<p>My son is a freshman at an expensive small private school of 1500 students and, although he loves the classes and the ecs, he feels the social life is stifling. He says there is absolutely NO variety.</p>
<p>I'm wondering if he should consider transferring to SUNY Bing. He chose a small school because he is somewhat shy and quiet although he is definitely a joiner in terms of clubs and activities. The residential college system sounds really nice. </p>
<p>One reason he did apply to SUNY bing was that he heard the stereotype of it being mostly people from the NY suburbs. Is that really true? He also is also really into ecology and hates shopping. Would he find find people like himself? Are there small classes?</p>
<p>1) The community system is one of the best parts of Bing, at least for me. It breaks down the school and can give a sense of pride. When people ask where you live, most respond with the community name first. I love my community and would hate to be stuck in a random dorm somewhere else. </p>
<p>2) Major stereotypes: You’re either Asian, Jewish, and/or from the NYC/Long Island area. True? Yes, it is. But there are enough people from elsewhere that makes up for it if you find that you “don’t fit in” with those areas. To be honest, I’m a Jewish Long Islander and I’m not huge shopper either so don’t decide based solely on the stereotypes for those areas. The school is large enough that there’s someone for everyone. I’m guessing you’re either OOS or from up-state. </p>
<p>3) Again, there’s plenty of stuff for everyone to do here. While we’re not a huge school, we still are not as small as 1500 students. There are a variety of ecological/science/ethics clubs here that do community work, work in the Nature Preserve/greenhouses, and work on political campaigns. Small school can often be harder for shy people, it forces you to do things and be known. I am shy too and that’s why I wanted a larger school to be slightly anonymous as I adjusted. </p>
<p>4) As with every other school, except for a 1500 person school, classes get progressively smaller as you go higher in difficulty. Depending on his major, intro level classes can have 500 people or 80 people. Higher level classes can have 15 or 50. It is a public school.</p>
<p>There are definite stereotypes about this place,many which are partially true. I doubt that your son will have trouble fitting in here. There are many very involved environmental groups on campus and the only residential community he should worry about is newing. You will find that metro NY is overrepresented (half of Plainview lives in newing) and there is a huge jewish and asian population.
Binghamton is a pretty big school. Were not FSU but there are still lots of 500 person classes and classes taught by foreign TAs. Class sizes typically go down as level increases but this depends by major. My smallest class had 9 people (upper level foreign language seminar) but my largest class had about 500(intro to psych). Unless you are in a relatively small department, you have to go out of your way to get the profs to give you individualized attention.</p>