Elizabethtown College, Elizabethtown, PA

Elizabethtown College, called E-town for short is a small private liberal arts college in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania with the motto “Educate for Service.”


Academics – Classes are small and students have good relationships with their professors. There are more than 50 majors and 80 minors. The school offers BS, BA, BM, and a MS in Occupational therapy. The school has some special academic opportunities including an Honors program, a 5 year Occupational Therapy (OT) program, a music therapy program, an international business major, and an actuarial science major. The Bowers Writing House sponsors many speakers. Experiential learning is valued with 86% of students having an internship, research project and/or study abroad experience. Since 2008, the school has added funding to global learning, student research, residential life and career services. Freshmen take a first-year seminar (FYS) and their FYS instructor is also their freshman advisor. In addition, every freshman is assigned two trained upperclassmen to be their peer mentors.

Physical - The school is made up primarily of brick buildings on a 200-acre campus. Currently dam reconstruction is taking place in front of the chapel/performance space. There are music practice rooms and a black box theatre.

Dorms - 85% of students live on campus. Freshmen and Sophomores live together. The dorms are air-conditioned. Freshmen are allowed to have cars on campus.

Extracurricular – E-Town has 20 NCAA Division III sports. The biggest spectator sport on campus is Soccer with the big game of the year against Messiah College. There is no football team. There are over 80 clubs and organizations with the biggest clubs on campus being Emotions, a dance club, and Call to Lead, a community service club. The school has service project days. Students mentor Milton Hershey High School students, as well as E-Town freshmen. Students frequent art galleries in Lancaster on the first Friday of each month. A much-loved school tradition is the pre-Thanksgiving turkey dinner served by faculty followed by the tree lighting. There is no Greek life on campus.

Financial Aid – Merit aid is given to over half the students and requires no separate application. Five students get full-tuition scholarships plus $4K for study abroad, research, internships, public service or leadership. There are also merit scholarships valued at $16K, 19K, and $22K.

Admissions – Most majors have rolling admissions with application review starting in mid-October. Decisions are generally sent out in 2 – 3 weeks. OT and Honors require an interview. Music majors require an audition. The school uses the Common App. For most majors, students can waive the SAT if they are in the top 10% of their class or have a GPA greater than 3.5 (if their school does not rank). The mid-50% of accepted students has an SAT score between 1030 and 1230 (out of 1600).