Lycoming College, Williamsport, PA

Lycoming College has 1600 students on a compact campus of 42 acres, in Williamsport, PA.


Education - Business, biology and criminal justice are the bigggest majors. Lycoming has some unusual undergraduate majors, including Archeology and Culture of the Ancient Near East, Biblical Languages, Creative Writing, Art History, Astronomy and Actuarial Mathematics. There are two archeological dig sites, one in Cyprus and one in Israel, associated with the archeology program.

The core curriculum includes a writing intensive course and a foreign language. In addition to the more usual selections of Spanish, French, and German, Lycoming offers Greek, Latin and Hebrew.

The library is open until 1 AM (and until 2 AM before finals); there are review sessions with professors before finals.

Extra-curricular activities - The school has Division III sports, with basketball being the most popular spectator sport.

The largest club on campus is the dance club.

Thirty per cent of students are involved in Greek life; students can rush the second semester. Sororities and fraternities have their own floors in the dorms.

Big campus events include the Fall Concert, which is free for students, and the Campus Carnival.

You can start a new club, if you have four students who will join.

There are two theatres on campus and you don’t need to be a drama major to be involved; they were doing Threepenny Opera.

The campus is next to downtown Williamsport; it is a 5-minute walk to restaurants and shops.

Admissions - The average SAT score of accepted students is 1060 (Critical Reading and Math) and the SAT is optional. The SAT can be replaced by two graded writing samples. The average high school GPA of incoming students is 3.25. 38% of students are Pell grant recipients.

Dorms - Students, other that commuters living with their parents, must live on campus. Ten per cent of students are commuters. Freshmen have dorms with bathrooms down the halls. After the freshman year there is a selection of suites, campus apartments, and townhomes.

What’s New - The current president is retiring this year; under his leadership the endowment went from 18 million to 180 million dollars.

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).

Student New Year's Resolution to Volunteer

Is your student's New Year's resolution to volunteer more in the community? Start with what they love to do most to find a made-to-order community service opportunity.


For example, if your students like to cook or bake, they could make a dish for a soup kitchen like SHIP on a regular basis. If they like children, they can volunteer to be a teen mentor for a child with special needs, at an organization like JFS. If they like horses, they might volunteer at Mane Stream, which provides therapeutic riding. If they like to run, they could run a 5K raise to raise money for a local charity. If they want to enter a medical profession, they could volunteer at the Rescue Squad or the hospital. Do they get along well with their grandparents? Perhaps they could do chores like raking leaves, taking out the garbage and recycling, shoveling snow, putting away groceries for an elderly neighbor.

Still stuck? If you are in New Jersey, try looking at the Jersey Cares website.