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=**Prowling Reviews**=

When students are researching schools that they could possibly attend in the future there are many factors that help decide if the school is right for them. It is not always the GPA and SAT scores that students use mostly to make their final decision on where they should attend. The top five schools that majority of this graduating class in HVCHS will be attending are Penn State, Rutgers University, Ithaca College, James Madison University, and University of Colorado at Boulder. After gathering the numbers of students attending at each school, these five were the most popular. So what makes each college stand out more that a good number of students have decided to attend them next year? To do most of my research on three of the top five, I used the well known site, collegeprowler.com. On this website it is a report card of each college. However it does not talk about the GPA or SAT scores. It gives possible and future students insight to what the school is really like, not just on paper. These are all general reviews written by mostly students who actually are and/or have attended. The reviews topics written are what a college student is really interested in, campus dining/housing/strictness, girls and guys, greek life, night life, academics, athletics, transportation, diversity, etc. It is basically including the true facts that the college websites will definitely not include. My goal is to compare the main topics of each college including campus dining/strictness, transportation, and athletics. What every teenager thinks about first is of course the food! The typical student doesn’t want to have to worry about always spending money on food elsewhere when they have a prepaid meal plan, so it is very important to find out what you are getting yourself into. According to college prowler Penn State receives an A-, at Penn State there are more than one dining halls and no two dining halls are ever serving the same food. Over at Rutgers University, Penn State has them beat. Rutgers is graded a B. As it says on the site at Rutgers the Freshman 15 usually turns out to be the freshman 30 with all the greasy food. Lastly, at Ithaca College they score an A-. The dining halls are not only a good place to get food but to also study and socialize. The second most important thing is the campus strictness. A student needs to know ahead of time what they really cannot get away with. At both Penn State and Rutgers University, they were graded with a B in campus strictness. Although the list of what students usually get caught for is larger for Rutgers than Penn State, they both share some in common. That would be that students are caught underage drinking, smoking marijuana in dorms, and acting disorderly in public on campus due to drunkenness. When it comes to transportation, this matters more in some schools than others. For example if a school is located in the middle of nowhere the student usually will rely on his/or her own car. If the school is located in a city type enviroment usually they can just rely on public transportation. For Penn State and Rutgers, they score a B+ in transportation. Ithaca scores a B-. At Penn State most students use bikes, cabs, or just their own two feet. Places are very accessible and easy to get to in a short amount of time. Most students at Rutgers too use bikes, but if some would like to come back to our area or New York City all it is, is a ticket on the NJ Transit. All the way in New York, Ithaca can be brutally cold in the winter so most students take their own cars or their friends cars. However in the nicer weather a bike is very useful to get around campus. Last on the list is athletics. When choosing a college some students want a very spirited school with good athletic teams. Despite the fact that Penn State is only rated a C in the athletics department, the football games are very popular. The school has a very lifting and enthusiastic spirit about their school teams. Some on the schools varsity teams are the best in their league so of course they have a strong following and support. This basically is the same for Rutgers University. Unlike the other two schools as far as spirit goes, Ithaca College lacks. After this research it is clear that Penn State and Rutgers have more in common and similarities that Ithaca college, but are all great schools. When underclassmen are getting ready to make their college decision they should take a look at websites that will really tell you what its like to attend the school, with all the nitty gritty true facts the schools WebPages fail to acknowledge.

media type="youtube" key="Vl6tOmmb2_U" height="349" width="560" This video talks specifically about college admissions and some students feelings and concerns. This video also include some helpful tips for students soon to begin applying to colleges.