Pros
Historical name value, nice scenery, quiet neighbourhood, lots of meetings, good health coverage, median salary. Everything is very hunky dory from the outside. Amazing thing happens when papers are submitted from here....brand value
Cons
There are some stellar labs but most labs will suck the life out of you. Lab PIs will chew you up and spit you out to dry in the sun. There is a constant pressure to write grants...money is seldom used for the grant that it came from. If you go against your PI there is no recourse, HR managers are just their lapdogs. Seen awful stuff happen to postdocs and students. Some labs are worst offenders...just ask around before joining them, do whatever you can find out about that lab history. Numerous instances of PI dissing postdocs and students in recommendation letters even if they had just published in good journals. For most labs expect ZERO mentorship...you are on your own. Seen multiple instances of ethics violations. Postdocs are dispensable non-human living beings treated a tad better than an ant crossing the road. Also there is a grad school and most of those "elite" students are jerks to Stony Brook grad students...and some PIs are OK with it.
