<p>For business which would be classified as the best? Also which university provides the best experience? </p>
<p>Purdue is definitely ranked lower than Penn State and UW- however, all three provide an awesome experience.</p>
<p>does SMU stand for southern Methodist?</p>
<p>Yep, Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas.</p>
<p>Define “experience”? For business you’d probably want to rule out Purdue, as they’re a engineering focused school. You’d probably get similar “experiences” at both PSU and UW, but theres a lot of personal preference things that could make the decision easier. </p>
<p>Are they all affordable?</p>
<p>Money won’t be an issue. All depends on the best college for me. </p>
<p>Experience as in a college that has the best reputation yet still can provide me with ample opportunities to maintain a social life. </p>
<p>I can’t speak much on UW, but I am a PSU student. Both universities are fairly similar to each other academically. A big part of it is Seattle vs. State College. Do you want to be in a huge metro area, or a small and classic college town? Weather wise they’re both pretty similar (crappy) but the falls and springs here in the mountains are beautiful. Greek life is big here at PSU, I believe we have one of the highest percentages of students involved with that in the country, if you’re into that. The other really big thing socially PSU revolves around is something called THON, its a year long fundraising effort raising money for a foundation that helps kids treat pediatric cancer. Its the worlds larges student run philanthropy, and it culminates in a 46 hour long dance marathon thats pretty incredible to see. Look up on Youtube about THON and you can see for yourself. I’d probably say 30,000/40,000 students here are involved with THON in some way or another. Its pretty life changing for those that are involved. If you’re a party person, we definitely have that. The two things mentioned above are your two best vehicles to parties. PSU has something around 1,000 student orgs for pretty much whatever you can think of too. Do you plan to visit PSU at all? Visiting is by far the best way to make your pick. </p>
<p>Penn State and UWI are rather similar. I think Etuck can tell you anything you want to know about Penn State, both academically and socially. Overall, both offer quality classes, lots of choices, lots of activities of all kinds, a beautiful campus, have a great reputation, nasty snowy winters, great spectator sports, awesome college towns, and are within 6 hours of interesting cities to visit (with an edge to Penn State having NYC, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Washington DC - but that would only affect you about twice a semester, so, not a deal breaker).</p>
<p>SMU is very different. First, it’s southern, that is, south-west/Texan. Second, it’s private, and attended by many well-to-do families. Conspicuous consumption is more important than at the other two, so depends if it’s your thing or not. Big sports school. Weather is nice October to March, and muggy/hot and sweaty the rest of the time (opposite of the other two, which have nice weather from April to October, and nasty weather from November to March). It’s near Dallas, which offers more internships opportunities, but honestly, not as interesting as Chicago or the Twin Cities or New York City or Philadelphia.</p>
<p>Ok, I feel like out of all of these I’m liking Penn State the most, only problem is that I received my acceptance back in like November and am unsure of how the housing situation will turn out. I read about the supplemental dorming or whatever it’s called and it honestly freaks me out. I’d really rather have a traditional dorm experience for my freshman year, sharing a building with other freshman. Since it’s already late to accept my admission, is there a low chance I would get into the Freshman East Halls? Could I pay extra to be put in these halls?</p>
<p>Sooner rather than later to accecpt PSU would be your best bet. While room assignments won’t come out until around August 1st or second, the sooner you accecpt your offer the better off you’ll be with not being in supplemental rooms. Supplemental rooms all depend on how many kids accecpt PSU’s offer, ideally for them, they don’t want supplemental rooms. If you accecpt before the month is over I’d say you’re ok. Even if you were to get assigned to a supplemental, its not the end of the world. If a room opens up for any reason (someone drops out, fails out, etc) people are moved out of supplemental into open rooms. Someone on my floor was in a supplemental and the second week of school he was assigned a normal room. However supplemental rooms are HUGE and if you have a couple of cool roommates, you’ve got a pretty cool situation.</p>
<p>Most supplemental rooms are in east halls. They’re converted study lounges. A large amount of freshmen live in Pollock as well, and not as many ask to be put there, so if you selected that, you’d have a good chance at that. Pollocks nicer than east, anyway. The people at housing are really accommodating and try really hard to make everyone happy. I wouldn’t let that fear deter you from PSU. You’ll probably move off campus after freshman year anyway</p>
<p>Well thank you very much for all of the information. I believe that if I don’t get accepted to Boston College, UNC, or Wake Forest, I’ll definitely be attending PSU. As for the housing, I’ve just been reading that the East halls offer the best Freshman atmosphere. Also one more important question; how can you handle so many people in one place? I feel like since the university is so large it’d be fairly difficult to get closer to people. </p>
<p>It is true that most freshmen prefer to live in east because its all freshmen. Its easier to make friends and its kind of like a common struggle all students go through having long walks to class, older dorms, and so-so food. Making friends depends on you. You HAVE to go do stuff at a school like PSU, or you will not succeed socially. Go out and take chances meeting people, if you mess up theres plenty more to make impressions on. I joined an IM soccer team before students even got to campus and I met my girlfriend and my roommate for next year doing that. You might be close with your floor, you might not. If you don’t go join any clubs/orgs/etc, you’re going to feel left out. And definitely do it early. Go to the fall involvement fair the first week of school and just sign up for stuff. But once you start networking with people, it starts to get weird how many people you recognize on a daily basis walking to class and stuff. </p>
<p>Purdue isn’t an “engineering focused school.” It’s a flagship state university that happens to have really good engineering programs.</p>
<p>Penn State and Southern Methodist both have well-reputed business schools; Washington’s is great as well. Smeal is generally known to be a great undergraduate business experience, and is highly-ranked - but I’m not sure rankings matter so much. It all depends on what you want to do. If you want to stay in the Pacific Northwest after college UW-Seattle could be a better choice <em>shrug</em> (although Penn State does have a very large alumni network).</p>
<p>*Greek life is big here at PSU, I believe we have one of the highest percentages of students involved with that in the country, if you’re into that. *</p>
<p>It might be the highest <em>numbers</em>. Only 19% of men and 16% of women are involved in Greek life at Penn State, and other campuses certainly have much higher proportions - as many as 40%+ in some places (like Dartmouth). But 19% of the male students at Penn State is something like 3500+ students! I was walking down the hallway in the HUB a few weeks ago and saw all the really awesome pictures from Greek Sing; it seems amazing. (I’ll be starting a research position at Penn State in August.)</p>
<p>Huh, IM soccer will probably be one of the things i get involved in, I’ve played D1 soccer for around 10 years now. Etuck, did you already graduate? Thanks for the info Juiliet!</p>