I’m looking at a few schools in the PASSHE system. According to academics and overall excellence, which school is the best and which school is the worst? Or are they all equal?
Cheyney is horrible, in my opinion. 25% graduation rate!
It’s actually on the verge of closing.
West Chester is probably the best. It is the largest and most selective.
Indiana University is good but remote. I doubt is Cheney will close for political reasons.
You might want to look at some rankings, including US News & WR, as flawed as it is. Some are ranked as regional universities (including West Chester, Millersville, Kutztown). Some, which used to be ranked (including IUP) now have an “RNP”, which means there is no numerical rank - which is somewhat dubious to me.
“good but remote”. Indiana is only a little over an hour from Pittsburgh. It I in a nice small town, the birthplace of Jimmy Stewart. There is service by Greyhound. US News places it with national universities,not regional.
You’re correct, it does label it as a National U. Still an “RNP”, however: http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/iup-3277
My parents both went to IUP and my brother is at Edinboro. I also have family members from clarion. In my opinion, Edinboro has really good programs for very specific things (why my brother is there). Overall, I would agree that IUP is one of the better ones and also has a really nice campus.
In my opinion(not sure how much that is worth ;)), the Money/Time Magazine uses the best criteria for rankings.
Bloomsburg Univeristy of PA is rated # 169 in the USA
.http://new.time.com/money/best-colleges/profile/bloomsburg-university-of-pennsylvania/#
West Chester is rated # 472
http://new.time.com/money/best-colleges/profile/west-chester-university-of-pennsylvania/
Indiana University of PA # 643
http://new.time.com/money/best-colleges/profile/indiana-university-of-pennsylvania-main-campus/
Forbes rates the following in PA:
West Chester # 478 in the USA
Bloomsburg # 574
Millersville # 615
IUP # 640
Sorry, I should have posted the Forbes info…here you go…
http://www.forbes.com/top-colleges/list/12/#tab:rank_header:state
To me that makes it fairly remote.
Honestly…I never understood the entire “Remote” thing. My college experience was that there were always lectures, programs, events, seminars, movie, concerts and parties on campus. Most of these events were free or at a very low cost. I never had any extra money to pay for a fancy dinner, Broadway play, fine shopping and so on. I was either studying, playing around with my friends, exercising or engaging on an activity on campus. I have to constantly explain to my daughter that you will likely be a poor college student and work some type of job rather than visiting the Civic Light Opera.
@bester1 I agree with you. The one challenging thing with a more remote campus, and one we are trying to figure out, may be transport home on holidays and end of semester for schools that are 4-6 hours away. We are trying to look at Amtrak, Greyhound and other options. My D wont have a car right away. Of course, a ride home from another student would be best.
Check it out…PA is # 3!!!
@bester1 The financial info in Forbes seems a little off. I dont think (even with fees) that West Chester is quite 37K per year?
http://www.forbes.com/colleges/west-chester-university-of-pennsylvania/
I think that is for non PA residents?
I encouraged my D to look at PASSHE schools when she was applying to college two years ago. Many had the major she wanted (early childhood special education), which wasn’t available at many of the Maryland state schools where we live. I was encouraged because I found these schools relatively inexpensive for out of state publics, especially because some of them, like IUP, gave tuition discounts to students from neighboring states. I recall that tuition would have been around $13,000 for her there and at Slippery Rock. Things might have changed since then, though.
We went to the West Chester U. open house this past weekend. We were encouraged by some things, but not so much by others. Overall, my daughter was less than impressed. This was our last college tour for a while, and we wanted to like it more but I dont know. Still digesting the day maybe, maybe it is a little too big for her.
Positives:
-Beautiful day, made the campus look great in the fall!
-Good tour guide, and all of the students working the day were very positive and friendly
-The 3 Deans that spoke in the auditorium were very articulate, and described the school in glowing terms. I was impressed by them
-The newer facilities (fitness center, dining hall) and dorms are fantastic
-The Business/Marketing presentation for D1 was encouraging and the professor did her best to answer challenging questions
Negatives:
-The campus felt disjointed, some of the buildings (including the Student Union, where we spent most of the time) felt older, somewhat dirty, with bad lighting. An old smoke stack made into a cell tower? An eyesore!!
-It was soo chaotic and crowded - it would have been better to attend a smaller tour on a regular weekday.
-D2 attended the pre-OT/PT program. The professor was soo negative. Told them they would have a better chance if they transferred in, that their chances of getting into grad school were terrible and that he was retiring in 2 weeks, and that the program is over-competitive and crowded. Like, don’t even try to apply. Way to sell it Buddy!
Positive and Negative: Contrast between old and new dorms. West Chester still has both, SO you have the opportunity to live in an older (“traditional”) dorm at a lower cost (4K per year lower) if you would like. Some PASSHE schools (like Millersville) no longer have older dorms. Now the advertised price makes more sense to me. West Chester and Bloomsburg advertise 18K or thereabouts, assuming the older dorms, whereas a MIllersville only has the 22K price (and only new dorms). The newer dorms are beautiful, but somewhat overkill - movie theaters and yoga studios in the dorm?
@Portercat - Thank you for the West Chester review. Great stuff. I am not sure anyplace will be 100% perfect. Comparing West Chester to other schools that you visited…would you say that there was good value or the $? How bad were the old dorms? Is it worth the extra money? Thank you again!
I think it is still great value for the $$, but I would look into individual programs as it may vary. That was my problem, in that it was hard to gauge how she would “fit”, as each part of the campus seemed and looked different. The one prof was also a little cagey on the internship question, and said that each student had to be proactive (well, yeah!).
The old dorms were not bad and had a fresh coat of paint. They were very similar to most of the small schools we visited. I stayed in those type of dorms in the late 80s/early 90s and seem fine to me for a college student, but what do I know…? The new dorms are in a different league, like hotel rooms to me. Personal bathrooms in each room. Fancy lobbies, kitchens and I am not kidding about the movie theaters. The front desks had manned “leasing” office/desks. This was all very nice, but an extra 4K per year is a steep price to pay for luxury IMO.