What are some good colleges in Pennsylvania?

Swarthmore.

Carnegie Melon

^Mellon

Bucknell

Muhlenberg

Penn State

Bryn Mawr (it autocorrected to Bryan Mawr, which is a great DL moniker)

Pitt

Lehigh

Swarthmore

Good for what? Good for whom? Why the fuck don't you google it and stop wasting our time?

R6, you're too late to be R1.

How embarrassing.

One thing to know is that while most universities are either public or private, Pennsylvania has two universities that are a unique hybrid of those. They are Penn State and University of Pittsburgh, and it should be noted that Penn State has numerous campus throughout the state and a law school in Carlisle and medical school in Hershey. Pitt also has satellite campuses, but most are in the same region.

The public universities, or state schools, for the most part, all started as Normal Schools and originally they all became state colleges, with the exception of Indiana University of Pennsylvania being the only state university until the 1980s. Eventually, the state colleges were all upgraded to state university status. Recently with the economic crunch I’ve heard that some state universities are merging or maybe even disappearing. Some also had satellite campuses as well.

So, that’s the hybrid and public universities, which leaves the private colleges and universities, which there are many and some being very prominent, such as University of Pennsylvania and Bryn Mawr, which are part of the Ivies/Seven Sisters.

One of my favorite stories here is the fate of the renowned liberal arts college Beaver College. With the advent of online information and applications Beaver College ran into problems as educational Internet blocking software would not allow student access to their website from many schools because “beaver” was a euphemism that was on the list of blocked words that would activate the software. To get around this the university changed its name to Arcadia University!

Carnegie University of Pennsylvania definitely has not only a national reputation, but also international one and has great strength in technology, robotics, and gets a lot of attention for its acting and musical theater program since it produces so many prominent stars. And come to think of it gays ones, Matt Bomer, Zachary Quinto, Billy Porter, Cherry Jones, Rory O’Malley, Stephen Swartz, David Pevsner, Rob Marshall and honorary Gay Christina Crawford.

Haverford and Swarthmore will always have very high status as ultimate wet dream preppy schools, and nearby Villanova, which is like preppy Catholic central. Temple and Drexel remain prominent in Philadelphia and have amassed a lot of real estate and power in the city. Dickinson College is an idyllic little college established before the American Revolution and in the same town is the American War college, that while it isn’t West Point or Annapolis does give Pennsylvania a prominent military college. Pittsburgh is very much a college town dominated by Pitt and CMU, but also has Carlow, Drexel, Point Park and others usually with some strong core majors recognized nationally.

All in all I’ve always felt proud of Pennsylvania’s strength and legacy of college and university education and that it’s one of the biggest assets of the state and the graduates and programs have made innumerable impact on the world. We are exceptionally strong in the medical fields with hospitals aligned with Pitt, Penn State and University of Pennsylvania including two of the top children’s hospitals in the country, if not the world.

^^^ Ugh, that should be Carnegie Mellon University- dint know where that came from…

BEAVER College.

LOL.

Beaver College was mocked by Letterman, Stern and O’Brian before changing its name.

Lock Haven

IUP

Susquehanna

Moravian

Philadelphia School of Bible

Villanova

Temple

University of the Arts?

Penn is listed as one of the top five affordable Ivies! Not bad out of seven!

Love you, r8!

Proud to live smack-dab in the middle of Lehigh U., Lafayette C., Cedar Crest C., Moravian C., Muhlenberg C., Allentown C., and Penn State-Lehigh Valley Campus. Plus two Community Colleges.

R18 Glad you could represent NE PA which I’m a bit fuzzy on that geography between Bloomberg and East Stroudsburg, but it has a strong higher education representation. Moravian College is fascinating and has the oldest continuous bookstore in the US, going back to 1745!

Hershey Chocolate

R20 Surprisingly, Hersey didn’t build a school of higher learning, but he left the most well endowed boarding school “orphanage” to ever exist and now even single parent inner city kids can even attend completely free of charge. It may not be on the level of Choate or Emma Willard, but it’s done a whole hell of a lot more good in the world with money coming from Kisses and Reeces then anything else I could think of.

How would you rank the liberal arts colleges? What are the top 10 or so?

Go get fucked!

Is Gettysburg considered a decent college? I once dated someone who went there, you'd think they graduated from Amherst or something.

The two most prestigious in the state are UPenn and CMU.

Mercyhurst College in Erie.

Lafayette College is a surprise, I’ve never heard of it. For the Gettysburg question, it’s ranked umber ten here.

This is interesting, Pennsylvania is ranked third for the the number of universities, but it’s about 100 behind one and two, a considerable drop.

Yeah Gettysburg is forgotten but it's a perfectly decent small liberal arts college.

Is there still a Lutheran seminary in Gettysburg?

R29 Yes, it merged with the Philadelphia school and both campuses were to close and a new one created, but they backed out if that and it didn’t happen, though there’s a new name for it all. The main historic building is stunning and dates back to 1832 and rivals some on Dickinson’s campus.

R8 must not know Datalounge very well -- I mean, seriously, he wrote an articulate, intelligent, and well-founded post that answers the OP's questions succinctly and accurately.

What the hell, R8????

Interesting comparison to New Jersey where you can count the “top” schools on two fingers.

R31 Thanks, that is without a doubt one of the nicest things that has been said about me here. Usually I’m accused of being the person who the post is about or a PR shill for most threads that I begin, so this takes a bit of the sting out of those.

Curtis Institute of Music is very prestigious.

One of the smartest people I know went to Swarthmore. Brilliant actually, and super nice as well.

I had the weirdest job interview of my life at The Milton Hershey School.

I got the job (which I really needed,) but I turned it down because it made me really unconfortable.

Penn State and Pitt are mega bucks of you’re from out-of-state.

Grove City College

R36 My aunt and uncle worked as house parents there for awhile and found it very strange. I think it’s like a cult like atmosphere, but they run a very tight ship. I’ve never even heard of a hint of a scandal about faculty/staff and students, but they are also rich and powerful enough to bury it deeply.

Bucknell University is excellent. It's in Lewisburg, Pa

My daughter attended there, she loved the "Bucknell experience" as she called it!!

The area was conservative then, it's now "dtrumpy".. it is Central Pa!!

Growing up in Pennsylvania in the 1980s it seemed like Penn State existed solely to motivate high school jocks and cheerleaders to aspire to go on to college.

Milton Hershey rejected an HIV+ kid in 2011. 2011!!! Does not speak much for an enlightened and educated direction.

R42 They are still touchy about sexually transmitted diseases because Hershey and his wife were riddled with syphilis, which is why they couldn’t have any children and established the orphanage in the first place. They continue to try to still bury those rumors, which they aren’t.

I bet the kid did not get HIV through sex.

[quote]Interesting comparison to New Jersey where you can count the “top” schools on two fingers.

Pennsylvania exists so kids from New Jersey have somewhere to go to college.

[quote]Surprisingly, Hersey didn’t build a school of higher learning, but he left the most well endowed boarding school “orphanage” to ever exist and now even single parent inner city kids can even attend completely free of charge. It may not be on the level of Choate or Emma Willard, but it’s done a whole hell of a lot more good in the world with money coming from Kisses and Reeces then anything else I could think of.

It is one of the richest private schools with an endowment of $15 billion dollars which would rank it #6 among university endowments (Harvard is #1 at $53 billion - $41 billion at the time of the last avilable ranking at the end of fiscal 2020).

[quote]In 2016, eleven former students sued the school for invasion of privacy, alleging that an employee had hidden a camera in a bathroom for senior male students. The employee admitted to filming the boys' showering and was sentenced to a year in prison.

Which one of you DLers used to work there?

Well Princeton is often ranked #1 in the USA so there's that. Stevens, Rutgers, Drew, and another 10 are perfectly acceptable universities.

R8? You sure don't know as much as you think you do about PA colleges/universities if you think Dickinson is a "war college" or military school. It's a small liberal arts school like many others in PA, and frankly, it's always been known for its law school (now part of Penn State) rather than its little college.

I'm from PA, did my undergrad at Penn State, and got my M.A. at Lehigh (completely paid for by the school), so feel free to ask me anything. And keep in mind that, unlike many of you, if I don't know the answer to a question, I'll tell you that as opposed to pulling some bullshit out of my ass.

BTW, PA is chock full of little private colleges (many originally or currently religiously affiliated) where tuition costs an arm and a leg. If it weren't for the rich kids from NJ, NY, and New England, no one would be attending them. But the kids that go there think these schools are extremely prestigious even though no one outside of the northeast ever heard of them.

R41, Even they might be salvageable. And you are an alumnus of....?

Carnegie Mellon is a piece of shit. Haverford.

Many famous people come from Wilkes-Barre, but none of them went to Wilkes College.

Chatham University in Pittsburgh. Note, it’s now coed.

CMU is internationally recognized in STEM nowadays.

R48 Go back and read what I said “in the same town is the American War college” and I mentioned at the start that the Law School for Penn State was in Carlisle as well. I happen to know it as it’s the town next to the one I grew up in.

The American War college also has another important Pennsylvania boarding school distinction. It housed the first and most prominent Indian Boarding School, which was on the campus. The former Civil War officer who came up with the concept for the schools was the founder and ran the school for decades. People know it usually because it is the school Olympian Jim Thorpe was a student at and football fans usually know it as that’s where Pop Warner got his start coaching.

I’m from the town with the small religious college that has one of the most restrictive and oppressive behavior polices of all campus where even male/female pairs are dissuaded from things like holding hands and kissing and Gays are supposed to refrain from everything as “same sex sexual expression fall(s) outside God’s design for sexual expression.”

I love the description of Swarthmore and Haverford as “preppy wet dreams” - lol. So true - the WASP ideal. Though despite having to be kinda crazy smart to get in, I’ve never met an obnoxious douche type from there. Villanova, on the other hand, ….

Cornell, MIT.

Jesus, R54 -- nothing you said proves me wrong. The ARMY War College is in Carlisle, and it is NOT, nor was it ever, an undergrad military school like West Point or even VMI or The Citadel. From the link, "It provides graduate-level instruction to senior military officers and civilians to prepare them for senior leadership assignments and responsibilities." Of course, since I was actually in the Army, I imagine I know a little more about it than a civilian. You can read more about it at the link.

BTW, FYI, my sister lives about 15 minutes outside of Carlisle.

No love for Duquesne?

What is the campus/neighborhood around Lehigh University like?

Some of the posters need higher standards. Bucknell?!

Bucknell is one of the higher rated liberal arts colleges. 38 percent acceptance rate. Not bad for a Liberal arts college these days.

R48, I have my B.S. from PSU and M Ed. from Lehigh (the latter mostly because I have always lived about 5 minutes away). I disagree with your dismissiveness re: the rest of the small colleges around. For one example, having gone to Lehigh, surely you are cognizant of its reputation for engineering.

R59, You encourage my rah-rah hometown boosterism, so here goes: Lehigh looms above (literally) Bethlehem, specifically the Southside, which for several years now has been undergoing a cultural, architectural, and economic Renaissance, its once having been the epicenter of the mighty Bethlehem Steel.

That is the immediate vicinity. The larger community is known as The Lehigh Valley (despite the nails-on-chalkboard efforts of the Chambers of Commerce to drop the "the").

In Kanye style, Imma let you Google now.

Is Franklin & Marshall "good"? I've only known one person who went there.

There aren't many colleges in the NYC suburbs (or are there?)

By "suburbs" do you mean the 4 NYC boroughs not Manhattan? NY State? Nassau County? New Jersey? Connecticut?

Plenty of colleges and universities.

Link:

Allegheny, Juniata, and Ursinus are among the 2022 Colleges That Change Lives.

Pennsylvania gets three slots in Forbes top 25 colleges, two in the top ten, CMU and Penn, with the much promoted here Lehigh filling in the third slot at 13.

I think of F&M as rich Philly and NJ suburban kids - good school, expensive, not a lot of aid. Not sure if Lehigh/Bucknell are considered better. More well known anyway,

As for Forbes Top Colleges list, Babson College at #9, I just can't.

Forbes rates Lehigh as stupendous.

Well this firmly cements what R69 said.

[quote] Penn is listed as one of the top five affordable Ivies! Not bad out of seven!

$56000/year is affordable?

R73 Well, it’s cheaper to F&M!

Wow - I had no idea F&M was the most expensive. Good info R72. I assume this is net cost - because the other LACs are in the $60k range too. But I think the richer schools - like Swat and Haverford - give more aid on average. My sense is F&M are largely full fare students. Also confirms my view of Wash U of St Louis and SMU - seems like all the rich kids from good school districts in the NY suburbs go there. And none of them are eligible for aid.

This is interesting, it’s about overall trends, but uses Shippensburg as a case study in the article. As much of a drop off of students at Ship was, the fact that Edinboro’s population was halved is staggering.

Princeton

Dr. Oz thought Princeton was one of Pennsylvania’s finest colleges.

Ahem!

Allentown Vo Tech has a higher graduation rate than Parkland HS. Maybe you’re not meant for college.

Billy Joel got it right 40 years ago, and his song looks positively charming today

OP it’s UPenn not U of Pa. Even Dreamers in El Paso know that.

I’m thinking you shouldn’t get hung up on top tier

Actually, it’s just “Penn.”

R80 The only reason he used Allentown was it made more sense than lyrically than Levittown which it was originally.

R82 that’s what’s officially sanctioned. But they’ve long since conceded UPenn is acceptable

When you ask people who have never been to college, or who went to their local commuter state college 50 years ago....

UPenn and Carnegie Mellon are the best big private schools.

Swarthmore, Lehigh, Haverford and Bryn Mawr are the best SCLACs

Penn State and Pitt are the flagship state schools

Other notable schools include: Villanova, Dickinson, Bucknell, Lafayette, Franklin & Marshall, Muehlenberg, and Gettysburg , which mostly serve affluent Northeastern suburbanites, Drexel and Temple are more commuter schools in Philly but are well known enough.

Probably leaving some out....

^^SLACs, not SCLACS - Small Liberal Arts Colleges, though Lehigh is more an engineering school

Penn State wouldn’t even make it into the top 5 of the UC system…just sayin’

Well, it looks like Franklin & Marshall is still ranked as the most expensive school in the country, god knows why or who is paying to attend. Whenever Lancaster comes up in conversation with my parents back in south central PA, they talk about what a hellhole it has descended into and how there are multiple shooting every week announced on the news.

Pine Valley Technical College.