In addition to all the work junior year brings, it is also important to start the college search to develop ideas about where you might want to spend the next four years. For juniors, college is just a year away!
On March 23, 40 juniors along with four chaperones visited four SUNY colleges. The visits helped to expand their knowledge on what a college environment would look like.
There were many clear reasons why SUNY schools seemed to be a good choice to visit for students. “Since these schools gather the highest number of applications each year from our student body it made sense for our itinerary to offer firsthand knowledge of these schools to the junior class. In addition, the SUNY colleges are becoming more competitive each year and require increasingly higher GPA and SAT/ACT scores for admission,” stated Dr. Finn, director of the counseling center who also chaperoned the trip.
The juniors gathered at the side of the high school to wait to get on a comfy coach bus to start journey to the SUNY schools. After a four-hour bus ride, we reached our first stop: SUNY Binghamton, one of the larger SUNY schools with around 15,500 students. Here students got a feel of what a medium to large sized school would look like. We got to visit dorms, classrooms, and other places included on campus like the gym.
Next we visited SUNY Oneonta, a favorite among the students that went on this trip. In addition to looking around the campus and visiting dorms and classrooms, we saw two familiar faces, Chelsea Dankner and Jen Seychell, going about their college routine. SUNY Oneonta’s campus was not too big, and it seemed to be a very friendly place. Oneonta has approximately 5,800 students. After SUNY Oneonta, we went to Applebee’s to dine after a long day, and then to the Holiday Inn to get some sleep for the next day of visitations.
In the morning we headed off to SUNY Albany, with about 18,000 students and 100 different nations of culture attending. SUNY New Paltz, the next school we visited, had around 8,000 students enrolled overall.
Students Bridget Conners and Stephanie Freund agreed that their favorite campus we visited was Oneonta. They said that the landscape and scenery there was nice, and everyone seemed very friendly. Meredith Gill, another student that went on the trip liked SUNY Albany better, because of the education it seemed that they could provide.
Overall the trip was a major success for students and chaperones. It also seemed to help the students get a feel of the whole college experience, maybe sprouting ideas in their head for what they would want to do from within the time they have to decide.
Dr. Finn, head of the guidance department added, “On every trip so far, I have heard students discuss how they want to study more effectively when they return to school in order to increase their chances of getting into one of these colleges on our trip. Its these kinds of student aspirations that the trip is designed to elicit.”
The SUNY schools aren’t too far away from home and aren’t too expensive for students to attend. Tuition for these schools ranges lesser and greater than $14,000.00, and housing and other expenses add up around $800.00 to $1200.00. So next time you are considering colleges you may want to attend, check out the SUNY schools!
