Gettysburg College

Gettysburg College has earned its strong academic reputation. Since its founding in 1832, the College has upheld a rigorous commitment to the liberal arts in all their breadth and depth.On a beautiful campus in a world-famous town, 2,600 students discover their intellectual passion through more than 68 academic programs.

There are no bystanders here. Students prepare for leadership through experiential learning opportunities, an extensive career network, and countless co-curricular, service, and off-campus study activities.The Gettysburg experience is rooted in a rigorous liberal arts and science curriculum. We augment academic excellence with community responsibility and global experiences, provide leadership opportunities and engage with public-policy issues.

At Gettysburg, what happens outside the classroom is a vital extension of what happens inside. If you want to get involved – and most Gettysburg students do – the opportunities are almost endless.

Gettysburg College is comprised of thinkers and doers - our students are intellectually curious and aren't afraid of a challenge. They are engaged learners who take initiative to make a positive impact. They are global-minded citizens with passion and purpose, whose experiences at Gettysburg prepare them for success.Join our community. Discover who you are and what you're capable of doing.

Gettysburg College is committed to working with students and their families to ensure that the ability to pay does not become an obstacle to a Gettysburg education.Need-based financial aid, academic merit scholarships, and music talent scholarships are available. The brochure Investing in Your Future: Financing a Gettysburg Education(PDF) provides an overview of the financial aid application process as well as financing options. Financial aid packages offered by Gettysburg College are competitive with those available from our peer institutions.

Musselman Library empowers our community of learners to discover and engage with the world’s collected knowledge, to explore creative and intellectual pursuits, and to actively participate in research and scholarship. We are dedicated to encouraging critical and imaginative thinking, promoting lifelong learning, and supporting teaching and learning through partnerships and collaboration.

Musselman Library is the only library on campus and houses collections in all disciplines. Librarians staff a busy reference desk on the main floor and are available to assist researchers with their questions. Special Collections is located on the fourth floor and houses the College archives, rare books, manuscripts, historic photos, maps and other treasures. There are two computer labs in the library and numerous spaces for quiet study and collaborative work.

Over half of the students double major, or add a minor to their major field.Gettysburg College ranks second in the nation and is the top liberal arts college in Pennsylvania for mid-length study abroad experiences, according to the 2016 Open Doors Report on International Education Exchange from The Institute of International Education.

Tensions that threatened to tear America apart were already simmering in 1832, when anti-slavery theologian Samuel Simon Schmucker founded what would become Gettysburg College. Five years later, the Lutheran-affiliated institution -- then known as Pennsylvania College -- moved into Pennsylvania Hall, built on land provided by abolitionist Thaddeus Stevens, whose illustrious career in Congress included authorship of the 14th Amendment, which guaranteed full civil rights to citizens of all states.

When the Civil War erupted, the College stood in its midst. Elements of two great armies swept through campus on July 1, 1863, the first day of the decisive Battle of Gettysburg. Pennsylvania Hall became a hospital for hundreds of soldiers from both North and South.

Only months later — on Nov. 19, 1863 — townspeople, students and faculty marched to hear Abraham Lincoln hallow the National Cemetery with his immortal Gettysburg Address. An 1851 graduate of Gettysburg College, David Wills, invited Lincoln to deliver "a few appropriate remarks." Each fall first-year students recreate the procession through town to hear an honored guest read the Address and Gettysburg College remains nationally known for Civil War programs.

A half-century later, Dwight D. Eisenhower took command of a tank training camp on the Gettysburg Battlefield. "Ike" rose to become Supreme Allied Commander in Europe during World War II and President of the United States from 1953 to 1961. Following his presidency, he returned to Gettysburg to live. President Eisenhower served on Gettysburg College's Board of Trustees. He wrote his memoirs in the College's Admissions Office, known today as Eisenhower House.

But presidents and war are far from the whole of Gettysburg's history. The Alumni Association was founded in 1835, among the first such organizations in America. Women students were admitted in 1883. The student newspaper began in 1897. Pennsylvania College became Gettysburg College in 1921. The Honor Code was established thirty-seven years later.In 1991, filmmaker Ken Burns received the College's first Lincoln Prize for his PBS documentary, The Civil War.In 1999, Yahoo named Gettysburg one of the nation's "most wired" campuses. Three years later, our state-of-the art Science Center opened. In 2005, the Majestic Theater, restored to its 1925 opulence, became the College and community's performing arts center. Since its opening in 2009 the 55,000-square-foot John F. Jaeger Center for Athletics, Recreation, and Fitness has provided a fitness center equipped with the latest workout equipment, a student lounge and refreshment bar known as "The Dive," and an eight-lane natatorium that hosts the Bullets swim teams.