Utica, NY: I only visited three colleges, but Utica College of SyracuseUniversity has the best campus of all. I went to the Fall Open House and thetrees were already starting to turn.

We were shown into the LibraryConcourse and told to help ourselves to brownies, iced tea, lemonade and hotcoffee. There was a panel with a professor, a student, the president and thedirector of admissions at our "Welcoming" remarks. They told theaudience of about 350 people about classes, students and professors, saying thatstudents come from all over the globe. The student said he chose Utica because ofthe atmosphere - students stopped and spoke to him during his Open House and theprofessors were nice, describing classes and what to expect.

After theseremarks, the group was divided into specialties for PreProfes-sional classes(Pre-Med, Pre-Law, Pre-Vet, etc.), Science, Health Professions, Business,Undecided, Liberal Arts and Sports. I am going into Pre-Medicine, so I went tothat program. The professor from the "Welcoming" remarks is the head ofthe Biology and Pre-Med programs, so she spoke to us and was very nice.

Weleft the large library and went on the campus tour. The first and last stops werethe dorms. Each dormitory has a male and female non-smoking and coed smokingfloor.

The student union has flags of the countries of each student.There are many pool and foosball tables. Next, we went to one of two cafeterias(mainly for freshmen but anyone can eat there). Freshmen are required to have anunlimited food plan. Upper-classmen can get it for a charge. This means that theycan come and go at any time and get whatever food they want. The other cafeteriais more stylish. There are telephone jacks at every table for modem ports. Thiscafeteria's food is pay-by-the-meal. The athletic grounds aren't as great asSyracuse's, but they were the best I'd seen for the size of thecampus.

After the tour, we were ushered back to the original room for aStudent Panel with four students, one from each year. They were asked questionsand answered them quite unshyly.

Next, we had an admissions and financialaid session. They said that tuition is $15,654 and room and board is $5,932.Financial Aid averages $16,652 per person. There are about 1600 students from 24states and 20 countries.

Afterwards, we all went to an ice cream socialwhere we met faculty, asked questions and just plain cooled off.

On ascale of 1 to 10, I rate Utica as a 9. I love the location. It is in central NewYork, 50 miles east of Syracuse. It is a suburban town - not small, but not hugeeither. The best part of graduating from Utica College is that you get yourdegree from Syracuse University itself.


Reviewed in 1998