NY Transfer Receivers: Brockport 100% vs Empire 15%

You finished two years at a CUNY or SUNY community college. You have the associate degree, solid grades, and a shortlist of four-year universities to transfer to. A friend at your college says pick SUNY — "they all accept community college credit the same way." Another says go CUNY senior colleges because they know the CUNY system.

Neither piece of advice is accurate. Within New York's public four-year universities, the percentage of community college credits that transfer as direct matches — not elective hours, but courses that actually satisfy the requirements you'd otherwise retake — runs from 100% at SUNY Delhi and SUNY Brockport down to 13% at the CUNY School of Labor & Urban Studies and 15% at SUNY Empire State. The same transcript, the same 60 credits, produces profoundly different outcomes depending on where you send it.

Here is what the data actually shows, based on 254,448 individual course-transfer mappings across 35 qualifying New York four-year receivers.

#The three classifications (briefly)

Every community college course you take gets sorted into one of three buckets by the receiving university:

1. Direct match — the credit satisfies a specific named requirement. If you needed English Composition as a gen-ed requirement, your community college English Composition counts. You don't retake it.
2. Elective credit — the university grants the credit hours, but no specific requirement is satisfied. The hours count toward the 120-credit graduation total; they don't replace any particular course.
3. No credit — the course is rejected outright.

The student-facing gap between these categories is large. A direct match saves you both the tuition and the time of retaking the course. An elective credit saves tuition hours but may not save time — you still need to take the university's version of the actual required course. A no-credit rejection costs you both.

If you want the full conceptual breakdown before reading receiver comparisons, our direct match vs. elective credit explainer covers each classification in detail.

#The full NY receiver spectrum

With 35 receivers and 254,448 total mappings, New York has the widest receiver dataset we've published for any single state. Here's how the spectrum looks, grouped from most to least generous.

The near-100% tier — direct match on nearly everything:

| Receiver | Mappings | Direct match | Elective | No credit | |---|---|---|---|---| | SUNY Delhi | 1,020 | 100% | 0% | 0% | | SUNY Brockport | 14,026 | 100% | 0% | 0% | | SUNY New Paltz | 11,233 | 99.8% | 0.2% | 0% | | SUNY Geneseo | 8,921 | 100% | 0% | 0% |

Four SUNY campuses effectively match every community college course they receive as a direct equivalent. SUNY Brockport is the most significant of these by dataset size — 14,026 mappings at a 100% direct-match rate is not a small sample. A CUNY or SUNY community college student transferring to Brockport can realistically expect every single tracked course to count toward a specific degree requirement.

The strong tier (85–99% direct match):

| Receiver | Mappings | Direct match | Elective | No credit | |---|---|---|---|---| | SUNY Old Westbury | 4,958 | 88.5% | 11.5% | 0% | | SUNY Fredonia | 11,404 | 85.2% | 13.6% | 1.1% |

The mid-tier (55–80% direct match):

| Receiver | Mappings | Direct match | Elective | No credit | |---|---|---|---|---| | SUNY Potsdam | 15,186 | 67.7% | 31.8% | 0.4% | | Alfred State | 9,203 | 70.2% | 29.8% | 0% | | Brooklyn College | 3,364 | 68.8% | 31.2% | 0% | | University at Buffalo | 1,348 | 76.0% | 24.0% | 0% | | SUNY Canton | 5,208 | 61.3% | 38.7% | 0% | | SUNY Polytechnic | 6,640 | 57.1% | 42.9% | 0% | | SUNY Oswego | 10,121 | 53.5% | 46.5% | 0% | | Binghamton University | 4,452 | 60.4% | 39.6% | 0% | | Lehman College | 3,277 | 59.4% | 40.6% | 0% | | Farmingdale State | 4,694 | 52.0% | 48.0% | 0% |

The mid-tier is the largest cluster in New York. Most courses transfer — but roughly a third to a half land as elective credit rather than direct matches.

The lower-direct-match tier (30–55%):

| Receiver | Mappings | Direct match | Elective | No credit | |---|---|---|---|---| | Buffalo State University | 12,920 | 42.3% | 57.7% | 0% | | Hunter College (CUNY) | 3,396 | 47.3% | 49.3% | 3.4% | | College of Staten Island | 3,296 | 46.0% | 51.7% | 2.3% | | SUNY Cortland | 16,038 | 40.2% | 59.6% | 0.2% | | SUNY Plattsburgh | 11,737 | 35.4% | 64.6% | 0% | | SUNY Cobleskill | 10,617 | 34.3% | 65.7% | 0% | | SUNY Oneonta | 14,400 | 37.3% | 62.7% | 0% | | Queens College (CUNY) | 3,461 | 37.5% | 62.5% | 0% | | City College of New York | 3,296 | 41.5% | 43.0% | 15.4% | | Baruch College | 3,200 | 45.8% | 32.1% | 22.1% | | York College (CUNY) | 3,103 | 39.0% | 36.8% | 24.1% |

Several CUNY senior colleges tell a different story. City College of New York rejects 15.4% of mapped courses outright. Baruch College rejects 22.1%. York College rejects 24.1%.

The toughest receivers:

| Receiver | Mappings | Direct match | Elective | No credit | |---|---|---|---|---| | Purchase College | 7,460 | 26.9% | 73.1% | 0% | | CUNY Graduate Center | 2,855 | 44.9% | 0% | 55.1% | | Medgar Evers College | 3,302 | 28.7% | 14.2% | 57.1% | | CUNY School of Professional Studies | 3,312 | 33.8% | 66.2% | 0% | | SUNY Morrisville | 7,836 | 33.9% | 66.1% | 0% | | John Jay College | 3,292 | 33.8% | 66.2% | 0% | | CUNY School of Labor & Urban Studies | 3,305 | 13.4% | 86.6% | 0% | | SUNY Empire State | 19,312 | 15.2% | 84.8% | 0% |

#Two patterns, two different student problems

New York's toughest receivers split into two distinct problems, and it matters which one you're facing.

The elective-heavy problem (Empire State, CUNY SLU, Purchase): Empire State University has the largest transfer-equivalency dataset in New York — 19,312 mappings — and only 15.2% transfer as direct matches. The other 84.8% land as elective credit. This isn't rejection: the credit hours count toward graduation. But if you expected your CUNY Calculus I to replace Empire State's Calculus I requirement, it doesn't.

The rejection problem (Medgar Evers, CUNY Graduate Center, Baruch, York): Medgar Evers College rejects 57.1% of mapped community college courses outright — 1,885 of 3,302 courses receive zero credit. Baruch rejects 22.1% and York 24.1%.

A student transferring 60 community college credits to Medgar Evers can expect roughly:

• 17 credits as direct match
• 9 credits as elective
• 34 credits rejected

That's over half the transcript gone. The 2+2 model doesn't apply; the realistic path is closer to 2+3.

#The CUNY vs. SUNY divide

SUNY four-years in this dataset tend toward the elective-heavy pattern — low no-credit rates, but variable direct-match rates. SUNY campuses rarely outright reject community college credits.

Several CUNY senior colleges have meaningful rejection rates — particularly Medgar Evers (57%), CUNY Graduate Center (55%), York (24%), and Baruch (22%). Community college students transferring within the CUNY system might expect seamless credit transfer, but the data shows significant variation at the course level.

This matters because CUNY community college students often assume the CUNY-to-CUNY path is the safest. It usually is — but it depends heavily on which CUNY senior college. Hunter College (47.3% direct) and Brooklyn College (68.8% direct) perform very differently despite both being CUNY senior colleges in New York City.

#How to use this data when choosing where to apply

1. Check your specific courses, not just the aggregate rate. The NY transfer tool on Community College Path lets you check individual course equivalencies by receiver before you commit to a transfer destination.

2. If you want the cleanest transfer, SUNY Brockport, New Paltz, Geneseo, and Delhi are the outliers. Four SUNY campuses accept virtually everything as direct matches.

3. For CUNY senior college targets, compare the actual rejection rates. Brooklyn College (68.8% direct, 0% no-credit) and Hunter (47.3% direct, 3.4% no-credit) are substantially different from Medgar Evers (28.7% direct, 57% no-credit) or Baruch (45.8% direct, 22% no-credit).

4. Budget for the gap at elective-heavy receivers. At SUNY Empire State or SUNY Morrisville, most of your credits become elective hours rather than direct matches.

5. Get an unofficial transfer evaluation before you commit. Both CUNY Transfer Explorer (T-Rex) and SUNY STEP publish course-by-course equivalency tables online.

#How NY compares to other states

At 41.2% statewide direct match across 45,685 tracked mappings (as reported in the national comparison), New York sits in the lower-middle of the 16 states we measure — below New Jersey (64.3%), North Carolina (55.7%), and Massachusetts (47.4%), but above Virginia (26.5%) and well above Georgia (12.3%).

The key difference between New York and harder-to-navigate states like Georgia: New York has several genuinely transfer-friendly receivers clustered at the top of the range. In Georgia, the two most popular transfer destinations (UGA and GSU) are also among the toughest, with 78–81% rejection rates. New York's toughest receivers by no-credit rate (Medgar Evers, CUNY Graduate Center) are not the default popular choices most CUNY community college students aim for.

For a comparison of how New Jersey's system handles this differently — with a binary direct-or-nothing structure that eliminates elective credit entirely — see our NJ receiver comparison.

#The bottom line

New York's 86-point spread from best to worst receiver is among the widest in our dataset. The headline tiers:

• SUNY Delhi, Brockport, New Paltz, Geneseo: 100% direct match — the cleanest transfer paths in the New York public system.
• SUNY Old Westbury, Fredonia: 85–89% direct match — strong, with moderate elective spillover.
• University at Buffalo, Brooklyn College, Alfred State: 68–76% — solid mid-tier with some courses to retake.
• SUNY Cortland, Cobleskill, Plattsburgh, Oneonta: 34–40% direct match, low rejection — credit-hour-heavy elective accumulation.
• SUNY Empire State, CUNY SLU: 13–15% direct match — most courses land as elective; plan to retake major requirements.
• Medgar Evers, CUNY Graduate Center: 29–45% direct match, 55–57% no-credit — significant credit loss; budget well beyond the 2+2 model.

The receiver you choose is one of the most consequential decisions in your transfer plan. Check the specific equivalencies for your courses before you submit your applications.