Template talk:Colleges and universities in metropolitan Philadelphia

Metro Philadelphia definition

What exactly is the definition of metro Philadelphia here? It seems to be just Philadelphia + Delaware, Montgomery, Bucks, and Chester Counties, and to exclude schools in Delaware and New Jersey suburbs? Should that be clarified? john k 15:46, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

If you look at other articles (Pennsylvania metropolitan areas and Delaware Valley), the metro Philadelphia area is defined as the Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington area, containing 13 counties in 4 states (see Delaware Valley#Counties making up the Delaware Valley). Thus, you should include out-of-Pennsylvania schools. I added back UMDNJ, which seems to be the only school you removed. UMDNJ in Camden, NJ is probably closer to Philadelphia than any other school not located within the city itself. Unless, you want to rename the template or heading to something like "Pennsylvania colleges and universities in metropolitan Philadelphia", which I do not oppose. --Scott Alter 05:40, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Proposed reorganization by geography

The template as it stands is kind of confusing and hard to read. I've taken the liberty of drafting the below reorganized template that breaks the box up by geography. A few points:

1. I define "metropolitan Philadelphia" as the Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington MSA as defined by the Census Bureau. (Thus my exclusion of Stockton.)
2. I added a few colleges in Delaware. This doesn't reflect any particular partiality on my part to Delaware (I have none), but the colleges I added are all in New Castle County (which is in the MSA).
3. I broke the Pennsylvania colleges up by county. This is purely a legibility issue, since the vast majority are in Pennsylvania. (I also did not realize there were this many colleges in Radnor Township.) The counties are listed in order of the number of colleges they have.
4. County assignment for colleges with satellite campuses is based on the primary campus.
5. Cheyney University's campus is mostly in DelCo, which is why I assigned it there. If someone wants to add a footnote about how part of it spills over into ChesCo, that's fine by me, I just had no interest in figuring out how to handle that syntax.
6. I would not be opposed to further breaking up the Philadelphia and maybe the MontCo colleges up further by type (akin to what you see on Template:NYC Colleges, albeit with fewer subcategories).
7. I broke out the Delaware Law School from Widener University because of its physical separation and institutional autonomy from the main Widener administration in Chester. The inclusion of Rutgers Biomedical and Health is similarly warranted (since the South Jersey campus is in Stratford and administratively independent of Rutgers-Camden). I didn't think any other professional schools warranted similar separation (for instance, my alma mater, the Camden campus of Rutgers Law School, is physically located at and very much integrated into the wider ecosystem of Rutgers-Camden).

If I don't see any objection to the proposal within seven days, I'll make the changes (if I remember). (If its been over seven days since I posted this and I still haven't made the change, you can make the change yourself if you approve.) Lockesdonkey (talk) 05:44, 29 February 2020 (UTC)

• • Revision: I realized that Cooper Medical School qualifies for separate inclusion under the Widener criteria. Lockesdonkey (talk) 05:58, 29 February 2020 (UTC)

• • • I've decided to go ahead and break out Philadelphia and MontCo by type of institution (as both of those have over 10 institutions each). If I see no objection, this is what I will use when I make the revision. Lockesdonkey (talk) 02:59, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
      • Also decided to add the community colleges (since similar templates for other metros all seem to have them).