<p>OverRunWithSons - As a former Pennsylvanian (grew up outside Philly) and currently having family in western Pennsylvania, you are fortunate to be in the Keystone state that has a wide array of public colleges/universities, community colleges, and excellent private colleges and universities. The tier levels derive from the U.S. News & World Report rankings (new rankings come out every year in August). As you are doing, continue to explore and learn about the various sources of advice on the CC forum (both archived advice from posts using the Search function) and new advice through forum posts and - as needed - private messages to individual CC’ers. </p>
<p>As for public smaller universities (don’t know about cross country teams) let me toss in Indiana University of Pennsylvania (IUP) and University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown (UPJ). (My sister attended UPJ and then transferred to Pitt main campus.) At UPJ a student has the option of attending all four years at the Johnstown (actually suburban Richland) campus or transferring to the main campus in Pittsburgh. It’s a nice potential option. As you probably know, IUP has a strong reputation in a number of fields (such as its honors college), and it is located in an attractive small town.</p>
<p>Personal bias - if a student and his/her family can afford it, I encourage being a resident student at a college (learning/doing first hand how to cope/develop as an independent adult) versus the community college route where the college age student is usually commuting from home.</p>