<p>This is a student's perspective on Susquehanna University, and while it may not reflect the feelings of every student there I have heard many students make these same comments.</p>
<p>SU tried to act like a big family school dedicated to community service when really after freshman welcome week no one advertises for community service. The majority of students at SU are very to themselves, except when they're drunk which in some cases is every night of the week. Speaking of alcohol, after students get drunk they puke and do not hit the bowl. My bathroom has had the odor of vomit in it for the past 10 weeks. My RA has a great attitude. Someone wrote on her door that they were having a problem with their heater and she erased it and said, "What am I supposed to do about it?" It's only her job to do something about it but why bother?</p>
<p>Meal Plans- The cheapest school when it comes to food and meal plans that I know of. If you miss a meal it's gone for that entire day. Basically if you have the 3 meals a day plan and you miss breakfast you just lost that meal forever. Then with flex dollars you get fewer than any other school. Plus the eating times are terrible for college students who are always hungry.</p>
<p>Business School- Nothing special here. They run this course for freshman called global business perspectives and they basically stress you out and they grade very harshly, taking off points for every little thing.</p>
<p>Overall the school looks nice on the outside and they do a great job of promoting themselves, but make no mistake about this school is not as good as they think they are. So many students are transferring out, and one's who can't complain about the school a lot. This is strictly a party school.</p>
<p>Would be more honest if you mentioned that by November of your Freshman year you were already sending out transfer requests for the Spring 2008 semester.</p>
<p>Sounds like you dislike the college you selected earlier this year. It happens, you are transfering out - good luck to you!</p>
<p>BTW - did you expect to miss meals on one day and then take 5 or 4 meals the next?</p>
<p>Being bitter is never a pleasant situation, spreading our the bitterness to encompass an entire college is also not very pleasant.</p>
<p>BTW, I do not attend Susquehanna, have no family at this school, but have visited it, so I have no axe to grind.</p>
<p>Maybe you show reflect on your comments. Good luck at TCNJ.</p>
<p>No but I'm an athlete so I need to eat and eat and eat, and it stinks when I miss breakfast and my meal is gone forever, when other schools give you 3 a day to be used whenever you want. It's just the idea that once you miss a meal it's money wasted forever just really seems cheap compared to most other schools. I don't mean to sound like one student being so bitter, to be honest I have heard seniors, juniors, sophomores and other freshman make these same complaints. Yes I'm transferring out, like many other other freshman (they have an 85% return rate). I know of 3 other in my one Economics class of 17. My mistake was not checking my options first. I applied here Early Decision thinking my scholorship money would be more if I seemed more committed, yet my roommate who had a weaker application than I did got more money going regular decision.</p>
<p>The school has a great campus and excellent faculty who really care. Plus the dorm rooms (except in Hassinger Hall) are HUGE which is really nice and something I'll miss. </p>
<p>But think hard about your decision to go to SU if you're considering it, because 1,900 students in a rural setting didn't seem so bad to me and hey every visit I made I had happy people throwing food and well packaged information at me and it seemed great. But it is not the reality at this school, it's just a hook to get you interested. That's why you walk by the business faculty having meetings you see elaborate spreads and coffee, yet when you go over your allotted meal money limit by .10 cents they don't let you eat it.</p>
<p>Some love it here. Some have problems with the school but to them the good outweigh the bad. A lot have problems that they complain about but never make the effort to look elsewhere. And the rest transfer out. This distribution is generally what most schools have.</p>
<p>I appreciate you wishing me good luck. It will certainly require a bigger commitment to school, but I'll be better off after graduation because of it.</p>
<p>you mentioned that 85% return for the Sophomore year at Susquehanna. That is actually fairly normal for most LAc's.</p>
<p>While TCNJ does have a higher % returning for the sophomore year, be aware that only 64.5% graduate from TCNJ in 4 years, with 82.7% graduating in 6 years.</p>
<p>Susquehanna has 77% gratuate in 4 years and 83% in 6 years.</p>
<p>I live one town away from TCNJ's campus and have been on campus a number of times, it is ok, but does not match Susquehanna's IMO.</p>
<p>TCNJ is a commuter school in many facets with NJ Transit stations nearby. with the campus rather quiet on weekends.</p>
<p>BTW Ramapo has a 38.1% graduation rate for 4 years and only 57.1% for 6 years. So good that you selected TCNJ IMO.</p>
<p>I believe the reason for TCNJ's relatively low 4 year graduation rate is the difficulty (shared by many public colleges/univ) of getting into the needed upper level courses, but have not checked into this at TCNJ.</p>
<p>BTW, I live across from Ewing's campus and could ride my bike from Ewing to TCNJ as each campus backs up again the other.</p>
<p>I do wish you the best at TCNJ, many kids from our school go there and have had success. :>)</p>
<p>Yea their campus's are fairly close in quality in my opinion. People say TCNJ is in a bad area but it seemed fine to me I mean yea it's close to Trenton but it's in a nice suburb. It will only suck if I have to commute, but supposedly housing is need based and I live 90 minutes from TCNJ so I'd say I have a large need. TCNJ has a number of Ivy quality students who go there for $ reasons, but the students all seem motivated (at least more than they do here, seeing as my RA went to a party last night and finals are Monday). </p>
<p>But thank you for wishing me luck. I'm really happy I got in, it was certainly a bit of a reach for me but I did it so it's an opportunity I can't pass up.</p>
<p>I read CM26's comments last week about the meal plan and I asked my daughter who's home from SU for her thoughts. My daughter switched to the 2 meal-a-day plan after the first month on campus. She told me that there are 4 opportunities each day to have a meal (b-fast, lunch, dinner, evening). My D tells me that if she were to miss one of her meals in a day, she can make that meal up anytime during that current week (not "day" as CM26 states). I mentioned this post and she said that SU is not that strict with the meal plan and that she has often been told by food services cashiers that she a certain amount of meals remaining before the weeks end. If anyone needs more info, or clarification about this, ask her and post a reply.</p>
<p>I have read some of the OP's posts and honestly, in my opinion, his dissatisfaction with the school results more as a problem inherent with so many early decision applications. Kids at a young age make a decision based on a number of reasons, they feel they will have a better shot, feel they will get a better aid package or just want to be done with the process and end up at a school that might not be the best. </p>
<p>I know with my daughter, her first choice changed several times during the year and that's why I think these schools that are getting rid of ED are doing a good thing. A topic for a different post I am sure..</p>
<p>Hey Greyhound.. Well that's news to me about the meal plan in terms of having a certain number per week, but then again they never once mentioned how meal plans work to us and how much we can spend at Benny's (known by upperclassmen as Encore) and have it count as a meal. It really depends who is working as to how lax they are. It's just frustrating when I am really hungry after practice and the lady won't let me eat because my meal is 10 cents over my limit, and yes some will let you go but other will not. </p>
<p>I don't recall an "evening" meal, but the dining hall closes at 7 which for me is early. One night at Benny's the lady told me that I couldn't have my sandwich because dinner meals end at 10pm, which is bull because then ight before I used a meal at 11:30. You can understand my anger; I hadn't eaten in 7 hours and this lady was telling me I could not eat.</p>
<p>But compare SU's meal plan to the one at my new school TCNJ. At SU a day is divided into 3 (or 4) meals and u pay for 21 or 14 meals per week, with 90 extra bux for the 21 meal plan and like 175 bux (i'm over-estimating) for the 14 meal. Now at TCNJ there are certain hours for breakfast, lunch and dinner but you can eat there as often as you'd like, even more than once per meal time, and get $250 extra bux for the same price as SU's meal plan, or $400 extra bux for just $100 more. SU won't let you eat twice during a meal time, so if you eat dinner at the dinning hall and then want to get something later at Benny's you're out of luck. </p>
<p>I have to ask why a school with an insane endowment has a meal plan with more restrictions and less extra bux than a state school (a state school that has seen numerous financial cutbacks)??? It just doesn't make sense to me.</p>
<p>Curlygirl you are exactly right. ED is a bad thing and schools that are doing away with it are making the right move. The baseball coach did lie and tell me my scholarship would be bigger if I went ED (and once I did go ED he mysteriously stopped talking to me all together). I think ED sounds great at the time but it's a commitment that no one should make, especially because they don't know where else they can go. I always felt like I missed out on the fun experience of applying to like 8 schools and talking with friends about my choices before making a decision. It was really fun to apply to schools again. So far I'm 4/4 (Univ. Pitt Main, SU, TCNJ, Ramapo) so now I feel like my college search is complete, especially because I'm transferring up in quality of students, school and baseball team (ranked top 10 in the country last year).</p>
<p>My son attended a week-long workshop at SU last summer. He has been accepted for Fall 2008 there and may well attend. As I understand it, the cluster was strongly correlated with a single off-campus housing site. Investigations conducted by the DEP and the PA Dept. of Health suggest that there is currently no increased risk in that area. In fact, the Dept. of Health found that, overall, Selinsgrove had a cancer rate 10% below the state average. Even if you do not accept those reports at face value, it would appear that anyone who is concerned about the possibilities could avoid the Rhoads Mill area entirely. Until more long-term data are available I plan on suggesting that course of action to my son should he attend, but I am not so worried that I would advise against going to SU because of this.</p>
<p>Thanks for the response. The meal plan comments here notwithstanding, the previous comments and opinions about Susquehanna that I have found have been very positive. I found the cancer reference quite by accident surfing the web. I agree that the situation does sound somewhat isolated to that particular off campus housing site, and I would offer the same advice to my son should he choose to attend. Your link was helpful. Thanks again.</p>
<p>He applied under the Susquehanna Legacy Early Action Plan. (His mother is a Susquehanna grad.) He has not yet gotten the financial aid info, but the offer is non-binding and he has until May 1 to make up his mind.</p>
<p>Oh, OK. My son applied regular decision but sent it in quite a while ago. I feel fairly confident he will be accepted, but he won't hear until around January 15th.</p>
<p>Thank you, northeastmom. He has been wearing his SU hoodie just about everywhere since he got the acceptance, so I am guessing he wants to attend.</p>