in defense of SUNY College of Optometry
Although I cannot say anything about the quality of education at other schools, as a 4th year SUNY student, I have to offer my biased opinion on this one.
SUNY is an excellent academic program and the clinical exposure is quite good as well. The population of patients seen at SUNY is quite unique in that our patients come from a wide variety of ethnicities, socioeconomic classes and educational backgrounds.
SUNY has a great reputation among all optometry schools. We recently moved into an 18 floor building located in the heart of manhattan. The new building will be home to an incredibly well situated research facility in the near future. If your emphasis is on research, the caliber of faculty here at SUNY are unparallel. You will certainly find a world-class mentor here.
I am very happy with the education I have received here thus far. Fourth year is the best of all. Although I have to admit, our contact lens exposure is limited, the other areas make up for it. You can choose to do an in-house externship in CLs during your fourth year or a residency after graduation.
We have a very diverse student body as well a diverse patient population.
And living in NYC rocks!!!
Good luck with your decision. We have several students from China in each of our classes. You may want to email our student affairs department for contact info if you would like to solicit their opinions as well.
Take care
Arun K
Class of 2003