There’s an arms race on Facebook right now for domination of next year’s freshman class. There are two groups vying to be the group for newly admitted students– Penn State University Park – Class of 2013 and Penn State: Class of 2013!

We’ve decided to compare the two groups. We’ll refer to the first group as PSUP 2013 and to the second group as Class of 2013! (we really love the exclamation point; it reminds us of Giraffes? Giraffes!).

Our analysis is after the jump.

Group Pictures

Both groups have embraced official Penn State symbols.

PSUP 2013 chose the minimalistic lion’s head logo.

Class of 2013! also chose a logo, albeit a more traditional one.

Winner: PSUP 2013

Number of group members

As of 6:00 pm tonight, PSUP 2013 had 108 members and Class of 2013! had 236 members.

Winner: Class of 2013!

Number of discussion topics

Both PSUP 2013 and Class of 2013! had four discussion board topics.

Winner: Facebook

Geographic diversity

PSUP 2013 seems to be a pretty geographically diverse group– there are members from Baltimore, Chicago, Cincinnati, Dallas, Houston, Long Island, and, of course, Pennsylvania.

Class of 2013! doesn’t have a ‘Where are you from?’ discussion topic yet, but a completely unscientific study of the group members shows that most are from either Pennsylvania or New Jersey.

Winner: PSUP 2013

Best advice

Maybe it’s because many of its members are from out of state, but PSUP 2013 doesn’t have much in terms of good advice.

Really, the only advice worth mentioning was about housing,

if you request someone and they also request you, you’re automatically paired with them…. the rest is totally random and the only preferences they take into consideration are drastic things like smoking habits :)

We liked the smiley face, but we’re not sure about the smoking thing. We don’t remember being asked about that.

Class of 2013!, on the other hand, has lots of good advice regarding housing. The most accurate and comprehensive comment we found was,

my boyfriend lived in east last year – and all the times ive visited its been pretty nice , the commons are great and food is good . the rooms are small but i guess its expected lol & most freshman seem to be at east. south is more near town and im told its close to the science department . & im told that west halls has the best food ! . i dont know if this helps but im still deciding which halls to pick too but i think im going to put east & south halls =)

Props for the smiley face, and for having a pretty good sense of the housing situation on campus. I’m not sure about West having the best food, though; personally, I’m partial to rigaTony’s.

Winner: Class of 2013!

Winner

After that rigorous examination, we ended up with a tie. However, because we are the ones doing the juding, we can arbitrarily pick a winner! Isn’t the Internet great?

The Onward State endorsement goes to…

Penn State University Park – Class of 2013