Jeff Salingo’s “Dream Schools”

College Search & Lists
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Here’s Jeff Salingo’s list of “dream schools” from his new book, broken into categories. It’s sort of a contemporary answer to Loren Pope’s list of “colleges that change lives”.

Hidden Values

Augustana
Bentley
Berry
Butler
Creighton
Denison
DePaul
DePauw
Dickinson
Elon
Fairfield
Furman
Gettysburg
Hobart & William Smith
Ithaca
Loyola Maryland
Macalester
St. Mary’s (CA)
Santa Clara
St. Olaf
Steven’s Institute of Technology
Trinity University (TX)
University of Dayton
University of Denver
University of the Pacific

Breakout Regionals

Baruch
Binghamton
Cal State Polytech, Pomona
Cal State, Fresno
College of New Jersey
Florida A&M
Florida International
George Mason
Georgia Southern
Marquette
Montclair State
San Diego State
University of North Carolina, Asheville
University of Puget Sound
Washington State

Large Leaders

Arizona State
Case Western Reserve
Colorado State
Clemson
Drexel
Fordham
Howard
Indiana
Miami, Ohiog
Michigan State
North Carolina State
Oregon State
Rochester Institute of Technology
Rutgers
Southern Methodist
Spelman
Syracuse
University of Alabama
UC Davis
UC San Diego
University of Delaware
UConn
University of Delaware
University of Illinois
University of Iowa
University of Kentucky
University of Maryland
UMass
University of Minnesota
University of Missouri
University of Oklahoma
University of Pittsburgh
University of Utah
Virginia Tech
William & Mary

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I wouldn’t call Binghamton a regional school - it’s the closest thing New York State has to a flagship state university.

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I would - if the 3rd party data is to be believed, students come from only 22 states with NY by far the biggest with NJ second and not that that many kids.

It’s regional in every sense - as are all SUNYs.

They show NY with 2214 first year, NJ with 114 and PA is third with 18.

US News may like it but it’s an unknown nationally. I know it’s a great school but just looking bigger picture.

The school itself doesn’t seem to provide (that I could find) the breakout but I know SUNYs overall are very geographically narrow.

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The official flagships of the SUNY system are actually Buffalo and Stony Brook. But otherwise I agree with you that Binghamton has the most “prestige” in the state system. They and Stony Brook draw the most applications.

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Nothing against ASU, but fair disclosure he is a professor of practice at ASU.