Penn State

Penn State University

We arrived the night before our tour and stayed at the Nittany Lion Inn—a beautiful hotel on campus. The hotel gave us a ride to the opposite side of campus to attend a 9am Information Session and 10am tour.  The information session was pretty standard. But here are a few interesting facts:

**Penn State is actually made up of 20 different campuses with University Park being the flagship campus. The admission requirements for University Park are definitely more rigorous. If you are borderline, they suggested applying for Summer Session and taking two classes in July/August and guaranteeing your placement on the main campus. Otherwise, you could be offered one of the other smaller campuses (10 of which have on-campus housing) for your first two years.

**Total enrollment is over 88,000! With somewhere around 40,000 on the main campus-- 79% in state, 21 % out of state.

**Apparently, one out of every 127  U.S. college graduates went to Penn State!

**Penn State Admissions Office does not use a SAT “super score”. They use the highest total from one test (not the highest components from multiple tests).



The info session was followed by 90 minute tour. We were assigned to a group led by Emmy (senior) and Lauren (sophomore). I can’t imagine you could find two students any more passionate about their school. They were both fantastic ambassadors for the University!

Tour topic number one was school spirit Penn State style. The first thing they did was teach the group our response to “WE ARE”…“PENN STATE”. At first we were a little confused. We quickly figured it out when random students throughout campus yelled out to us “WE ARE”. It certainly created a fun and welcoming atmosphere.

Obviously, Penn State’s campus is huge. The walking tour took us past various housing areas, research/academic buildings, rec centers, performing arts buildings etc. It would have been impossible to take the time to go into too many buildings. We did see a sample dorm room, quickly walked through the library, walked through The Hub—the very impressive student center, stopped into a classroom and saw a demonstration of their online Angel program (think Netclassroom) and eLion system. We heard all about THON, The Creamery, Downtown and, of course, Joe Paterno!

The tour ended with both Lauren and Emmy sharing their own Penn State story—why they chose Penn State and just how much they have enjoyed it. The tour was a milestone for Emmy. It was the last tour she would ever give and, coincidently, during the tour she received a voicemail with details of a job offer from Apple! By the end of our tour she actually became very emotional talking about her Penn State experience. You can only hope that your son or daughter enjoys their college experience as much!

If you are looking for a (very) big school with a lot of school spirit and unlimited options/opportunities, Penn State is definitely worth looking at.

Parent 2012