Center City Colleges? (Philadelphia, Penn: apartment, renting, co-op)

[I LOVE PA!]

My country raised daughter wants to relocate to Center City and go to college there. She is working on an associates degree in Bus. Admin. She wants to be able to walk or take public transportation. She will be renting an apartment with a friend who is already in an art college in Cetner City.
Can anyone recommend a reasonably priced college. I have heard that Phila. Community College has very large classes. She wants to avoid that.
Any help would be appreciated!

[carolinajack]

sorry but it is a big city, avoiding big classes is pretty hard to do. She might try Pierce College for business, it is across the street from the Arts College and it seems small. Other than that most of the colleges are large here to serve the larger inner city population.

[newmarlig]

No offense, but if your daughter wants to avoid crowds and large classes, perhaps center city Philly is not the place for her. Pierce is a good idea, and she also may want to look into Harcum Jr. College. They may have business adm. courses. It's on the main line, but she can get there on the R5 SEPTA Train.

[I LOVE PA!]

Originally Posted by newmarlig

No offense, but if your daughter wants to avoid crowds and large classes, perhaps center city Philly is not the place for her. Pierce is a good idea, and she also may want to look into Harcum Jr. College. They may have business adm. courses. It's on the main line, but she can get there on the R5 SEPTA Train.

Never said she wanted to avoid crowds, she just doesn't want to go to a school that has large classes, she is transferring from Pennstate and never had more than 30 people in a class.

Thanks for the suggestion on Pierce college, I think she plans on checking that one out on her visit next week.

[toobusytoday]

Here's a website that will allow you to compare all the area colleges: http://www.onebigcampus.com/ Also, another site that is focused on the college search with bulletin boards and a very active parents forum is www.collegeconfidential.com To get to the parents forum, go here: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/...splay.php?f=15

Good luck!

[kj27]

How about Drexel? Its slightly west of Center City...a 10 minute bus/subway ride. Temple is another good option. Its a 20 minute ride from Center City.

[Adream]

My DD will be graduating from Temple University this week, and she will do it with tears in her eyes. She loves Temple, did extremely well (honors - brag brag brag) and some of her classes were of a smaller size. She knew her teachers, and when she had a question or needed to discuss something with them they were right there for her. Wonderful school.

[t0pher]

I was in the business administration program at Drexel for 2 trimesters. Business 101 and 102 are done in lecture/recitation format. History and CS were both a lecture of about 100 students with CS also having a lab. All the other classes were 20 or less. It is a private school which is reflected in both the class sizes and the tuition (24,000/year for a 5 year program I believe). It is a co-op school also. In the end is just wasn't my cup of tea. Very tense atmosphere. I commuted by the way.

Community College of Philadelphia is a growing campus. Its located at 17th and spring garden. My experience there has been hit and miss. Some of the teachers are very good while others seem to be there just collecting a pay check. There are quite a few professors there that also teach at other area schools (I had a summer session professor that taught at Penn). Class size is pretty average (38 is the cap on most) and tuition is inexpensive IF you have established Philadelphia residency. If not its gonna be 3 times as much. I believe it is 104 per credit (about 1200-1500/semester) for city residents and 312 (3600-4500) for PA (out of Philly) residents. It is however a cheap way to start a college career as they have dual admissions programs with a few of the local universities (Temple, Drexel, and LaSalle if I remember correctly).
It has a very high school feel to it in my opinion.

Temple has a great campus and a rising business school (Fox). I haven't gone there so don't know anything about class size but the price is around 10,000 i believe. The area surrounding campus is dangerous but the broad street subway cuts right through campus. Most of my friends that go there love it.


I probably left a few things out cause it is 3am, but i hope the info helps.
Everything about Drexel and CCP is first hand knowledge.