<p>I was wondering if anyone is knowledgable about Gettysburg College. The school really appeals to me because I'm interested in the past, and it is in a very charming town with such a wealth of history. There area a lot of student research opportunities for all majors, and it seems like they offer a great study abroad program. One thing that I read however, on college review sites is that the student body is rather privileged and pretentious. Coming from a middle class background, I don't want to feel like a fish out of the water. There obviously will be arrogant people at every school, but I want to attend a college where the majority of the student body is down-to-earth. Have you found Gettysburg to be a "snobby" school? Another concern of mine is financial aid, since I know someone who applied, a decent student whose parents aren't wealthy, and he received no money. What sort of achievements do you need to be considered for merit aid (range of stats)? I received a booklet from Gettysburg in the mail and it said merit aid will be considered on the basis of class rank, GPA and SAT's. Do they offer anything for extracurricular achievement, or is that put into consideration for aid? And finally, what distinguishes Gettysburg from other Pennsylvania LAC's? There's a lot of good ones (Swarthmore, Lafayette, Muhlenberg, Dickinson, etc.) and I want to know what makes Gettysburg unique.</p>
<p>Well, regarding economic status of the student body, last year’s Common Data Set shows that 66% of all students felt the need to apply for need-based financial aid. Need-based financial aid was given to 52% of all students. So while there is a large percentage of the student body who come from families where the household income likely exceeds $150,000 per year, there is also a sizeable percentage whose household income is substantially lower. I can’t tell you, however, how the raw numbers translate into one being “snobby” or “down to earth.” My daughter knows suburban tract kids at her school who put on airs and kids who live in multi-million dollar homes who you’d think were on full need-based aid. </p>
<p>As for merit aid 125 freshman out of 739 in the freshman class received non need-based scholarships, roughly 17%. Exstrapolating from the CDS data I’d think merit aid is unlikely to kick in unless you had a 3.7 high school GPA, were ranked in the top 10% of your class and scored a minimum of 690 on the math and CR sections of the SAT (or corresponding ACT score). I’m sure there are some exceptions, but in general the threshhold for merit aid is pretty high.</p>
<p>I’ll defer to the Gettysburg community as to what distinguishes it from the other excellent Pennsylvania LACs.</p>