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Notice that 17% of classes at PSU are over 50. That's roughly one out of five classes.
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<p>yes, but it is far more than one out of five classroom experiences. in short, far more students are enrolled in the 17% of classes with 50 or more students than are enrolled in the 33% of classes with 20 or fewer. </p>
<p>the honors college does help with class sizes for those in majors that have ample honors opportunities. (when i was considering schreyer, there was exactly ONE honors course i could have taken in either of my two majors after freshman year.) and in some majors, im sure, upper-division class sizes arent a huge issue.</p>
<p>thankfully, penn state posts all enrollment information on the internet so there should be no guessing as to what a perspective students class sizes might look like. you can see the number of enrolled students as well as the class size caps for every course on campus here: Schedule</a> of Courses - Main Search</p>
<p>on the whole, im not a huge fan of penn state. that said, im much less a fan of assuming significant debt for an undergraduate education.</p>
<p>Penn State is a good school. Patricia Woertz (ADM Exec, PG Board member) graduated from there and Ghostayame and Cpt Anarchy from Team Carbon (Halo pro team) go there!</p>
<p>Erica - no surprise that you're not a fan of PSU based on your posts. You like a few others who have posted here clearly believe you went to a superior school. Congratulations. </p>
<p>Granted, the are a wide range of student experiences at PSU. Yes, a much wider range than what you might find at a fancy private. </p>
<p>At PSU, yes, you can find students who coast by in an easy major and take the biggest classes possible to make it easier to stay invisible. Sure. But you'll also find plenty of motivated science, engineering, science, business and other students who seek out the best classes (and there are plenty to choose from). Many of them come to PSU with lots of AP credits - allowing them to avoid the huge intro lecture halls. (My s is a junior and has taken exactly TWO large lecture classes - and many honors offerings in and out of his major). Students can take honors classes without being in the honors college. There are plenty leadership opportunities, whether it's an investment club or THON, or writing for an award-winning newspaper. You'll find top freshman who do research with a full professors. And plenty of kids who study abroad. </p>
<p>So for these kids, please, reserve your sympathies (your last statement sounds like students are forced to go to PSU as a last resort). They are getting an excellent education and having a good time to boot. They would likely do well at your school too - but for whatever reason - did not choose it. </p>
<p>PSU is clearly not for everyone. For some, the size may be daunting. The football annoying. The lack of hand holding a reason to hang back and party. But I'm not convinced that schools like Lehigh (on the OPs list) or any number of privates offer a SUPERIOR education, especially for top students. A different experience for sure - maybe even a better fit for certain students. But PSU is a good fit for some students as well - even top students.</p>
Penn State's program is not the best, of course, but it's definitely a good program (come on, they have Donald Redford). The interdisciplinary focus of the CAMS program works in its favor.</p>
<p>I say - different strokes for different folks. Of course someone who goes to or went to Bucknell thinks Penn State is inferior - one has to justify the $50,000/yr expense somehow. ;)<br>
Seriously, some folks do feel like a number at a large school and wish for a smaller more intimate environment.
One benefit of a school like Penn State is that it offers nearly everything. If you decide to switch educational or career goals - they probably have a program.
They do have an excellent engineering school and agriculture school. Penn State alumni are a tight knit group and found 'round the world. University Park is a beautiful campus. One doesn't have to go to football games or even like football to have a great college experience there.<br>
It is all a matter of personal choice.</p>
<p>I have heard bad things about Penn State from the one person I know who went there. But one person's experience is not representative.</p>
<p>Are you actually asking what people see in elite schools, or are you giving yourself a pat on the back for your wonderful wisdom in the form of a rhetorical question? If the former, I can happily tell you why I'm glad that I went to <em>my</em> elite school, but not all the reasons are likely to be applicable to your D. Which is what it comes down to - different strokes for different folks.</p>
<p>IMO, going to a large school requires a certain amount of "assertiveness". There is not the hand-holding that goes with a small school - however the opportunites are greater if you are willing to stand up for yourself and learn to navigate the maze.</p>
<p>I hear a lot of kids say stuff like - I couldn't get that class. But then you find they didn't try. Never went on the first day and spoke to the prof. Never tried to add at the beginning of the semester.<br>
Being/not being assertive is not a good/bad thing. Some people see overcoming bureaucracies a personal challenge while others - not so much!</p>
<p>To be successful at any large school, like Penn State you do need to understand that you must be tenacious and assertive at times. For those who are overwhelmed by University Park, some kids start at a satellite campus.<br>
I know several really bright kids who just were nervous about the "bigness". They commuted for two years and then very successfully transferred.</p>
<p>gstein, hookem has ivy aspirations (and quite an attitude considering that he may end up at UT-Austin, which has the same number of undergrads as PSU).</p>
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Penn State's program is not the best, of course, but it's definitely a good program (come on, they have Donald Redford). The interdisciplinary focus of the CAMS program works in its favor.
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<p>I guess I should have specified which aspect of Classics: their advanced language offerings in Latin and Greek are pretty sparse, and it's those that my D is interested in. PSU is fine for Classical Civ, but if you've taken a lot of Latin and Greek in high school there aren't very many advanced language courses available at PSU.</p>
<p>Going to a big school does increase the chances of not getting some classes you want. That is a reason, some kids take longer to graduate. </p>
<p>I know many, many people delighted with their Penn State experience. A friend here has a daughter who graduated from PS not too long ago who has a great job, while the twin who went to an ivy league college has been floundering in the job market. </p>
<p>However, I know kids who just did not flourish at Penn State that were able to pick it up with smaller classes and more personal attention.</p>
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I say - different strokes for different folks. Of course someone who goes to or went to Bucknell thinks Penn State is inferior - one has to justify the $50,000/yr expense somehow.
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<p>i wouldnt have attended bucknell had it cost me $50,000 per year, which it did not, so i need not justify that expense. the reality is that my three years at bucknell were LESS expensive than three years at penn state would have been had i not gotten into the honors college. throw the small schreyer scholarship into the equation and penn state would have been a total of $2,000 cheaper over that span. </p>
<p>further, the inconvenient reality is that i have completed more than 40 credits at both bucknell and penn state, rendering direct experience with a liberal arts college and large national university--heck, i even managed to attend the one in question--that few others who have contributed to this thread are likely to possess. but it appears that my actual experiences could not have proven sufficient in reaching the conclusions i have about penn state. it must have been that extra $2,000 i spent on my bachelors degree needing to be justified by others on an anonymous message board.</p>
<p>anyway, i said it in my initial post and i will say it again: im not a huge fan of penn state. based on my experiences (comprising both upper-division classes in math and economics and a smattering of lower-division courses at both schools), there IS a non inconsequential difference in the quality of undergraduate education each school rendered. expectations and reading loads were higher at bucknell. quality of instruction, on average, was better. class sizes were substantially smaller at all levels. </p>
<p>thats not to say penn state provides a bad education. i found most of the courses perfectly adequate; thats why i kept taking them. but they werent as good. i have no question about that. </p>
<p>what is that difference worth? it depends on how much money you have to throw around. but as i also said in my initial post, i dont feel it is worth substantial debt.</p>
<p>erica - so you do have experience in both environments to draw on. That helps. So yeah, PSU was a bad fit for you based on your experience. But is it possible that other students have different experiences? That perhaps if you were a science major, or business major or tried matriculating at the school vs taking a smattering of classes that the experience might have been different? PSU is not know for having a strong economics program. These are the two classes my s took that had over 400 kids in them. He HATED those classes. But he has also had terrific teachers in history, accounting, business law and other subject areas. He researches the offerings, looks at "ratemy professor" and finds professors and courses that suit his needs. It's really not that hard...for some kids anyway. </p>
<p>I agree with what a previous poster said about PSU...you need to be assertive and seek out the best resources and opportunities. No doubt. (personally, I think that's good training for life). And yes, smaller schools will have an edge if offering more personal attention and mostly smaller classes. If that's what you want, great. But at least acknowledge that a larger environment might actually be a better environment for some students..and can offer some terrific opportunities one just can't find at a small school. From what I have seen, Penn State is a good school and does not deserve to be bashed with overly broad generalizations about huge classes and drunk students. </p>
<p>I went to a big state U for undergrad. And I also took grad classes for a couple of years at an Ivy where I was employed. I actually hated the vast majority of those Ivy classes - the teachers were terribly boring and the work much easier than I thought it would be. A weak program perhaps? And I loved a good number of my state U classes - especially after I got through the intro requirements. I guess it would be easy to say that my state U offered better education than the Ivy...but that would be a bit simplistic. And no one would believe me anyway :)</p>
<p>I believe there are a lot of considerations that play into whether one school is better than another. These considerations are all personal. The criteria I would use to decide whether one institution is better than another may be totally different from the criteria someone else would use. That is why there are so many educational options available....big, medium, small, public, private, etc. Also, one school might be great in one academic area and weak in another. One might have more of a ‘party’ atmosphere and another may be a more laid back environment. That is why everyone has to make his/her own decisions on what is important and not get caught up in what others think or perceive.</p>
<p>From a personal standpoint, one of the main considerations we had was, indeed, financial. If S attended one of the 'elite' schools that he had the opportunity to attend (that only offer need-based finaid), we would have been looking at a $200k tuition bill. By accepting a partial athletic scholarship from PSU, the cost will be less than half that amount. Since he is an engineering major and PSU's engineering program is highly ranked (in the top 20), we (as a family) decided that it was not worth the extra $100k+ for that 'elite' education. Now, if we qualified for 'need based' financial aid such that the 'elite' schools would have cost us approximately the same amount (or less), the decision may have been different. The experience would have also been different. I am not saying that it would be better or worse, just different. Would that different experience play any long-term effect on future success? I don't know....no one does. Is S happy in his decision to attend PSU? Yes…Is he doing well? Yes….Has he had opportunities to develop as a young adult? Yes…Does he have friends? Yes…So...for him, it seems to work.</p>
<p>S made his decision to attend PSU based on his/our family’s considerations. Everyone else should make their decisions on what college to attend based on their unique considerations. </p>
<p>P.S. I would discourage huge loans for any undergraduate education. However, that is just my personal opinion.</p>
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Why should anyone be reluctant to choose this school over say Cornell, Brown, Dartmouth, Penn or a top LAC?
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<p>I don't think you want a serious answer to this question. Like most who diss the Ivies and elite LACs, you want someone to tell you that they aren't a better undergraduate experience, so that if your kid doesn't get in or you can not or choose not to pay for it, you don't have to feel bad.</p>
<p>Compare the stats of the entering class at Dartmouth or Brown or Williams or Swarthmore or Pomona to those of the entering class at Penn State. Also consider the size and atmosphere of the school. Consider the FA available at those schools compared to the aid available for OOS students at Penn State. </p>
<p>There you go: a simple answer.</p>
<p>Obviously there are reasons why a specific student would choose Penn State over any of the above, too. It isn't necessary to make up fake comparisons in order to justify your choice.</p>
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Consider the FA available at those schools compared to the aid available for OOS students at Penn State.
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<p>Those schools are a bargain if you qualify for a good financial aid package. But if one does not qualify for any financial aid, it costs more than $40k in after tax dollars to go to those schools over PSU for an OOS student (without scholarship money) and more than $100k more in after tax dollars to go to those schools if an IS student (without scholarship money). I guess it's great if you get the financial aid, have the money, don't mind getting burdened with the loans, or don't mind having your kids burdened with the loans (that is, if you can even get the loans.)</p>