Anonymous wrote:I lived in New England and upstate NY so I definitely dragged my kids up to look at some of the schools.
UNH and UMaine are small. They have some specific, good programs that make sense but, in general, UNH is expensive for oos kids and UMaine will feel very remote (and dark in the winter).
U Vermont - Gorgeous campus and was very interested in one of my kids - but they just didn't have enough of a program in his area of interest.
SUNY schools - They are actually very solid schools and a great bargain for OOS students. Stony Brook, Binghamton, Albany and Buffalo have always been strong schools. Geneseo is a liberal arts school. Purchase is strong in music and performing arts. Cortland has an excellent glass program and Alfred a top ceramics program.
My top stats kid applied to Stonybrook which has a strong STEM reputation in their area of interest.
Stonybrook in particular has a reputation of being a commuter school which I think is changing but they need much more housing stock on campus to really address this. I heard that if your parents live within a certain radius of campus you must be a commuter student, so it has a bit of a different vibe.
They are doing a lot of major infrastructure investments on campus, so I expect it will evolve pretty quickly over the next 10 years or so.
They have a beautiful huge new physics and math building and are building a new engineering building which will open in a couple of years. They are also building some new housing to open this year.