<p>It’s a tough decision - I obviously am biased towards Clemson (you’re right it would be a great experience). I think Clemson is slowly increasing it’s academic reputation. Our president has made it one of his goals to be one of the best public universities in the country and over the past several years we have made steps towards improving our standing in comparison to other top public schools. In addition, Clemson has a fantastic science and engineering program at Clemson so if you get a degree in those fields you’ll probably be getting one of the more reputable degrees you can get from Clemson. We’re pretty well regarded in the sciences and engineering.</p>
<p>Overall the decision is up to you but I hope you pick Clemson!</p>
<p>I have one question though. After football season does it get boring around campus in Clemson? While I was visiting, I saw how small Tiger Town was (it’s not a bad thing, its actually a really awesome little downtown area) and it just seems theres not a lot to do after the fall. In PSU, THON starts and it is one of the biggest student programs in the country. And, PSU has an enormous and fun-filled downtown area. I obviously don’t know as much about Clemson since I am in Pennsylvania.</p>
<p>Not exactly sure what THON is but we usually have activities on campus put on by this student life group called Clemson Live every weekend and if you join student organizations, they’ll have other activities throughout the week. I can’t really think of a weekend since I’ve been here that I’ve been bored to death with nothing to do. There’s usually always something going on. Obviously I don’t think anything can compare to the atmosphere on campus during football season (with 80,000 people from around the state tailgating and getting hype for the game) but the end of football season doesn’t mean the end of anything that goes on at the university.</p>
<p>Edit: Just looked up Penn State THON and we actually have our own version of Dance Marathon at Clemson - it was just last weekend! Probably smaller than Penn State but a lot of people definitely participate in it.</p>
<p>Bucket, do you like Penn State? If you are instate, it seems strange that you are even asking which school to go to. So maybe you are hesitant about the size of PSU. A degree from PSU speaks volumes, and they have a very active alumni networking system to assist with internships and jobs. That’s a big plus.</p>
<p>Well he did say that Penn State and Clemson are going to be about the same cost. If he wants to go to a new part of the country for college, that’d be a good reason to go out of state (that was one of the main reasons I went to Clemson being from the Northeast, and while I might not stick around here after college, it’s been a great 4 years). Both schools have fantastic alumni networks and career centers. Penn State I think has the largest alumni network out of any college in the US because of its size. Clemson consistently ranks near the top of % of alumni who give back to the university which shows people have strong ties to the university even after they graduate. Both schools are in the top 5 every year in the Princeton Review’s ranking for schools with best career center/job placement. So yeah again, both schools are fantastic and you’ll have a lot of opportunities at either one.</p>
<p>To each their own, as they say:) We are gladly paying OOS tuition for UConn. Daughter went in as a biology major, now in the pharmacy program. We looked at JMU (VA instate),
Clemson, Elon, accepted PSU. D liked the more liberal northeast.</p>
<p>^That’s definitely personal preference and it’s hard for anyone to judge that except the person themselves. Know a lot of people at Clemson from the northeast who love it here, also know people who found out the South wasn’t for them and preferred living back in New England.</p>
<p>Just an update and to give a little insight to others that may have been in my situation, I chose Penn State! I love Clemson and could have seen myself attending and being happy. It all came down to logistics. It just made more sense to choose PSU. Thank you everyone.</p>
<p>congrats on your decision! Enjoy college while it lasts, 4 years goes by really fast</p>
<p>Congratulations bigbucket! We are!!</p>
@oos1stchoice Hi, I know that this is like 5 years later, but i am in an insanely similar boat as your son. I am from Connecticut but want to get out and I applied to UNC, JMU, and a few others but my top 2 are PSU and Clemson. I want to go for nursing and I was just wondering which school your son picked.
@emoryleigh Now I am in the same boat!! which did you pick?? are you happy with your choice?
IM NOW IN THE SAME BOAT TOO, someone plz help… I am from Washington (state) and penn state is about 15k more and i still havent toured either but i’ve been a huge penn state fan for awhile because I was born in Pennsylvania!
You could do a lot of things with $60,000 saved…