hi! i remember having a lot of random questions about college before i started, so i want to be a resource for people who have questions! i’m in vpa for art education currently switching into comm design. i’m also in marching band and i would love to answer questions about that!!
only thing i ask is to please not ask me questions about admission, i’m not an admissions officer so i don’t know when decisions come out nor people’s chances of getting in
MODERATOR’S NOTE: Anyone is free to ask or answer questions in this thread.
What are some of your favorite/least favorite things about Syracuse that you have experienced so far? And what is the town of Syracuse like? Being OOS I doubt I can visit Syracuse and I’m not too familiar with upstate NY anyways. Thanks
How hard is it to transfer between colleges if you are not accepted to your first choice? I understand Newhouse and Whitman may be very difficult, but say from A&S to either Falk or VPA?
@shaydenglenn One of my least favorite things is the dorms. for how much you spend to live on campus I don’t think it really reflects the quality of the dorms. I currently live in dellplain and it’s a pretty ugly building ngl. and the fact that there’s no ac really killed me for the first month of school. The dining halls are also not the greatest, they’re passasble but that’s as much as I can say for them. also there’s not a lot to the location outside of the university. You have Marshall street, it’s this street right outside of the university. There’s a bunch of restaurants and this pretty cute thrift store that I go to every so often. You have destiny mall, it’s huge and has pretty much everything you need in a mall (except for a target rip) and the bus to it is free on Fridays and Saturdays . There’s also Armory Square, I actually really like this place but I never had the chance to explore it last semester. It has this place called pastabilities and I definitely recommend checking it out. There’s also a music store called sound garden that I really dig. But besides that there’s not really much to do. I think the University more than makes up for that thought. The University Union holds a lot of events, from movie screenings, to music festivals, and even therapy dogs on the quad. There’s also so many clubs and organizations you can join, there’s a student run magazine for almost every interest/subject you can thingk of. I also highly recommend going to sporting events, our football team got a lot better this year (we beat Clemson for the first time in 20 years!! This was my favorite band experience). There’s so much spirit for this school, even if there’s things that annoy me about this school, I love it so much and I can’t imagine being anywhere else. That was so wordy but I hope it answered your question haha
@gcnorth Hmmm. I think it’s a lot easier than transferring into Newhouse or Whitman, but it does require some work. Most schools require at least a 3.0 GPA in order to transfer in, and in cases like VPA most majors except for communications and rhetorical studies require a portfolio for admission. The university offers intra-transfer sessions for each school that can give you a lot more information. As for transferring into Newhouse or Whitman I honestly wouldn’t knock it, but please make sure you have a back up plan. Newhouse only accepts 30 transfers and while they say the GPA cutoff is 3.5, it’s been more like 3.9 in recent years. This isn’t for you specifically, I’ve seen a lot of people on here say they’ll transfer to Newhouse and I don’t want people to set themselves up for failure. Is there a certain program you’re looking at in VPA? I love VPA a lot and I think it’s a great school overall
What have you heard from students that did summer start? My son is accepted into the dual ischool/Whitman and wondering the necessity of gaining credits the summer before.
@gagmd1 I actually don’t know anyone that has done summer start? I’m not really sure about the necessity of it, I would say no but with dual majoring I’m not sure. I would see if you could get in touch with an advisor and see if your son is on track to graduate in 4 years. Even then there are more opportunities to earn credits outside of the academic year besides summer start
@saintmurdock What are the gameday student sections like? I know tailgates have quite a reputation at Cuse, but what about inside the Dome? Also, what dorms are the best/worst?
@cusespm2022 I don’t have a personal experience with being a part of the student section but I asked my friend and he said that that student section is pretty wild, and it’s really fun if you go with friends. The student section is called Otto’s army which is really cute. For anyone going to Cuse next year, Otto is our mascot and he’s actually really cute you’re going to love him. One time during a quad show (a thing the marching band does at the hendricks chapel steps before the game) he was messing with my shako and then proceeded to take one of my cymbals and started crashing them together with me lol
as for dorms, you can’t pick your own dorm freshman year, unless you choose a learning community. the unfortunate part about the freshman dorms is how far away they are from the campus. i got really lucky with dellplain, it’s right by ernie davis which is pretty close to campus, but the rooms are ugly. haven is not too far away and the rooms are a lot nicer. BBB is one of the worst dorms in terms of distance though, you have to walk uphill and a bunch of steps to get to main campus which is pretty brutal when it’s cold outside.
How is the financial aid office? I was admitted ED and really excited to go there, just need to know if my aid offer will be payable for me and my family… thanks! You’re words made me want even more to go to Syracuse!
@byadg123 haha not much has changed then! but we did just get individual bathrooms which is actually pretty nice
@ski_racer there was about of foot of snow on the ground when I left for the semester. It actually snowed pretty late this year? I’m ready to see how much snow we got over the break when I go back.
As for drinking, going out is no joke here. When I got here I was surprised to find out that people go out on Thursdays lmao. But honestly no one here cares if you drink or not, and if they do they’re not worth you’re time. I know a few people that don’t drink and they never got grief for it. As for myself I only went out a few times during the semester but I was able to find stuff to do on the weekends that didn’t involve drinking
@fuzz1121 Whoops didn’t see this! I consider my family middle class but I didn’t recieve any grants just loans. I only filled out the FAFSA though and not the CSS profile (I’m on my dad’s GI Bill so I didn’t need any financial aid)
Private bathrooms? I’m trying to envision how that would work short of gutting the place and starting over. We all had split doubles and unless they were all turned into singles I have no idea. I’ll have to google a floorplan…
@byadg123 my bad, they aren’t completely private! like not each room had their own bathroom. but instead of a floor having two communal bathrooms one for boys and one for girls. there’s a cluster of individual bathrooms with a toilet and a shower in each
That makes sense. Back in the day the boy/girl segregation was suspended from midnight to 6am. I’m sure it wasn’t policy - the RA suggested it and (almost) no one objected. One day I was up at 5:30 (probably to pee, not on purpose) and went into the bathroom which was the actual designated boys’ bath. I heard giggling in the shower which was an open room with showerheads sticking out of the walls. No doors or curtains of any sort but around an open corner from sinks and stalls. It sounded like 2-3 girls were taking a shower in the boys’ room either on a dare or just a goof. I didn’t peek but I couldn’t help myself from calling out something like “don’t put your shampoo there - you’ll knock it over!” I slipped out during the shrieking.
