The West Chester University of Pennsylvania

Date: Jan 23 2015
Major: Physics (This Major's Salary over time)
I turned down attending an Ivy league school to go here because I could go to West Chester for virtually free and graduate with no debt.

West Chester's offers very challenging courses, as well as courses that are absolute jokes. It all depends on your field of study. Music majors and science majors seem to be the most rigorous fields. There are a few professors that are practically incompetent but if you can survive your first semester, you'll know enough to be able to schedule easier professors. Scheduling can be cut throat in popular majors such as business. I have never had an issue with it. There are several General education courses that can be difficult to get into if you're a sophomore or a freshman, but upper class-men get priority, and I've never heard of a situation where someone had to graduate late because of classes closing.

I don't really know what dorm life in colleges is like, but at West Chester it's kind of terrible. The food and the people who work at the food places are dreadful, there aren't enough dorms to hold the student body, and the dorms are rather overpriced. Off campus housing is just as difficult to come by. And the parking situation is horrid. I know the school added 4000 new students a few years ago, and I think they're still really struggling to keep up with this volume.

From what I've heard from professors, the added students have made caused classroom space to become more scarce, and classes (such as labs) have been shortened to accommodate this.

Umm what else? The social scene! There's a huge sexual assault issue on the campus, and the University does a very good job of hiding it. I think we made the news last year despite this though. One professor told me that our sexual assault numbers are up there with big campuses such as Penn State. Despite that lovely fact, I think West Chester is a great college town. Plenty to do, and the university tends to put forth a good effort to keep us (particularly freshmen) involved. Greek life is a pretty big deal, though not necessary. And there's loads of clubs. Honestly? There's more to do at this university than anyone could have time for.

So here's my advice, and this could go for any college, every school is going to have pluses and minuses. Go where you think you can excel, and then excel. Also, remember that colleges are businesses. My senior year, I spent hours pouring over these websites trying to make a decision that I felt would be life changing. When it's all said and done, go where you can afford. It's better to graduate debt free with a solid GPa from No-One's-Heard-of-Me State School, then graduating from a school that will put you 100k in debt. And think about the future! Try and figure out what you want to do with your life and get a degree that pertains to that. People say do what makes you feel happy, but also do what will pay the bills. I haven't talked to too many happy people who can't pay the bills, to be honest.