What are the top schools Wayne Hills students apply to? What about the ones they actually attend? How has this changed over the past years?
Going into this article, we all had these questions circling our minds. Many students attending Wayne Hills go to 4-year schools, hoping for that typical college experience of dorms, a campus, and overall school life.
This hasn’t always been the case, since in 2018, 2019, and 2020, Passaic County Community College was consistently in the top three most attended schools by Wayne Hills graduates. However, after 2020 and the emergence of COVID, community college attendees drastically dropped.
Now, we see more and more students attending 4-years, with the most popular schools in the last couple of years being Rutgers, Montclair State University, Rowan, and Seton Hall. All of these schools are in New Jersey, so it seems like students are still opting to stay close while also getting the experience of a four-year college.
Some popular out-of-state schools that have gained popularity in recent years include Penn State University in Centre County, Pennsylvania, and the University of South Carolina in Columbia, South Carolina.
In just the class of 2026, there are going to be eleven students going to Penn State–compared to only four in 2018. Penn State’s main campus is around 3 and a half hours away from Wayne, farther than in-state schools but not as far as South Carolina.
But why Penn State? It’s essentially in the middle of nowhere, and from the outside looking in, there’s nothing that separates it from in-state schools like Rutgers.
After talking with a lot of PSU commits, a common point brought up was the Alumni network at Penn State. With over 800,000 living alumni, Penn State has one of the most involved alumni networks in the country. This network is known to help PSU graduates secure internships and jobs, so it tends to be a deciding factor for Penn State applicants.
Senior Reid Martens told us, “I’ve always known I wanted to go to Penn State.”
The other trending school mentioned was the University of South Carolina, who have six Class of 2026 Wayne Hills attendants this year. Most people are drawn to the business programs at South Carolina, seeing how it has one of the top International Business programs in the country.
Guidance counselor Ms. Kartsakalis shared, “University of South Carolina has just gotten really, really popular.” Ms. Zakk followed with, “Sometimes one person will apply, and then everybody else kind of follows that way.”
People are also drawn to the warm weather in South Carolina as well as the SEC sports culture. South Carolina, as well as other schools down south, have recently gained a lot of traction online for their sorority rush processes. With big houses and extravagant outfits, they are very appealing to someone who is interested in Greek life.
But even though some students are going far, the majority of them are still staying in state. Schools like Rutgers and Montclair have always been popular with Hills students due to their proximity and in-state tuition. The chart below shows the top 3 schools applied to and attended by graduating classes 2018-2025:
As shown by the chart, Montclair State University and Rutgers are both heavily applied to and attended by Wayne Hills Students. On top of that, applications and attendance at community college have significantly dropped.
All in all, popular schools change year by year, and numbers always shift, but in-state schools forever remain the most popular colleges by Wayne Hills students.
