Upstate Visits - Day 3

Hartwick College

On my final day of the trip, we went to visit Hartwick College and SUNY Oneonta. These two are located just minutes away from each other so they make a good pair when it comes to visiting campuses.

The one thing I think bears repeating about Hartwick is: this campus is on a massive hill. The pro here is that the views from various parts of campus are really lovely. The con is you need to be prepared to walk up and down a lot of inclines (though our tourguide informed us that many students hack the system by learning what buildings have elevators that can help things be a bit easier to navigate.). During our stay it was clear that Hartwick is investing some major dollars in the campus look and feel because there were construction projects going on all around. One main change is going to be a new pedestrian walkway on a road that was formerly bustling with cars. As a school that offers merit aid, this campus might be the right fit for students looking to attend a private school on a public college budget. Check out the net price calculator to estimate the cost for your individual financial situation.


Our final campus for this trip was SUNY Oneonta. The most noticeable contrast to Hartwick was the physical layout of the campus being much flatter. Of course, topography should not necessarily be number one on your list of campus factors, but since these two are so close to one another I think the contrast bears highlighting. Much like Oswego, I was pleasantly surprised by the renovation efforts on the campus. The spaces are bright, clean, and modern. Oneonta is also an example of how not all four year SUNY schools charge the same price for Room and Board. Oneonta's non-tuition fees are approximately $14,000 (compared with a school like Binghamton with Room & Board plus fees closer to $17,500). It isn't a massive difference but when you consider that many ElRo students would also get merit money to attend Oneonta, the savings really does compound over the course of four years. Still not convinced? SUNY Oneonta's campus is the proud home of the only Starbucks in a 50 mile radius.

Summer sometimes gets a bad rap when it comes to being a time to visit campuses, but I encourage you to not overlook this free time as a chance to really dig into seeing schools in person!

Upstate Visits - Day 2

The View from the Admissions Office, HWS.

The middle day brought us to Hobart and William Smith Colleges and SUNY Oswego.

Hobart and William Smith are actually two colleges (one for men and one for women) that operate on the coordinate system - meaning they have one campus and one office of admission but issue separate diplomas and have different mascots and school colors. For them, they see it as an advantage of being able to keep traditions from both schools and allow for double the number of leadership positions for students (each has their own student government, etc).

Hobart and William Smith Colleges are located at the edge of Lake Seneca, one of the Finger Lakes, and let me start by saying the view of the lake from their Admissions Office is absolutely stunning. The Wegman's chocolate chip cookies they give away there aren't too shabby either. An HWS education is rooted in the liberal arts. Instead of a core curriculum or firm distribution requirements, students are asked to complete 8 goals by the time they graduate. These goals can be reached by way of classes but they can also be reached through experiences and extracurriculars. This allows for students to shape their education with the freedom to take classes they want, but without going 100% to an open curriculum. Approximately 60% of students study abroad, just one of the ways they prepare students to lead lives of consequence (that's their tagline).

On our HWS tour we passed by a bulletin board with little tabs on a map for every place students had internships right now. This is a close up of the Northeast. They seem to have it covered :)

That afternoon, we headed farther north to visit SUNY Oswego.

Oswego

Another lakeside campus, this time along Lake Ontario, was our next stop: SUNY Oswego. Something felt different about this SUNY campus. A large part of this 'feel' is the facilities. Almost all of the campus has been renovated or rebuilt in recent years. That means you are walking through many crisp hallways, creative architecture, and technologically up to date spaces.

Is this what you pictured when you think of SUNY?

Well, that's Oswego.

Hockey is a big focal point here (no surprise there) and yes, you need to be ready for cold winters if you enroll. But, they also make a concerted effort to connect buildings and allow for travel between spaces without going outdoors for too long (same strategy as University of Rochester, though not via underground tunnels). I'm so glad I had the chance to see this campus. I was really impressed and thing it just goes to show the diversity that New York State has to offer.

PS - Our namesake also had the chance to visit this place

Upstate Visits - Day 1

The next three blog posts are going to cover a three day trip upstate where I had the opportunity to visit six colleges. This entry will cover Broome Community College and Onondaga Community College, two SUNY schools.

Broome Community College is located right near SUNY Binghamton and is probably the most relevant 2-Year SUNY for ElRo students because of its Binghamton Advantage Program, an offer of admission that some students receive after applying to Binghamton. In this program, students live on Binghamton's campus but take courses at Broome prior to transferring to Binghamton after one or two years. You can learn more about the BAP here. The advantage with attending a school like Broome is you save money on tuition, have a chance to earn credits, and then apply to transfer to a more selective 4 year school. They also offer a unique program called AA1 that allows bright students to earn an Associate's degree in only one year (again resulting in financial savings). For students that need a small setting in order to thrive (or a starting point before taking classes at Binghamton), Broome might be the right fit for you.

Our next stop was Onondaga Community College, which might end up to be the sleeper hit of this trip. I was blown away by the campus and could really see ElRo students being able to thrive here. Located right near Syracuse, Onondaga CC is slightly more developed than some other 2 year schools that I've seen. This is mainly due to the size. Onondaga has almost 12,000 students enrolled - that is double that of Broome. This allows them to have more integrated housing (see photo above) and provide a true campus feel that is not far from a large city (there are shuttles to take students all around if they need to get off campus).

NYSACAC 2017 SUNY Geneseo

The end of the year has been wild! Sorry this post is so tardy!

Earlier this month, because of an NYCDOE Office of Post Secondary Readiness grant, I had the good fortune of being able to attend the 2017 NYSACAC Conference at SUNY Geneseo. This was my first time at SUNY Geneseo, first time at the Coming Together conference and second time at the NYSACAC conference.

The conference experience was truly great but I won't try and bog down the blog with lots of information about the obscure sessions I attended (or the one I co-presented!). Instead I want to focus on the most relevant part of the conference to you readers which is: the campus!

SUNY Geneseo was so great! I loved everything from the architecture, to the main street adjacent to the campus, to the gazebo at the heard of campus with a killer view. The student ambassadors were phenomenal - the sort of representatives that make you feel like I want to tell the entire senior class to apply. They were energetic, courteous, and working day and night as VOLUNTEERS. I've said for years that SUNY Geneseo is the SUNY system's answer to the 'small private liberal arts college.' The emphasis is on being a well rounded learner and the vibe reminded me of many other small colleges in the Northeast. We got to hear a keynote address from a faculty member and that only bolstered my already positive opinion of the place.

Particularly with so much chatter out there about getting a liberal arts degree, I'm thrilled to have places like Geneseo where students CAN pursue their passions and NOT go into debt.

Admission Accomplished 2017

Congratulations to the Class of 2017 on their exciting admission results and enrollment decisions!

Earlier this month, we created our annual bulletin board to visually represent where the senior class will be headed next fall.

Below you will find the list of colleges where our seniors were admitted. If the school is listed in bold that indicates at least one student plans to enroll for the Fall. Please note, this list is based on self-reported results in Naviance. There remain students who have not updated their accounts, so there may be additional schools that are not shown here.

Adelphi University

Allegheny College

American University

Amherst College

Arizona State University

Babson College

Bard College

Barnard College

Barry University

Baruch College of the CUNY

Bates College

Baylor University

Bennington College

Binghamton University

Borough of Manhattan Community College of the CUNY

Boston College

Boston University

Bowdoin College

Brandeis University

Brooklyn College of the CUNY

Bryn Mawr College

California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo

Case Western Reserve University

Champlain College

City College of New York CUNY

City University of New York

Claremont McKenna College

Clark University

Clarkson University

Colgate University

College of New Rochelle

College of Staten Island - CUNY

Connecticut College

Cornell University

CUNY-Macaulay Honors College

Davidson College

Drew University

Drexel University

Elon University

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University - Daytona Beach

Emerson College

Emory University

Fairfield University

Fordham University

Franklin & Marshall College

George Mason University

Georgetown University

Gettysburg College

Goucher College

Grinnell College

Hamilton College - NY

Hampshire College

Hawaii Pacific University

Hobart and William Smith Colleges

Hofstra University

Hunter College of the CUNY

Indiana University at Bloomington

Iona College

Ithaca College

John Jay College of Criminal Justice of the CUNY

Lafayette College

Lawrence University

Lehigh University

Lehman College of the CUNY

Lewis & Clark College

Long Island University, Post

Loyola Marymount University

Loyola University Maryland

Macalester College

Manhattan College

Marquette University

McDaniel College

McGill University

Michigan State University

Mount Holyoke College

New York City College of Technology

New York University

Northeastern University

NYU Shanghai

Oberlin College of Arts and Sciences

Occidental College

Oxford College of Emory University

Pace University, New York City

Pennsylvania State University

Pratt Institute

Purchase College State University of New York

Purdue University

Queens College of the CUNY

Quinnipiac University

Reed College

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Rice University

Rochester Institute of Technology

Roger Williams University

Rutgers University-New Brunswick

Saint Louis University

San Diego State University

San Francisco State University

Sarah Lawrence College

Scripps College

Siena College

Skidmore College

Smith College

Southern Connecticut State University

St. John's University - Queens Campus

St. Lawrence University

State University of New York at Albany

State University of New York at New Paltz

Stevens Institute of Technology

Stony Brook University

SUNY Buffalo State College

SUNY College at Cortland

SUNY College at Geneseo

SUNY College at Oneonta

SUNY Oswego

SUNY Polytechnic Institute

Syracuse University

Temple University

The College of New Jersey

The George Washington University

The Ohio State University

The University of Arizona

The University of Edinburgh

The University of Scranton

The University of Texas, Austin

Tufts University

Tulane University

Union College (New York)

University at Buffalo The State University of New York

University College Dublin

University of British Columbia

University of California, Berkeley

University of California, Davis

University of California, Irvine

University of California, Los Angeles

University of California, San Diego

University of California, Santa Barbara

University of Colorado at Boulder

University of Connecticut

University of Delaware

University of Florida

University of Hartford

University of Maine

University of Maryland, Baltimore County

University of Maryland, College Park

University of Massachusetts, Amherst

University of Massachusetts, Boston

University of Massachusetts, Lowell

University of Miami

University of Michigan

University of New Hampshire at Durham

University of Notre Dame

University of Pennsylvania

University of Pittsburgh

University of Puget Sound

University of Richmond

University of Rochester

University of South Carolina

University of Southern California

University of St Andrews

University of Toronto Undergraduate Only

University of Vermont

University of Virginia

University of Washington

University of Wisconsin, Madison

Ursinus College

Vassar College

Villanova University

Washington University in St. Louis

Wellesley College

Wesleyan University

Wheaton College MA

Williams College