Who did she exchange emails with? If it was with faculty or students in the architecture department, that’s sweet, but if it was with anyone in the admissions office (e.g.her regional admissions contact) she will not have contact with that person, or the admissions office, if/when she starts school there.
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It was all architecture specific staff (assistant dean and the director of student engagement) that are housed in the architecture building. We met with both when we visited campus (both were familiar with DD and her application/portfolio and referenced previous interactions with her during the time together with a larger meeting and tour). I thought the arch dept did a great job of making the interactions feel personal.
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Syracuse was at/near the top of S23’s B.Arch applications. Ultimately he didn’t get into the program but 100% agree with everything you outlined about their engagement with the applicants and when you do the tours, etc etc. My understanding is that many of those same folks do stay engaged with the students to the extent they want to. It’s a nice facility too. But also agree with what folks have said about the Syracuse “area”. There’s a street or two right off campus that will provide some off campus eats but go beyond that and it’s fairly depressed. We’re New England natives so the weather wasn’t an issue for us but for someone coming from Texas - expect a bit of shock on what the weather will be.
If your student has visions of ultimately landing in the Northeast post graduation - Syracuse might be a good path (internships in NYC, Boston, etc). Otherwise I would really struggle justifying that kind or cost difference assuming the parents/family are in any way cost conscious. UT Austin by all regards has a very well respected program.
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I would agree that reaching out to Syracuse for more $$$ while waiting for the remaining results to come in is the best approach for now. All of the schools on her short list are prestigious. She would get a fine BArch education at any of them with high name recognition among architecture firms, though this varies by the firms’ locations. The difficulty will lie in weighing money against her personal aspirations.
It seems that you CAN finance any of your daughter’s choices, but whether that makes financial sense for her and for your family is a tough decision that only your family can answer. Health, boyfriend and grade point issues are also personal considerations (though I wouldn’t worry too much about the last).
And I would note that many BArchs do end up piling on an MArch at some point in their careers and the MArch is an expensive degree.
I’m not an architect but my son did his MArch at Cornell and ultimately settled in the Northeast. If your daughter “really wants to get out of Texas and do something new, be in a place with a different culture (and weather)” then Syracuse — or potentially Cornell, Notre Dame or CalPoly SLO— may be worth the spend, especially if she doesn’t see herself settling in Texas longterm.
While negotiating with Syracuse and waiting for news from the last 3, I would suggest that she reach out to UT to find out where their BArch students have held internships and where they were employed after graduation. Also, where their “working architect” faculty and their visiting critics are employed. These are the kind of connections that can make a difference going forward.
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This worries me a bit. We ubered while there (was not comfortable renting/driving in snow/ice), so we went from campus to armory square both areas with walkable restaurants. I’m wishing we saw more of the larger area.
IMO, Upstate NY in the winter time is one of the most depressing areas in the United States.
I cant expres how awful it is. And IMO, Syracuse NY isnt a great place, especially compared to Austin.
I spent a couple of years covering upstate NY and Syracuse was at the bottom. The only worse places were Watertown and Utica.
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This is a good info point. I did not know this and it might make a difference in her BArch choice.
This is great advice, I will suggest she do this.
Thank you all for the suggestions and insight. She definitely needs to dive in a bit deeper on the programs, outcomes and thoughts on her ultimate end goals.
Do these impending changes at Syracuse matter to your DD?
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It isn’t good news. Turns out there are even more majors sunsetting now. Syracuse said it’s not cost cutting, but it does seem to be worrisome for a myriad of reasons. Texas is doing the same things at UT and other public universities unfortunately.
I’ve never understood the idea that something like this is bad. We don’t take a college to task when they add a new program but when they take one that has under-enrollment and merge it or remove it entirely it’s seen as worrying. When a company that produces a product that doesn’t sell well gets rid of it or a network that cancels a show that people don’t watch - it’s the same thing. I don’t subscribe to the idea that a University isn’t anything other than a business with it’s product being the diploma’s it gives and they need to focus resources into the programs that students attend to take.
Now it might be worrying because more students aren’t going into that field (whatever the field is). While the graduates of “Classical Civilization” may go on to do very productive things, I can’t imagine a lot of families funding $90K/year to Syracuse for such a degree.
This gets quite off-topic of the OP.
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College Navigator - Syracuse University indicates that architecture is one of the larger majors at Syracuse, so it seems unlikely to be discontinued in the near future, unlike majors with very few students.
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SU is an architecture power. No way they’d cut it.
The cuts are much ado about nothing.
https://dailyorange.com/2026/04/syracuse-university-sunset-93-programs-academic-portfolio-review/
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Well obviously it is enough of an issue and bothersome to enough of the students there that they made fun of the sunsetted majors by posting this article on April Fools day 
https://dailyorange.com/2026/04/syracuse-university-sunset-93-programs-academic-portfolio-review/ (though sadly it doesn’t seem like a “joke” at all)
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It’s definitely a big major (I think somewhere around 250 entered in last year), and my worry is less about the major, than cost-cutting overall. Tuition increases have been pretty consistently 4-5% in recent years and if they go up more, or some of the school services that make Syracuse “special” to her are cut as well, I think it could be a factor in choice.
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I agree that streamlining isn’t bad. If you drill down into the sunsetted majors, you also see there are what seems to be overlapping majors/degrees that are being phased out (say an MS is going away where both MA and MS in the same major existed).
I actually saw Jeff Salingo (Dream School/Who Gets in and Why) talk about this first and he was referencing it as a possible warning sign of financial health of a university (though once you look further it seems less impactful to the population than the headline makes it).
I think the article was an april foolst hoax.
I got played.
Syracuse sunsetting majors and combining others is real, based on a full academic review. Here are two resources:
Gift link:
Turns out it WASN’T an April Fool’s joke after all. Just an unfortunate date to send out this information!
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The 93 programs (not all of which are undergraduate majors) currently enroll 258 students. 55 of them have no students enrolled, so the ones with non-zero enrollment average under 7 students each.
Most of the closing undergraduate majors are in humanities (primarily foreign language and literature) and arts (where it looks like a larger number of specialized majors like ceramics, painting, sculpture, etc. are being turned into subareas or options under two broader majors, studio art and music). Perhaps this connects to the other discussion about the decline of students in humanities majors. But for the purpose of a student in the architecture major, that is less of a concern, due to architecture having a relatively large enrollment.
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Yes that is all delineated in the article. Several programs had no one enrolled, so sure, take them “off the books” or merge them elsewhere, but there are a few that were a bit disconcerting. eg the Religion major? As for the impact on Arch, while there may be none overtly, as other have said, the financial stability of any school should be a consideration.
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