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=593530%5B/url%5D">http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=593530</a>
"Much of Spitzer's focus was clearly on SUNY. He noted that although New York has 14 of the top 100 universities in the nation, unlike California, none of them are public institutions."</p>
<p>This new attention to SUNY won't help us now. It will probably be years if anything is even accomplished. This article is from May and I haven't heard anything about this since. It will probably suffer the same fate as Gillibrand's college tax deduction she was talking about during her campaign.</p>
<p>S will probably apply to a SUNY as a financial safety.</p>
<h1>82 this year. A shame, ... strictly on SATs and GPA, this is a top 50 school.</h1>
<p>By statistics it is a good school. However, the experience at Binghamton to put it bluntly sucks. I am going to be a senior there next year and I never expected to spend 4 years of my life hibernating from the cold weather, the depressing climate, and a lack of things to do outside of the campus. I expected going into college to have a really great experience, which I can't really say I have had at Binghamton so far.</p>
<p>To make matters worse, although certain people won't admit it, Binghamton is a very poor school compared to other schools I have visited. Bing only has a $50 million dollar endowment, they get little if no funding from the state, and students pay very little in tuition. Although bing is very underfunded it is also quite smart in its marketing attempts. Bing has realized that part of its attractiveness is based on its cheap cost. So although Bing is not as rich as other schools there in lies its charm. Students will still apply and attend Bing as long as the cheap tuition provides a benefit. However, as long as bing remains underfunded and the town continues to wallow in squalor, Bing will not top the first 60-70 within the next decade.</p>
<p>You might argue that I am heavily biased against the school, which is not true. If I really disliked Binghamton I would have transferred. I am just trying to be realistic about Binghamton's faults and accept the fact that many more factors have to change before it becomes a world renown school.</p>