<p>Are there any students at Bucknell here at the forums?
I have some questions to ask !</p>
<p>go ahead and post. i am a freshman international at bucknell, may be i could answer some stuff for you.</p>
<p>In terms of selectivity.. how does it compare with other LACs / universities? On this board I see it being used as a safety a lot but it seems like its a decent school. Could you compare it to some other shcools?</p>
<p>bucknell's accept. rate for the class of 2010 was 33%. when i applied it was ranked 27 in the overall LAC list but 8th for engineering (among eng. schools whose highest degree is a masters). there are people who turn down better schools to come here (i know 3 people turned down Carnegie-mellon). the living quality here is quite good and the food is definitely good for a college. for the class of 2010, the middle 50% SAT scores were 620-720 (V) and 650-740 M. i know quite a few people in my class who have SAT scores above 1400 (out of 1600), so bucknell's not a bad school. its getting more selective like all colleges but the accept. rate isnt very low. the top 20 LACs will obviously have lower rates (but grinnell was 50% i think?). if you want to study liberal arts, you could do better i guess, but bucknell is well-known for engineering. and it also offers quite a lot of majors for a LAC. i cant compare it straight off against other LACs right now as i dont have their data, but maybe i can get that later.</p>
<p>selectivity shouldn't be based solely on acceptance rate, in fact the main criterion one should look at is test scores. acceptance rates at bucknell (33%) and grinnell (37%) may be very close but the sats for bucknell (1230-1380) and grinnell (1290-1490) are very different. choose safeties base on your test scores is best, if your sats put you way above 75th percentile of a school then you can consider it a safety.</p>
<p>i agree with collegeprep on the sat scores. if you are above the 75th percentile range, then its more likely a college will take you since you'll boost their sat average. another thing to look at might be based on what you want to study. if a major has less students enrolled in it in a school and they are looking to fill it up a bit, you could get in if you applied to that major and had decent enough sat scores.</p>
<p>I really get annoyed when people post spewing stats that compare apples with oranges -</p>
<p>Collegeprep11 states that Grinnell is more competative than Bucknell by citing SAT scores. Yes Grinnells are higher. However, Grinnell offers 34% of all freshman merit scholarships while Bucknell offers merit to only 2% of incoming students. So, of cxourse SAT ares higher at Grinnell (they pay for them). </p>
<p>Why not look at atudent rentention. Only 92% of freshman at Grinnell return for sophomre year while 95% of Bucknell freshman return.</p>
<p>I am sure that both are wonderful schools and a fine education can be had at both.</p>
<p>How friendly is the campus?
In terms of graduate school placement, how do Bucknell students fare?
Which majors are the most popular?
Does recruiting happen at Bucknell?
How are the career services? (Internships, jobs etc)
Most people I know haven't heard of Bucknell. Do you think Bucknell's name gets recognition only from PA?
What makes the gym facilities so amazing?
How do you leave campus without a car?
Does Bucknell have a lot of school pride?
Is there a sense of community?
What do you like most about Bucknell?
What do you dislike the most?</p>
<p>"Most people I know haven't heard of Bucknell. Do you think Bucknell's name gets recognition only from PA?"</p>
<p>Is that really important to you? Plus, I'm not sure where you live, but Bucknell is very well-known in the northeast.</p>
<p>yes it is important to me
im from the northeast.. I ask around and people give me empty stares</p>
<p>Have you visited the campus? A lot of those questions can be answered just from a visit.</p>
<p>gio is right. if you already live in the Northeast, a campus visit would clear lots of things up. however, i'll answer what i can. the bucknell campus is quite friendly. i have some data from a post-graduate survey for the class of 2004. 24% went to grad school straight after. 4% were employed and at grad school. bucknell students do go to some well-ranked schools: columbia, umich, uva, cornell, upenn, yale, northwestern, JHU, stanford, duke, princeton. a lot of students seem to go to penn state, drexel, upitt, villanova.
this isnt too different from other colleges, you know, people will go to good and better grad schools. though if you graduate from a highly-ranked college i suppose its easier to get into the grad school you want.
bucknell's engineering is probably its best major, followed by management. other than that, i really dont know which majors are most popular though you could find the data somewhere i guess. 67% of the class of 2004 were employed within six months(?) of graduation. </p>
<p>there's a very detailed post-graduate survey for the class of 2005 here:
<a href="http://www.bucknell.edu/Documents/CDC/Class%20of%202005%20full%20report.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://www.bucknell.edu/Documents/CDC/Class%20of%202005%20full%20report.pdf</a></p>
<p>that'll answer a lot of your questions if go through it. bucknell seems to be well-known enough in the northeast. i wouldnt know about other parts of the US since i am not from here.
there's a shuttle on fridays and saturdays which takes you to walmart and the local mall. its easy enough to walk around lewisburg which is a small town. lots of people do have cars though. you can get a bicycle, those r very popular. most college people are proud of their school and the same goes for bucknell. the likes and dislikes r hard to answer, again, a college visit would clear that up for you.</p>
<p>i wasn't talking about which school is better. i merely pointed out that one cannot judge a school's selectivity merely by its acceptance rate. never did i say grinnell is a better school.</p>
<p>if you want name recognition you just don't go to an lac. even the very best lacs like amherst, williams and swarthmore don't get enough recognition as they deserve. you go to a good lac because you want a good education. if you want name recognition go to a school like carnegie mellon or something.</p>
<p>campus visits are useful, however I find that the people there always try to give a better impression of the school and don't give straight, direct answers so that is why I asked here.</p>
<p>is there grade deflation/inflation?
how tough are the academics (scale of 1-10?)</p>
<p>thanks for the input</p>
<p>I'm obviously not a student, but my daughter did visit. She found the campus to be very friendly and had a wonderful time. We are from California and I have met so many people here who know of Bucknell's wonderful reputation. I was surprised to see how many friends knew of Bucknell. My d thought the campus and surrounding area was absolutly gorgeous as well.</p>
<p>The difficulty of academics totally depends on what you are majoring in, just like any other college.</p>
<p>the academics here are manageable enough and not too hard. i am an engineer so i have more work, but overall maybe a 7 or 7.5. that's more a rating of the course load though. as long as you do all your assignments and you will get plenty, work is not too tough. the professors are really nice and approachable. physics is especially great. anyway, i have no idea about the grade inflation though.</p>
<p>i'm a theater major and i have plenty of time to participate in all the ecs that i want, as well as doing all of my schoolwork. i find the workload really depends on the major.</p>