<p>Hello all. So I don't drive the kids nuts, i'm starting a parent thread too. please jump in!!! kids can jump in and comment too! take care :)</p>
<p>My daughter heard last week that she got into Tyler and is very excited. This was the first school she heard from and is mainly applying to Universities that have strong art departments. So far she is very attracted to Philly and it seems that Drexel and Temple are the top two on her list.</p>
<p>She is also applying to BU,RIT and TCNJ. She was going to apply to Syracuse and Cincinnati but getting into Temple has knocked them out of contention.</p>
<p>The more we are learning about Temple, the more excited we are becoming. We were there a couple of months ago for a brief tour but anxiously await the accepted students day.</p>
<p>Hi there!!! I’ve heard the Tyler art program is amazing. There is another poster with a kid at Tyler. Im pretty sure her name is glassharmonica if you want to look her up. has she visited Drexel too? hard to say which school she;d like more. for us, Temple had the better price tag plus was stronger in his major so it was a no brainer for him. do you know when accepted students day is? i’ve had one heck of a time getting into the tuportal and hope there is not tons of great info in there we’re oblivious too. and thanks for posting :)</p>
<p>There is another thread for Tyler that I had posted on as well and everyone there seems to think very highly of it. Although these are my first posts, I have been a very avid lurker so I have been following all the universities with strong art departments for a while.</p>
<p>We have visited Drexel and she liked that a lot as well. Their Co-op program is their biggest selling point and Im not sure how much one should value it at. Having said that, Tyler is very well known amongst anyone in the art field and aside from stand alone art schools (RISD, Pratt, MICA etc) it might possibly be the best Art school anywhere let alone Philadelphia.</p>
<p>We were at Drexel 3 times and Temple once, but we definitely felt there was a better campus vibe at Temple and it certainly made an impression on her.</p>
<p>The area does concern me somewhat but I did live in Brooklyn for 30 years so I know that usually good common sense is all you need.</p>
<p>my son liked the temple vibe a lot too. one of big reasons it’s his top choice. The scholarship certainly helped too. But regarding the vibe, we walked through Drexel and penn one Thursday evening and had a tour of Temple the next day. He liked temple the most and Drexel the least of those 3 schools. I think an active Friday morning certainly helped Temple’s cause but it’s interesting they both picked up on the school vibes. We also stayed overnight at Temple during the summer. So very few people there. Still felt good on campus and like a campus. Again, good vibe even when relatively deserted. The kids that were around were milling around outside sitting at a cafe(I think) enjoying the warm summer night.</p>
<p>The neighborhood is an issue, a big one, and alarming as a parent. from what i’ve been able to gather, on campus is fine and i’ve asked anyone and everyone i can. Very dicey off campus but if u are wise, u can stay safe. There are 2 subway stations near campus. One, cecil b moore is safe most or maybe all the time and it dumps you right on campus, Avoid the other one, which is just north of campus, I think Susqeuhanna, kid and I rode it at noon and station was scary even then 
and I’ve been through harlem on a subway but this one north of Temple still scared me. There is also a regional rail station about 2 blocks east of campus.</p>
<p>Hi all! My D is going to Temple next Fall, she accepted an athletic scholarship and signed her NLI back in November, so it’s a done deal. She is extrememly excited, as are we. I would say that we are local to Temple (in that if anything were to happen in or around there, it would be on our local news) so we had formed an opinion of the place and for many, many years my husband was like NO WAY will she go there! She (D) kept expressing interest in the school and we went and toured it as a family during the Summer and after the tour met with the team coach. We were quite blown away by the school. It was nothing like we expected. We thought it felt like a suburban campus isolated and stuck in an inner city, North Philly no less. When you are on campus, it was just didn’t feel like you were in the city. Now D will have to cross Broad St. everyday for sport, so real life will creep in everyday. She will have to be street smart and make good choices. (She’s coming from a rural area where she has attended Catholic school all of her life, but it will be a grand adventure for her.)</p>
<p>She is stuck on her major though. She will enter as an undecided, but she is leaning toward Sports Management.</p>
<p>Oh and shopping has been fun this year for Christmas, I have sort of had an “owl” theme!</p>
<p>Mine(son) is excited about the urban adventure too :)</p>
<p>does anyone have details about the admitted students day on Feb 15th. We can never get into tuportal. Since kid got email about the date, I know it’s one of the admitted students day but that’s it. anyway, if anyone wants to pm me or post with more details about what the agenda is for the admitted students day, i’d appreciate it.</p>
<p>D is a junior who will apply to Temple next fall. She spent a week this summer living on campus doing an engineering program. I was also struck by how pretty and well-policed the campus is. The neighborhood beyond looked a little run down but by day certainly not alarming (I, too grew up in NYC - Harlem and Brooklyn - and felt completely comfortable walking around the main streets adjacent to campus). I have friends from South Philly who attended Temple many years ago and loved it, as for safety they said “It’s like the Lion King, just stay where the light touches”. </p>
<p>I get the sense that neighborhood is changing, and also the sense that Temple is very serious about security on campus. We paused in front of a map to find the dorm where she’d check in and within 20 seconds a campus security officer arrived on a bike to see if we needed help.</p>
<p>Hi Parents,</p>
<p>I am a current Freshman at Temple University. I just started in the Fall and will be returning in a few short weeks. I noticed that some of you are concerned about the safety of our campus, but I can assure you that it is the safest campus. We have 63 Blue Lights (with a less than 20 second response) on and off campus (few blocks off). In addition, we have 120+ sworn in Campus Police Officers that are trained with the Philadelphia Police Department. They, and a contracted security service (Allied Barton), constantly bike around campus (rain, snow, sleet, sunshine) to ensure the safety of the students. Also, if you look at a map, at night, it will show Temple University as the brightest area in Philadelphia. I, personally, have never felt unsafe on or off campus.
The best advice I can give to prospective students is to simply, be smart. You really, truly, have to be smart on ANY college campus. As long as you are smart, and not doing anything “stupid” you will be completely fine. I absolutely LOVE this place and encourage everyone to attend Temple University. Each year Temple moves up in ranks and the opportunities are endless, especially with the city of Philadelphia!
Best of luck and I hope this was helpful.</p>
<p>Go Owls!</p>
<p>So glad to find this thread. DS just put in his application to Temple/Tyler. His portfolio was accepted at our local (Boston) National Portfolio Day in November. He’s also applying to VCU, U of Arts, Syracuse, RIT and MassArt. He says he’d be happy going to any of these schools but I think he’s leaning towards Tyler. It’ll all depend on fin’l aid pkgs.</p>
<p>does he have good stats? cause Temple is giving out some nice merit aid these days. He sounds like an impressive artist. there is another Temple thread I think that is just on tyler so look at that one too. and welcome!</p>
<p>i think the merit aid starts with an 1150 SAT(old scale) and a GPA around 3.0ish and ranges from $5000 to full tuition for an OSS depending on how solid the stats are. u can check Temple’s admission page for a link to the merit aid</p>
<p>I know I’m biased but I think his portfolio is really good. GPA: 3.45u; 3.80w. ACT: 26</p>
<p>GPA is in merit range. Not 100 percent sure on ACT but i think it is. It sounds like if he was accepted into a competitive honor in a big area such as Boston, others think he’s pretty darn good too. As u probably know, Tyler is supposed to be a great program and I’m impressed by the schools he is applying too, from an artist’s angle. Yes, i’m pretty biased about my young one too so I get that :)</p>
<p>Hi all,
DD just got her acceptance email yesterday. We have not visited the campus; had a tour scheduled earlier in the school year but had to cancel due to a scheduling conflict. Now, of course we will make the time to go. I keep hearing horror stories about the neighborhood (kids refusing to even get out of the car, etc) and to be honest, I’ve only visited Philadelphia once, and did NOT like it, but I am trying to keep an open mind. DD knows a couple of kids who attend and love it, and one of her best friends loved it when she toured.</p>
<p>How bad can it be, really? Would you compare it to Northeastern (the Roxbury side of campus?) For heaven’s sake, Yale is in New Haven and EVERY day our local news leads with a shooting or a stabbing or something there. Fordham is in a terrible neighborhood in the Bronx; the list goes on. </p>
<p>Obviously we will have to see for ourselves, but what should we be prepared for when we visit?</p>
<p>I live in the tv viewing area of Temple, have all my life, so I have seen “those” stories that you are talking about. My personal thoughts about Temple were really low, husband thought the same too. We went there with D for a tour back in the summer & we were pleasantly surprised. We really liked it. I do feel like the campus is isolated & has a suburban feel when you are on campus. It’s hard to believe it is really located in North Philly.</p>
<p>Make sure you take a tour. They really highlight all of their safety features on the tour, it is definitely comforting to hear everything that they offer. And if you are really concerned, now with the addition of Morgan Hall, they are able to offer housing to all classes, not just Freshman.</p>
<p>ctreel, i had similar concerns and still do but to a lesser extent now. I asked any and everyone I could think of. First, the kids I’ve talked to love Temple. I have heard some my cousin’s friend’s kid went there and hated it too but the kids i’ve been able to talk to directly really like it. My impression is Temple has really beefed up security. On campus should be fine. i don’t think i’d let my kid live right off campus but the kids I talk to say that’s ok too SO long as you stay in certain neigborhoods. the campus is nice. there is a subway that takes you right to campus so she could use that to get to and from campus safely as that station sounds safe. in talking with adults, including profs, the consensus is be wise. if you drive off campus, stay on main roads. Many have stated the danger is overstated. The surrounding area is quite bad other than to the south, which I think is a little dicey but not like the other directions. sorry, i am not being very specific but my current opinion is i hope my kid uses wisdom when he gets there, he will get street smart quick, and he should be fine on campus other than some minor theft, which seems to be an issue.</p>
<p>and regarding other schools in bad areas, the worst part about Temple is it’s surrounded by bad areas. if you are familiar with Columbia, don’t go east but west(to the extent there is a west) and south used to be perfectly fine. Temple is more like an island surrounded by some scary areas. I think it is more dangerous for the residents though than the Temple students(again assuming the students use wisdom) although i am sure the local residents know which streets to avoid too. I was in New Haven recently and felt safer there than in North Philly. and i actually think but could be wrong that Fordham is in a decent part of the Bronx. Yes, there are decent parts of the Bronx, at least there used to be. Have not spent much time in NYC for awhile so my info is old. I can say about 15 years ago I was in Philly for about 3 weeks just south of Spring Garden(the border street of the bad areas). On and south of Spring Garden was fine. My guess is Temple will be similar. There are parts of Philly that are decent. U may have missed them when you last visited.</p>
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<p>I grew up a few blocks north of Columbia. I walked around day and night, alone and in groups for 25 years with no issues whatsoever. I felt it, too, was perfectly fine.</p>
<p>Given my dicey credentials, take my impressions of the area around Temple with a grain of salt, but I thought the main streets looked busy and walkable. Didn’t go far off the main avenues. Campus was modern, lovely and so well patrolled that my daughter and I (she spent a week there for a summer engineering program) paused to look at a campus map and within 30 seconds a security guy on a bike appeared to help us find her dorm.</p>
<p>There were a million food trucks. It was Sunday when I dropped her off so they were parked and closed, but if they stay in the area during the week that would be a huge plus. There were so many I was dying to try.</p>