Susquehanna University

<p>Anyone know about this school? How is the business school? Any information is appreciated. You do not need to list the basics that are on their website, we read it.</p>

<p>Has anyone visited, gone here or currently attend, have a son or daughter that does? I would appreciate any experience or information you could offer.</p>

<p>i don't have any specific info, but i do have an anecdote that may or may not help :) (i'm a student btw, not a parent)</p>

<p>I have a very good friend who recently took a tour at Susquehanna. It turns out that she was the only one on the tour that day, so of course she had some really personal attention. She was able to meet with people who worked in the department she was interested in majoring in (it wasn't business, though), and she absolutely loved the attention and tour she received. She got the sense that this is what classes are like, too. Very personalized.</p>

<p>On the down side, she noticed that there really wasn't anything to do around there. She would play varsity sports if she attended, so she'd be busy and it wouldn't be much of a problem for her, but i could see how that could be somewhat frustrating for non-athletes. Since the student body is so small, there isn't as much going on as there would be at, say, a large state school, and the lack of an interesting town around it could potentially be a problem.</p>

<p>However, this was just one person's experience... someone else's might be completely different. :)</p>

<p>Koala, your recount of your friend's day there did help. Thank you. I did hear that the area is dull. I did hear that they offer small class sizes. The school does seem small enough to get individualized attention. </p>

<p>Anyone else no anything about Susquehanna University? Business department?</p>

<p>second rate pa college, poor fin aid, level 2 students, decent writing program, lots of drinking</p>

<p>Speedo, Thanks. Why do you say poor fa.? On nces.ed.gov/ipeds/cool it says that 91% get 11,000+ in institutional grant #$ and the school is under $35,000? Are you saying that bcs they do not give out more to their best students, but divide the $ so that most get some decent amount of aid, yet none to few are getting a better financial deal?</p>

<p>Do you know anything at all about the biz school? </p>

<p>I realize that this is not an ivy. Sat range is 520-620v,530-630m.</p>

<p>Speedo, do you have any kind of personal experience with this school?</p>

<p>Again, thanks.</p>

<p>my daughter applied there and a couple of her friends attended. It was a safety school for her, her stats were well above the average. I believe it had rolling admissions or they just got back to her very quickly. She needed considerable aid and their package left about 10 grand unfunded. Various students and parents then called for months pestering her to go. The kind of kid that goes there from our high school is a mid level student, with some growing up to do whose parents have 20 grand plus to put out. Sus is a notch below Pa schools like Juniata, Ursinus, Wash and Jeff, Allegheny and a couple of notches below Gettysburg, Muhlenberg, and Dickinson. Susquehana is more on a level with places like Lycoming,York College or even Elizabethtown. Don't know anything about Sus's bus program. The only thing I've ever heard about positively is their writng program - that actually gets a little national rec. Gettysburg probably has a good business program and lots of job connections, but it is heavily prep, frat oriented. Bucknell, Lehigh and Lafayette all probably have good business programs and are on the top level of Pa colleges, Swarthmore BMC and Haverford are not really Pa colleges.</p>

<p>Speedo thanks. Gettysburg does not have "aacsb accreditation" so I did not look further. Thank you for giving me a feel for the school. It does not seem like a bad deal for a kid that is not going to get a full ride or half tuition. 20,000 is sure better than 40,000 with no aid at another private school. We also have another school of less than this caliber calling us. They already promised him 10,000 and no application fee....They have called twice so far and he has not even begun senior year.</p>

<p>The personalized attention and cost is making me take a closer look, but I do not know how he will fit. We are looking for a smaller school, but necessarily this small.</p>

<p>I visited Susquehanna with my daughter a few years ago. The campus was very nice but the town was nothing special. We saw it in the summer with no students there so I don't think my daughter really got a good feel for it. It is pretty close to Penn State and I think Susquehanna student often go there for entertainment. We thought that Elon University in NC was very similar to Susquehanna in feel but it was alot cheaper. My daughter did like Elon. BTW, we got an application fee waiver after an interview with an adcon.</p>

<p>The best school we visited by far was Elon University in NC. The business program is strong and I suspect accredited and you can probably go there for the same money as Sus. And it is a hell of a lot better.</p>

<p>My world history teacher went to Susquehanna. He was a recruited soccer player, although he was injured every season and never played a full season. He was an intelligent man and a wonderful teacher. He loved Susquehanna and highly recommended it as a school.</p>

<p>Kathiep and Speedo thank you. I was looking at Elon. I have heard that it is gorgeous, but did not see the school. Price wise I will need to look closer, but I think Elon starts out 5,000 less, but gives out 5,000 less in merit aid on average. Susquehanna is about 7 hours closer for to our home. I wonder how that plays out in terms of internships and jobs available closer to home after graduation. </p>

<p>What makes Elon a better school? It seems to be a prior hidden gem and has lately turned into a hot school. I understand that it is beautiful and the students seem very happy. What else I should know about it? Elon also has aacsb accreditation. Student sat scores seem very close at both schools, though Susquehanna probably has some students that scored lower on the sats because they have an alternative to admission where one can submit graded writing samples for admission and not submit their sat score (I guess math ability is then not even looked at other than grades from the hs). That is not an important option for my son.</p>

<p>Jessetfan, thank you for telling me how your history teacher liked the school.</p>

<p>I'm not sure Elon is better but we thought the schools were very similar and all things being equal, Elon was less expensive. My daughter was offered merit aid at Elon. We are in PA so Susquehanna would have been closer for us as well. However, North Carolina is beautiful and I think the schools committement to internships and hands-on learning and ease in which a student can do a study abroad was what my daughter was interested in. We visited both schools. I also felt that there was more to do in the area around Elon. Weather-wise, I would rather be in NC in late winter then the middle of PA. All of these are my opinion. The only negative I've heard about either school is the Greek scene.</p>

<p>Kathiep this is very helpful for me. What is there to do around Elon? Is this a town with restaurants and a movie theatre that you could walk to? Could you tell me more about what you learned regarding hands on learning and internships at Elon? As I understand it Elon is very Greek (son is not interested and this is one of the big negatives for him). Susquehanna I think had a lot of frats/sor. and from what I am reading it is no longer very Greek because administration has been working on changing this. I could be wrong, but this could be a plus for Susquehanna in our way of thinking. Do you know if Elon can arrange internships up north or are they mostly NC based? I will call, but were you told anything about that? Frankly, my husband has not heard of either school and responded with, "What is an Elon?" lol. There are just so many schools out there.</p>

<p>Susquehanna has very fine music programs. We know a number of excellent musicians who went there. It is particularly good for aspiring music educators. Re: Elon...we visited it with DD and she hated it. There is a lot of hype about Elon where we live and the school did not live up to the hype. The campus is very very pretty, and it seemed like the programs were diverse enough. BUT it is located in the middle of no where. The tour guide said that students either needed cars, or needed to make friends with those who had cars. For our kid, this was not what she was looking for. The town is very tiny....didn't look like it had much of anything to offer the college students. DD was concerned that all activities on weekends and evenings would HAVE to be either on the college campus (and was there a good variety of those??) or a 20 minute drive away (not to her liking). She was totally turned off by the %age of greek involvement.</p>

<p>Thumper socially from what I have read I ditto your daughter's feelings about the school. If I remember correctly you are from Ct. I noticed quite a few students from Ct. are excited about this school. I keep thinking they must have marketed Ct. strongly. Nobody from our area ever mentioned this school to our family. </p>

<p>Although my son enjoys music in hs, he is not really necessarily going to continue in college- ie: with a pep band or something. He does not seem to care one way or the other.</p>

<p>I guess for the social and NC environment at Elon, he could just be 7 hours closer to home in Pa. The Q I have is should he wind up at one of these 2 schools (obviously he is looking at others, but just considering these 2) which one would be better for business, specifically accounting, and would one give him more job opportunities upon graduation than the other? Anyone chime in if you know.</p>

<p>Thumper thanks for basically stating your daughter's opinions, because I was thinking these same thoughts about the school, site unseen. I have been to Winston-Salem NC (about an hour away).</p>

<p>We looked at Susquehanna and its business program 2 years ago. It was one of D's top 2 choices, but she ultimately chose to attend Saint Joseph's University in Philadelphia instead. D attended a one week summer program at Susquehanna for students interested in business. At the time, it was funded via a grant from Toyota Corporation and was very reasonably priced. D enjoyed it. After the program ended, she was in touch with several Susquehanna students who served as dorm advisors. All of them were very excited about returning to campus in the fall.</p>

<p>We visited the campus 3 times-once to get an initial look, once so she could attned the summer program, and once to attend an open house program in the fall of senior year. We were impressed by the interactions between faculty and students. The President of Susquehanna came over to my daughter and spoke to her during the Open House. When D said hello to the head of the Business Department, he immediately brought her over to the faculty member who was in charge of the summer program the following year and solicited her input on how they could improve the program. </p>

<p>D ultimately decided to stay a bit closer to home and attend St. Joe's. She and I still feel that Susquehanna also would have been a good fit. The AACSB accreditation is a good thing to have (and many business programs at smaller schools do not have this designation). You may want to look at the Susquhanna website for information on their London term abroad program for business majors.</p>

<p>northeastmom,
I'm going to be like the kids and say that I don't have any concrete reasons for liking Susquehanna over Elon. There were some shops around Elon and they seemed to have many student run activites, especially fun outdoor ones. I think they do a habitat for humanity house every year. My daughter was (is) big into volunteering and I remember Elon's application had a special section for mentioning volunteer experience, not just overall ec's. She was not happy about the presense of sororoties or frats, in fact her current college does not have either. Here's a link that talks about that: <a href="http://www.elon.edu/e-net/Note.aspx?id=18140%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.elon.edu/e-net/Note.aspx?id=18140&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>When we asked about what to do at Susquehanna, they talked about some student run activities but said a lot of the kids went to the things at Penn State on weekends. You should visit both campuses and see what you think. We really did think both colleges were very similar and when push came to shove, my daughter just liked Elon more. Something you might be interested in is that they do (or at least they did) local meet and greets for students and parents with an Elon adcom. We attended one when we lived in Delaware county, and it was a nice way to hear about the college without visiting. If I remember correctly, my daughter had already been accepted but she was trying to decide where she should attend. Some questions to ask are the ones you listed above, but you want to find out specifically at each school about how they do internships and what is the rate of grads in the business program getting jobs in their field.</p>

<p>We got a dvd and a viewbook from Elon that did talk about the hands on learning and internships. I donated all to our HS guidance office when my daughter graduated so I can't refer back to them.</p>

<p>Like I said, there's nothing wrong with Susquehanna, it just wasn't right for my daughter.</p>

<p>Thank you all for your insight into both schools. It have some thinking to do. If anyone else has any opinions, please add on. These comments are very helpful.</p>

<p>My daughter attended a week-long creative writing camp at Susquehanna last summer when she was a rising senior. She thought the professors who taught the camp were very good, and she said the campus was pretty, but she was not enthusiastic about the town or the surrounding area. Susquehanna was on her list as a safety, but she did not apply, as she got into her first choice ED.</p>