At a Glance
Stony Brook admits 48.2% of applicants.
What You'll Actually Pay
See what families at different income levels actually pay after aid.
What families actually pay, by income level
After grants and scholarships. Before loans. Public school prices shown at in-state rates.
Source: College Scorecard / IPEDS, 2024-25
Where the Sticker Price Goes
Based on average need-based grant. Actual cost varies by family income — see chart above.
Shown at in-state rates.
Debt at Graduation
54.1%
receive need-based grant aid
$25,283
average debt at graduation
Stony Brook graduates carry an average of $25,283 in debt.
Merit Aid
3,604
students received merit aid
$3,725
average merit award
Getting In
Stony Brook admits 48.2% of applicants.
SAT — Middle 50% of those who submitted · 38% of the class submitted
ACT — Middle 50% of those who submitted · 4% of the class submitted
58.7% were in the top 10% of their high school class.
What They Value
Academic
Nonacademic
Stony Brook University rates your personal essay as Very Important — equal weight to your GPA. Don't underestimate it. Demonstrated interest is Considered — showing genuine engagement with this school may help your application.
Student Life
39.4% of Stony Brook classes have fewer than 20 students.
Share of undergraduate class sections at each size, from CDS Section I-3. More red = more large lectures.
At Stony Brook, 39.4% of your classes will have fewer than 20 students.
Class size data reflects all undergraduate sections including labs, seminars, and lectures. Large research universities often have smaller upper-division and graduate-level sections that improve the overall distribution. First and second-year students typically experience larger classes than these averages suggest.
Source: Common Data Set 2025–26, Section I-3 (class sizes)
19:1
student:faculty ratio
Campus Life
From out of state (freshman class)
8.3%
Live on campus
52%
Men in fraternities
1.5%
Women in sororities
3.3%
Who Attends
Racial and ethnic breakdown of enrolled undergraduates, as reported in each school's Common Data Set. "Unknown / Other" includes students who did not report or selected "other."
Stony Brook's student body is 22.5% white.
Popular Majors
Will They Graduate?
Stony Brook graduates 64.5% of students in 4 years.
Graduating late means paying for extra semesters. The 6-year rate tells you who eventually finishes — the 4-year rate tells you what it actually costs.
Stony Brook graduates 64.5% of students in 4 years.
What finishing late actually costs
Based on each school's published cost of attendance. Public school costs shown at in-state rates.
Stony Brook
64.5%
4-yr grad rate
Extra year cost: $30,539*
* In-state cost of attendance. Out-of-state students pay significantly more.
Graduation rate data from Common Data Set 2025–26, Fall 2018 cohort (most recent available). 4-year rate = students completing in 4 years or less. 6-year rate = students completing within 6 years.
77.1%
Overall 6-yr rate
80.3%
Pell recipient rate
There's a 3.2 point gap between overall and Pell Grant graduation rates. Worth asking the school about support resources.
Freshman Retention
89.4%
89.4% of first-year students return for sophomore year.
City & Culture
Beyond the data — what it's actually like to spend four years in Stony Brook.
Stony Brook sits on Long Island's North Shore, about 60 miles east of Manhattan, with the Long Island Rail Road running to Penn Station. It is a suburban campus near a small harbour village rather than a college town.
Notable Alumni
Jef Raskin
Started the Macintosh project at Apple; took a BA in mathematics and a BS in physics at Stony Brook
Jon Oringer
Founder of Shutterstock, who earned a BS in computer science and mathematics at Stony Brook
Class of 1997
Joy Behar
Comedian and long-running co-host of The View, who took an MA in English education at Stony Brook
Class of 1966
Alumni selected for name recognition and range of fields. Not from the Common Data Set.
The City
Small town
Stony Brook, NY
Best For
Traditions
Roth Regatta
Students build cardboard-and-duct-tape boats and race them across Roth Pond at the end of the spring term. Most of them sink, which is the point.
Shirley Strum Kenny Lecture and the Simons legacy
Stony Brook's identity is tied to its research funding and to Brookhaven National Laboratory nearby, which it co-manages — a research footprint unusual for a university founded in 1957.
Wolfstock
Homecoming weekend, named for the Seawolves, combining the football game with an alumni carnival.
Weekend Escapes
Within driving distance from Stony Brook
New York City
About 2 hours by trainThe Long Island Rail Road runs from Stony Brook to Penn Station; most students go in by rail rather than drive.
The Hamptons and Montauk
1 hour 30 minutesThe eastern end of Long Island, and the standard warm-weather trip.
Port Jefferson
10 minutesThe nearest walkable harbour town, with a ferry across the Sound to Connecticut.
Getting There & Game Days
Nearest airport
Long Island MacArthur (ISP)
25 minutes from campus
For international flights: John F. Kennedy International (JFK) — about 1 hour 15 minutes by road.
Pro sports nearby
- New York Islanders NHL
- New York Yankees MLB
- New York Mets MLB
Career Proximity
Stony Brook's pipeline runs through health care and research on Long Island, plus the finance and media economy reachable by train in Manhattan.
Top Industries Nearby
Major Employers
- Stony Brook Medicine
- Brookhaven National Laboratory
- Northwell Health
- Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
New York City, about 2 hours by train
Who Thrives Here
Stony Brook admits 48.2% of applicants and charges New York residents $10,930 against $34,910 for everyone else, which is most of why 80.6% of its 18,615 undergraduates are in-state. The social texture is unusual for a campus this size: Greek life is close to vestigial at 1.5% of men and 3.3% of women, 52.0% live on campus, and 11.1% of the entering class is international. A student who wants a Saturday-afternoon football culture is in the wrong place; one who wants a lab bench is not. Teaching runs at scale — 19 to 1, with 39.4% of sections under 20 — and the outcomes hold up: 89.4% of first-years return, 64.5% finish in four years and 77.1% in six, with Pell recipients finishing at 80.3%, a gap that runs the right way. Aid is the weak point. Stony Brook meets 59.5% of demonstrated need, so the low resident sticker price is doing more work than the aid package, and average debt at graduation is $25,283.