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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]For a Big 10 school, Penn State has one of the more rural, remote locations. State College, PA is cute but tiny. Compared to Columbus or Ann Arbor or Madison or Bloomington… No wonder Pitt is surging. PSU is a school for football fans only.[/quote]

I grew up in rural PA, and I always heard that Penn State was located there because it was close to the geographical center of the state.  But it has turned out to be the middle of nowhere, as there isn't anything there other than the school and a town that serves it.

What has to be scary financially for Penn State is that the rural/small-town PA where I grew up was always the core of its student body. The state supported three big schools:  Penn State, Pitt, and Temple.  The Philly kids gravitated to Temple, the western PA kids to Pitt, and everyone in-between Philly and Pittsburgh (the big area that James Carville used to call "Alabama") would try to get into Penn State.  It was an overwhelmingly white, small-town crowd, very into football and wrestling.

But that part of PA is what has slid badly over the past generation, and it has even worse days ahead. Other than Lancaster and a few others, most of the small towns and cities have depopulated and the people who are left are struggling, with much poverty and addiction.  Fracking has brought a few pockets of new workers, but not really the crowd looking to go to Penn State.

For Penn State, the demographic cliff is worse because it is in a declining state, with its core coming from the most declining part of the declining state.  But at the same time, its reputation in the Philly area is mostly as a white very non-diverse school for the middle part of the state.  And in the Pittsburgh area, it's just Pitt's rival (with Pitt having some pretty great days TBH).  I hadn't seen any of the OOS admissions numbers, but if they are as high as a PP listed, there's a tough road ahead for Penn State.

Bottomline is I would look elsewhere if your child wants the big state school atmosphere.  For the good, but not stellar, big state schools, I would definitely look at Indiana, Ohio State, Virginia Tech, Pitt, South Carolina (although Virginia Tech and Pitt aren't as rah-rah as the others).  For the slightly more competitive ones, maybe Wisconsin, Illinois, Purdue (if STEM).  For tougher admits, Michigan or UNC.  These all seem like better choices than Penn State.[/quote]

Good summary and college list![/quote]

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