Alternate campus

Anyone have any experiences/ personal opinions with the Altoona campus?

My son is going to the Altoona campus in the fall and my husband started there years ago. I went to UP. Altoona is a very pretty campus with close proximity to PSU UP so it is the easiest one from which to be involved at UP. It only has 4000 students so certainly not the UP atmosphere…but a good education, good clubs, nice social scene from what I’ve seen. My daughter is a sophomore at UP and has many people she knows at Altoona. All very happy with it thus far for what it is. It’s not UP, but it’s a perfectly nice campus.

Thank you! I appreciate the feedback, seems like a great branch choice.

My daughter got waitlisted for UP, but is considering going to Altoona instead. She likes the fact that general ed classes in Altoona have less students per class. I am concerned that coming from NYC, she might not like Altoona as much as she would have liked UP.

Altoona isn’t far from UP, so she can still go to football games, participate in THON, etc. Although it’s not the same, she can still get involved.

@MLevin No doubt that Altoona is a smaller campus than UP. It is still pretty and the kids are able to easily be involved at UP as it’s only 40 minutes away. Busses run between the campuses and lots of students have cars on campus. But it is a quiet neighborhood campus. That being said, UP is nothing like NYC either. UP is a suburban campus, just really big. But it’s leafy and green and not at all “city”. Altoona is the same in that regard. Maybe do a virtual tour of the Altoona campus and see if she likes the look of it.

The general ed classes being smaller is a definite benefit that I think many overlook in the commonwealth campuses. It is easier to do well in the smaller classes and thus lots of commonwealth campus students get a nice jump on their GPA.

I went to UP and I had 700 people or more in some of my gen eds. My husband went to Altoona and never had more than 35! Depending on your learning style, that can be a direct benefit!

My son is going to Altoona in the fall and we have a daughter that started at UP (she’s a sophomore). Totally different kids. My oldest handled the large classes ok. My son would’ve gotten eaten alive at UP next year. If you have specific questions about Altoona, let me know. My husband went there and we’ve done a lot of research for our son as well.

@jihpsu Thank you for your response. I do think smaller class will benefit her, that is something both her and I are looking at as a plus for Altoona.