starling

Which is better/prestigious/well known?

Compare and Contrast.

upbeat

I've not heard of SUNY Binghamton at all, but have always known of Vassar-that's one person's take on which is better known/more prestigious! Vassar is a former Seven Sisters school and was once considered the women's equivalent of an Ivy.

hudsonvalley51

Vassar is both more prestigious and better known. That does not necessarily make it a "better school" for everyone. Vassar is a small, highly selective liberal arts college (i.e. undergraduate only), located an hour and a half north of Manahattan by Metro North. It's high achieving student body is comprised from all 50 states (plus DC) and scores of foreign countries. As noted, it was one of the "Seven Sisters" but is now coeducational.

Binghamton is a well-regarded state university (fairly highly-regarded in NYS) that draws the overwhelming percentage of its student population from New York State. It is a university that awards Bachelors, Masters and Doctoral degrees. It is located a couple hours northwest of Manhattan in a declining manufacturing city of 50,000 or so. It is connected to NYC by bus, but not by rail. Binghamton's reputation, rightly or wrongly, has taken a black eye in recent days because of an ongoing scandal involving its Division I basketball program. Hopefully, Binghamton will wise up and realize there is nothing to gained and much to lose by fielding an ethically-challenged hoops team. The basketball program is definitely not adding luster to what is otherwise an excellent diploma.

starling

so i'm currently enrolled at Binghamton and trying to transfer to Vassar.

I hate that the school is ridiculously big(one of my classes has 400 students in class), inpersonal relationship with professors, and that TA's are all foriegn who don't really speak english much. There's no sense of cumminity whatsoever, and there are cliques as if i'm in high school all over again. (those cliques are highly divided by ethinicity.) There isn't even much of a school spirit here.

Binghamton wasn't my top choice at all, in fact, it was my back up. I went to College of William and Mary last year, but I had to transfer due to ridiculously high out-of-state tuition. Now that every facet of the current school underexceeds my expectation, I'm trying to transfer to small liberal art school that has a good amount of funding, OR transfer to prestigious Canadian school such as McGill, Queen's, or U or Toronto. (because it's cheeper)

Any advice? I just detest filling out the transfer application and paying for application fees, but I'm ashamed to have "binghamton" marked on my resume.

Keilexandra

If you transfer to McGill/Queen's/UT, be prepared for more huge classes.

starling

Yes, I'm expecting huge classes, but they are more prestigious has a better reputation than Binghamton.