UCONN or Penn State?

juillet
Mon, 19 Jan 2009 20:37:12 +0000

DreamingOutLoud,

Don’t pick a school just based on rankings…it seems that some on the board are advising you to do so and telling you that you’d be making a mistake if you do otherwise.

I disagree.

Penn State does have more name recognition and is probably ranked higher than the University of Connecticut. I’ve also found that where you graduated from undergrad has a lot less impact than people on College Confidential seem to think it does. I’m not saying it’s not important – it is, in some ways. But you also have to be practical and weigh the options.

AS was already stated, public universities’ first obligation is to their state residents and you are unlikely to get significant aid from Penn State unless you are at the very top of their OOS barrel.

Rankings do NOT quantify the difference in academics between schools…it’s faulty reasoning to say that the difference between Penn State and U Conn is just the same as the difference between Tufts and Penn State. They’re three very different kinds of schools and the US News rankings do not aim to quantify academic quality. It’s impossible to do so.

" “Students report that the typical UConn undergraduate “is a Connecticut resident”. At Penn State, you will meet students from many of the surrounding states and from all over the country.”

Actually, the typical Penn State student is a Pennsylvania resident, too. That’s the whole POINT of public colleges. Penn State and UConn have very comparable numbers of in-state students (Penn State has 68% from PA; UConn has 71% from CT). UConn is also a whole lot smaller than Penn State.