Penn State or UW-Madison?

MYOS1634
Sun, 28 Apr 2013 04:52:01 +0000

First, make sure Immunology is offered on both campuses because I’m not sure it is for undergrad.
Next, cost: if you have to take loans, choose whichever university at which you will have to take out the fewest loans.
Third: Penn State would have the edge for internships because their alumni network is one of the best in the nation for public universities.
Fourth: Since you didn’t get into the Honors Colleges and those are huge universities, look into the Honors Colleges to see whether a freshman can apply with 1st semester grades, and if so what the criteria are. This will make a big difference to your experience if you can spend your 2nd semester or 2nd year on as part of the Honors College.
Fifth: Look into graduation rates. What percentage students finish in 4 years?
Sixth: would rather live in a city (Madison has more than 200,000 people) or in a college town (State College has about 75,000 people, including 45,000 students, so essentially the town lives with/for the college students)?

State College is near mountains and countryside, and about 4 hours to Pittsburgh, 4 hours to Philadelphia, 5 hours to DC, 6hours to NYC. So if you want to hike in the woods in the Spring to relax or go for tourist visits on breaks, it’s easily doable. The town is not small (and very hilly) but there are buses that allow you to put bikes on them; so wherever you can’t go by foot, you can go by bike or bus (within town). Lots of sports and “school spirit”, at any random moment people will shout “We are” and hundeds of kids will shout back “Penn State!” Fraternities where people get drunk and puke all over, if that’s your thing. Free movies on campus, international films nearby (there’s a French film festival on campus too). And this might be of interest to you: the Indian Pavillion Restaurant is the best for miles around, literally people drive from way out of town to go eat there.
On the other hand, if you like big city life, State College isn’t it. :)