<p>Oy- I have literally not been on this site for months- but old habits die hard so decided to see what was new. I guess my timing was good as I see pviewmom had some questions about Cortland. My d graduated in 2010 and was a sport management major. She absolutely loved her time at cortland. It is a warm-inviting campus and is the go-to school for sport management. Lot of her friends were going for teaching-communications and other majors. So though it might have a bit of a sport mang/phys ed. vibe, there are kids majoring in many subject areas. My d never really got involved with jewish life at school. I do know there is a temple in town not far from campus and I know kids did go for the high holy days.<br>
For my kid, Cortland was the right school.<br>
As it is also convenient to syracuse, ithaca and binghamton there is alot of opportunity for internships. My kid spent her last semester interning for a minor leage baseball team in syracuse.<br>
i’m just amused- there was never much chatter about cortland- but it happened to be a recent discussion on this thread-- so I’ll take it as a good sign-
good luck with your decision.</p>
<p>also to add- but info is old. When d graduated long island HS in 2006, she was admitted to cortland with around 87 average and 23 ACT. Her SAT’s were terrible- so we went the ACT route and I believe 23ACT is equivalent to a 1050 SAT or thereabouts . Don’t know if qualifications increased since class of 2010.</p>
<p>Tootiredtocare; Not exactly the same thing but I moved from Brooklyn New York to small town Texas when I was 26. It took a little bit to understand the culture and recognize that some things are said and done because the assumption is that everyone is Christian and not because of antisemitism. It helps a lot to understand the difference. Feel free to PM me if you would like me to elaborate.
Good luck to your son.</p>
<p>Hi my daughter is a current speech major at SUNY Cortland and she loves the school. There is a small but active Hillel. The Jewish population is small ( 6%-7%?) but seems to be growing. The school has a warm and fuzzy feel to it, and many of my daughter’s non- Jewish friends wanted to attend the Passover Seder with her at Hillel. Prior to attending the school I had a long email exchange with the past Hillel president who told me that many non Jewish kids attend the Hanukkah party; as you can see it’s a very welcoming environment. She loves it and has made a lot of nice friends. My daughter was planning to go to Buffalo but changed her mind at the last minute. There is a wonderful speech dept there ( I went there for speech) as well as a large Jewish population. Binghamton has a very large Jewish population, but keep in mind that it is a tippy top SUNY and the kids are typically in the top 10% of their HS class, and often the top 5%. It is not a school that accepts many B students, if any. I can answer any questions about Cortland and Buffalo. I can also answer questions about Binghamton as it is on my younger daughter’s list and we just visited the school.</p>
<p>Hi , I forgot to mention SUNY New Paltz for Communications Disorder. I went there back in the day and also majored in Speech and Language as an undergraduate. However from what I have been hearing I do not know if it is still for the B student. I think it has become quite selective.</p>
<p>Binghamton is much less selective for OOS students. My D was accepted there (applied EA) with $3K merit. She is definitely a B student and not in the top 5% or 10% of her class.</p>
<p>It looks like most of this thread is centering around schools in the East, so I thought I’d add in a couple of schools in CA… We visited colleges in Los Angeles the past week, just to get an idea as to what our D might like. Without looking hard, we ended up with a “Jewish Life at USC” brochure when on our USC tour… and we saw a big sign at Chapman inviting students to a “Free Shabbat Dinner” on campus. I’m not sure what the percentages are out there, but it was nice to see those things so prominently displayed.</p>
<p>Yes wintriest I meant to say that but you beat me to it! However… They save most spots ( not all) for their in state students. You are right though- they want that OOS tuition.</p>
<p>NYMom3Kids: Hi there - I just found this thread today - not sure what you have come up with. I am in almost the exact same situation as you - Junior daughter with 3.8 and pretty good ACT scores looking for all the same things in a school. We just got home yesterday from visiting Cornell, Ithaca and Syracuse. While she loved the spirit and fun at Syracuse it was a REALLY cold day and it made her think about if that is the environment she would like. Coming from Cleveland she would love to escape the cold and not go somewhere colder.<br>
To that end, have you considered Ohio State, offers EVERYTHING on your daughter’s list ,and the weather is night and day from Cleveland - winter’s are so mild and its warm and sunny by March and the kids are on the Oval in shorts! It is difficult to get into but is awesome once you are in. My daughter loves everything about it EXCEPT she feels like she knows all of the Jewish kids that go there and really wants to meet new kids. While I don’t agree that she knows them all between Jewish overnight camp, BBYO and the predominately Jewish high school she attends she does know a lot of them. So, while I would love to see her there I understand her reasons.
Indiana University also offers everything on your daughter’s list. My very social niece is graduating from there next week and had the best 4 years of her life. She joined SDT sorority and just had a blast. Weather is nice, student life is a blast and classes are small enough to feel one-on-one connection to your teacher. We are going there in a few weeks for her graduation and taking a closer look at the campus for my daughter.
Our last thoughts are California. While it is far from home my daughter loves it out there and we are going in August to check out UCLA and UCSD. I think she has a shot to get into both so we’ll check it out. I don’t blame her for wanting to go to CA - who wouldn’t - but it is far from home and not easy to get back here if she wants to come home for some reason.
That’s all we have come up with so far - would love to hear if you have come up with anything else that meets your criteria.
Good Luck!</p>
<p>Interesting article about Tulane Hillel:</p>
<p>[You</a> Can’t Fool the Youth: A Jewish Institutional Makeover](<a href=“http://www.hillel.org/about/news/2013/feb/You_Cant_Fool_the_Youth_A_Jewish_Institutional_Makeover.htm]You”>http://www.hillel.org/about/news/2013/feb/You_Cant_Fool_the_Youth_A_Jewish_Institutional_Makeover.htm)</p>
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<p>And Tulane Hillel’s got a large beautiful building! A student we met at Tulane (a Green Wave Ambassador) took us over there… she said she hangs out there a lot… and she’s not even Jewish!</p>
<p>Fellow parents,
How do you manage to get all the college stuff in the car? I have a small SUV and I don’t see it happening with three people, some luggage for me and DH since we are sleeping over 2 nights in a hotel, and a cello!
We do not have a roof rack.</p>
<p>Can you ship anything ahead or purchase anything on-site?
I was astonished at how much space my daughter’s stuff took up, considering we’d just sent her away for a year with a duffle bag and a suitcase. I can’t even point to very many things she took along to school that she hadn’t taken to Israel–the only things I can think of are a desk lamp, a laundry drying rack, a small printer, a set of over-the-door clothing hooks?</p>
<p>However, it could have taken up less space if we hadn’t packed it into plastic storage drawers and whatnot that we thought she’d find useful in her dorm room.</p>
<p>BTW, my daughter just remembered that we’d taken the huge suitcase and duffel bag back home with us, so she can’t pack up to move out until we bring them back. Of course, she remembered that AFTER we’d been down to visit her 2 weeks ago.</p>
<p>Shulamit, it’s a real challenge fitting everything in the car. You might want to consider borrowing or renting a mini-van We were able to fit all of D2’s stuff and 3 people in our van but it was tight. We used space bags to pack the bulky linens and some clothes. You use the vacuum cleaner to suck out the air and the bags really diminish in size. You might also want to consider pre-ordering most of your son’s gear at Bed Bath and Beyond and picking it up at a store near his college. Another family I know had the mom fly with 2 suitcases (free on Southwest) while the Dad and D drove.</p>
<p>Bdkras: Welcome. If your D is looking for schools with warmer weather, she might want to consider some of the current favorites for this group - Miami, Tulane and Elon.</p>
<p>All good suggestions, thank you. My concern with sending stuff via Bed, Bath is that I have to get it back home afterwards and then bring it down and back 3x more times.</p>
<p>Soft goods - bedding, towels, comforter, etc. - easy to ship back and forth - UPS. Most schools have a mail center that can receive a UPS box and store the week before freshmen move in.</p>
<p>Also - depending on the school location and climate - you don’t have to bring everything down in August. Ship winter clothes at a later date. Or bring them down when you visit in the fall. Do the reverse in the spring - ship winter clothes home or bring them home with you at spring break.</p>
<p>I think most people bring more than they need, in any case.</p>
<p>Most schools offer summer storage of some sorts. That is, they contract with a local storage plant to allow student a place to put their stuff in over the summer. That means that you only have to ship the boxes of stuff down once, and then have your daughter bring a suitcase or two full of clothing/other essentials back home over the summer.</p>
<p>We did many of the things already mentioned. When my older S went to college (a 2-3 day drive), my husband rode with him in our Honda Accord and I flew to meet them. Lucky me :). Then my husband and I drove back home. Aside from BBB we purchased most of the bigger incidentals near the college at places like Target, Best Buy, Kohls and also BBB. We were aware of ordering ahead from BBB but I’m not sure if we did. If you can put up with the swamped college town stores it really wasn’t that difficult finding what was needed. As has already been mentioned my S put his things in storage. He ended up sharing a storage bin with friends each year, I think three or four kids shared. From what I gathered boys take up much less room than girls. We are currently at the end of our seats waiting to hear where my S will be next year but we are expecting that depending on the distance to cover some things will be sold or given away before he leaves school. Items like his desk chair are just going to be less costly to repurchase than to transport. Actually it seems to work out because over his years at school my S picked up quite a few items at no cost from graduating seniors. I guess this will be payback.</p>
<p>I think we are going to have to do all these things. Thanks for the suggestions. It certainly is complicated!</p>
<p>Wow Shulamit post 16500 on page 1100 and still going strong. Well done RVM!</p>