SUNY or SCCO?

[FutureOD]

Hi everyone, I was wondering if I could get some advice. I got accepted to SUNY and I am on the waitlist at SCCO. I was wondering if anyone has an opinion on what school is better. I am from Southern California and I am leaning towards SUNY. I was very impressed when I went to go visit the school. I like that the clinic at SUNY is large, I liked the doctors that I met, and I like that the teacher to student ratio is very high (2/1 and 4/1 in clinic). I also got a lot of vision therapy experience in my preparation for Opt. School and I think it is an area that I may consider specializing in....I know SUNY is very strong in VT and also offers a residency in VT. I think SUNY would be the right school for me, but its a hard decision to make especialy when my parents (particularly my mom) would like me to stay in So. Cal and go to Fullerton (thats assuming I get in there). If anyone has any opinions about these schools I would really appreciate hearing your thoughts. Thanks!

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[r_salis]

I applied and was accepted to SUNY (but will be going to PCO) so I can offer my opinion about that school, though I don't know anything about SCCO (cpw can chime in on her application experiences with them ). If you are strongly interested in VT, SUNY is *the* school to go to -- when I was talking to optometrists back when I was considering which schools to apply to, vision therapy always seemed to come up when we talked about SUNY. SUNY seems to have a big reputation with VT amongst ODs in practice -- on the east coast at least -- for whatever that's worth.

I agree with you that the faculty/student ratio is terrific at SUNY, and from talking to some of the students when I interviewed there it sounds like you get a lot of attention when/if you want it. I got the impression that each class was pretty tight because of the small class size, which also seemed like a nice thing. Their clinic looks good, too, mainly in terms of the variety of patients you get to see while you're there.

You have a tough decision ahead of you, especially with your family issues. I've been there myself . If I had to choose between SCCO and SUNY it would be a no-brainer for SCCO b/c I love the So. Cal. climate (it's cold, windy and wet where I'm typing this tonight...), but that's just me.

Good luck!