Pennsylvania colleges road trip advice?

I’m thinking of making a low pressure visit to Pa colleges over spring break. We are leaving from NJ and I’m not sure if I have it in me to hit places like Juniata or Allegheny on this trip because I suspect I might have younger kids with me (whom DH and I will have to take turns occupying if this becomes a family affair).

It might be best to do one overnight and visit only central Pa schools.

MAC is most important so I’m most seriously considering Susquehanna, Lycoming, and Lebanon Valley, with Dickinson thrown in just because that school really appeals to me. It probably will not be affordable, but the NPC isn’t horribly off and a music scholarship might make the difference.

York is also affordable but I don’t have a feel for it at all.

Albright is a MAC possibility, too. Also no good feel for it.

And then there’s Bloomsburg, which is a question mark for me as well but seems to get favorable reviews.

Anyone want to help me plan?

I’ve never done more that one school visits so it’s hard to say how much is too much. Visiting all I’ve named isn’t necessary.

We visited a lot of the schools you mentioned. We are actually going to Lycoming Sunday for accepted student day, and taking a detour thru Bloomsburg on our way (they are only about 45 minutes apart and from NJ we go right by the Bloomsburg exit on 80 getting to Lycoming). For us, Lycoming, York and Bloomsburg all came in within $5k of each other (and cheaper than Ramapo in state!). We really liked Bloomsburg’s campus and have heard good things, too.

York wouldn’t be a far ride from Millersville (another U of PA), Franklin & Marshall and probably Lebanon Valley. You might want to look at Elizabethtown too if you’re there - it’s very close to LV and a nice, small school. York is actually a very nice campus - we were there last week for accepted student day!

Not sure where Dickinson is exactly, but my son’s friend is going there to play lacrosse and I know they were very generous with the aid!

I know my son gets burned out very quickly on the visits, so good luck cramming them all in! LOL We will be hitting PA every weekend for the next few weeks to try and get this figured out before he has to decide May 1!!!

Good luck!

Thanks, @NJWrestlingmom !

Do you think three in one day is too much if they are each about one hour apart?

F & M would be great but the NPC result was scary!

My oldest dd is at Elizabethtown and we’ve been very happy with it.

One little perk about Elizabethtown is that it’s about two miles from a train station. It makes travelling very easy. I would love to find another school like that. F & M would be good that way.

I don’t think Dickinson is far from York, maybe an hour to the northwest, I think.

@MACmiracle if you doing formal tours, I think 3 would be too much. But in the beginning we just drove around to see if he even liked the campus (he wouldn’t even get out of the car at U of Scranton!).

I know a lot of the actuaries at my old job went to Lebanon Valley. I know they give 1/2 tuition off for 10% of your class. I had a friend who went to a very large, competitive NJ high school and wasn’t in the top 10% but still had like a 3.8; she wrote and they gave her the 1/2 off anyway! Unfortunately, my son isn’t in that boat! LOL

BTW…I know a freshman at Susquehanna and he’s very happy there!

I think you will be surprised with Bloomsburg. Great campus, nice town, lots of majors and good school spirit. Made my very picky daughter’s top 4 list. May end up # 1?

@bester1 York was my son’s first choice, then after accepted student day he didn’t like it anymore! Bloomsburg is back into the top 2!!! I think it’s going to end up being there or Lycoming, once he decides how small he really wants! I personally loved the campus when we toured over the summer!

Funny…my daughter had York placed high on her list until we spent the day last spring. She dropped it. I agree with Bloomsburg’s campus. It is really nice, perfect size at about 10,000 students, decent town, not too far from NYC or Philly and my kid has done two overnights there…she enjoyed the kids immensely and felt they were not pretentious at all(she did feel that they were at John Carroll and Canisius). She is pretty much down to Bloom, WVU and Cleveland State.

Interesting! What didn’t she like about York? My son liked the campus, and the Education professors he met, he just felt like he didn’t “fit” with any of the kids. We told him (as did his counselor) not judge on looks, and it takes more than a day to make friends and find your niche, but now he has it in his head, I think he’s ruled it out.

She liked parts of the campus but not all of it. A creek kind of ran through the parking lot and was flooding. She met some students and felt like they really were not interested in sharing any positive thoughts on the school and that the school was trying to add on some extra costs(not like every school does not do this already). She said the rec center was nice an some of the buildings were good. At Bloom, she felt the kids were excited about their school and very accepting. She also says she felt that way at Cleveland State and WVU. Interestingly, I loved West Chester and my daughter really loved the campus. She did an overnight visit and felt that the kids all knew each other from high school and she was worried about fitting in. I am not sure how she could think that with 16,000 students but that was in her head.