New Paltz

From Vassar, Elsa and I traveled a short distance up 9W to Route 299 to New Paltz. Although we planned to arrive early and do a self guided tour before hand, we just barely made an 11am information session in the admissions office. What we began to learn is that most information sessions present very general information about colleges and begin to sound very much the same, especially those of the SUNY schools. Presenters are creative and do come up with lots of statistics about their schools. Knowing that we needed to be at Wesleyan by 2 and we had two hours to drive, we ducked out of the info session after half and hour, skipped the campus tour and headed right to the athletic center where we met the women's soccer coach.

The athletic center at New Platz is even newer and fancier than the one at Oneonta. There is a running track, lots of gyms, weight rooms, an olympic sized pool, etc. Everything looks new and clean and bright and very inviting. The New Paltz coach is also very nice, and spent lots of time showing us around. She, too, told us about her soccer program, the training schedule in season and out of season, how she personally supports students whose grade points drop below a certain level, and about special trip that her team has taken to England. This coach is a bit older, and has been coaching at New Paltz for 12 years. She asked Elsa lots of questions and said that she, too, will try to catch Elsa in a game this spring.

The New Paltz campus is attractive. Some buildings were architecturally impressive, but most are modern and rather cement-like. There were brick buildings and dorms, however. We didn't learn as much about the curriculum as we did at Oneonta, but from what I gather, it's similar to the other SUNY's. I personally preferred the Oneonta campus. Elsa's rating for New Paltz: 4.5-5. My rating: 6.5.