Pennsylvania State University-Main Campus Top Questions

Common misconceptions about Penn State students label them as Greek-life dependant, football-obsessed adolescents who find little time to fit academics into their party-packed schedules. The campus is many times viewed to be too large, causing any kind of unique individual to be lost in the sauce.

Since my initial decision to attend PSU, Sophomore year of H.S., I've heard everything from "Drinking school with a football problem" to "One of the best public schools in the nation". To tell you the truth, neither stereotype turned me off from coming here. Who wouldn't want to go to a school with huge (that's huge as in, HUMONGOUS) football games, great parties, and a decent education to top it off? I knew I was game!

Even prior to my attendance the image of Penn State ingrained in my mind was of a party school populated by fraternities and sororities and with very little room for anyone else. Football fanaticism supposedly ran rampant while other sports were largely ignored. The Rene Portland incident also paints the picture of a conservative atmosphere.

I think the most common stereotype about PSU students is that we drink too much. Anyone that visits State College on a home football game weekend witnesses our party habits firsthand and probably believes that’s all we do. Another stereotype is that PSU lacks diversity in all ways and that we are simply a white, athletic, middle to upper-class, good-looking crowd of 40,000.

Well, I don't know if you've heard the rumors, but it's basically common knowledge that Penn State Students are white, middle class kids, from either outside of Philadelphia or on the skirts of Pittsburgh. All 80,000 students were raised in the same cauldisac, in walking distance of at least one farming community. With such a vast number of sheltered young adults attending a huge University such as Penn State, people say it is inevitable that they will prioritize immediately: Natty lite and football.

Penn State is definitely known for its football and parties. Before I came here, just on visits, I came to understand that pretty well. We have a living legend as a coach, and we were ranked number two in the nation for partying a couple years ago. Our academics are also known, though that may not be the first thing that comes to mind when you tell someone you go to Penn State.

I’ve heard that Penn State students are all rich, white students who are a bunch of hard-partying, class skipping kids that only care about bar specials and Saturday nights. Penn State is also looked at as just a football town.

JoePa is a God. PSU football is unsurpassed; we tailgate with the best. And of course, you're always happy in Happy Valley - I mean, how could you not be, you're always partying with 40,000 of your closest friends. THON (FTK, for the kids) is an amazing fundraiser that you HAVE to get involved with.

I think one of the major stereotypes about Penn State is that we're strictly a party school with a major focus on football. I know when I was applying to schools I thought that Penn State students were "party animals" and that every weekend you need to be drinking or you wouldn't make any friends.

PSU students are typically stereotyped as football going, binge drinking, engineers who all know Joe Paterno personally and on top of that, every one else at the university. At least those are the common questions that I receive from many relatives and parents.

Because of the size of the school, it is almost impossible to have one or two main stereotypes brought on us. You could find every stereotype known to man within our undergraduate class. Through my experience here, normally, you are on either two sides: greek or athlete. Both are very large organizations and tend to run the school. When I tell people I am from Penn State they automatically hit me with two questions: When is JoePa going to retire? and How do you fit class into your drinking schedule? Football and partying. It's like we are the leader of the college stereotype, how else would we explain why our college town becomes the second biggest city in Pennsylvania on Gameday.

we drink a lot/we are always partying, we are always bragging and overconfident about our school, we are really smart if we get into Main Campus freshmen year