I can't really answer your questions, but I can tell you more about Montclair. I received my undergrad degree there in psychology and took the anatomy and physiology of speech and hearing class through the graduate program. The class was mostly admitted graduate students who were completing their prerequisites concurrently with graduate classes. My professor (Dr. Prezant) was excellent and incredibly kind, and I have met a few other professors in the department, and I can assure you that the quality is high.
The program is particularly tight knit because the communication sciences department is not on the main campus, but is rather located at the clinics about 10 minutes away. The clinic is in an office building, so the only people you'll regularly see are non-MSU related business people, AuD/SLP students and professors, and anyone in the clinic. Occasionally there's a class or two on campus but mostly everything is at the clinic. I don't know how much different this is from NYU but I'm assuming it's quite a bit.
Hope that helped a little!