Bridges to the Future: Attollo Scholars Take On Pittsburgh
Exposure changes what a student believes is possible. A scholar who has never set foot on a campus outside their hometown, never walked through a city they didn't grow up in, carries a smaller sense of what's available to them. It's not a lack of ambition. It's a lack of reference points. Attollo's college tours exist to build those reference points: put students in front of schools they might not have considered, in a city many of them have never seen, and let them build their college list from firsthand experience instead of a brochure. This summer, that meant 23 scholars trading Lancaster for three days in Pittsburgh.
Day 1: Penn State, Sandbox vr + Puttshack, & a Ride Up the Incline
The trip opened at Penn State University, where scholars toured the University Park campus and grabbed lunch at the HUB-Robeson Center, the heart of student life on campus.
From there, the group swapped campus tours for a different kind of afternoon: experiencing virtual reality at Sandbox VR, a stop built for pure fun before the trip's more serious business began. By evening, scholars had checked into their hotel downtown and grabbed dinner before heading back out for the night's main event.
Duquesne Incline
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Molly's Trolleys
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Duquesne Incline ✦ Molly's Trolleys ✦
Scholars boarded a vintage-style trolley with Molly's Trolleys for a guided ride through Downtown, the North Shore, and Oakland, capped off with a ride up Mount Washington on the historic Duquesne Incline, one of the few working cable inclines left in the country, for a nighttime view of the city skyline.
Day 2: Duquesne, Pitt, and a Rooftop Dinner Among the Stars
Tuesday started with a hot breakfast at the hotel before scholars headed to Duquesne University for a campus tour and lunch.
From there, the group crossed the city to the University of Pittsburgh, touring the campus that anchors Oakland, one of Pittsburgh's most walkable college neighborhoods.
Professional Development Dinner
The evening's Professional Development Dinner had a Pittsburgh twist: a rooftop dinner at Moonshot Museum, the city's space museum, where a wall of windows lets visitors watch real lunar landers being built by Astrobotic, the space robotics company next door. Scholars connected with professionals over dinner with the skyline as a backdrop.
Day 3: Juniata, Gettysburg, and the Road Home
Wednesday began with a tour of Juniata College and lunch on campus, before the group headed to Gettysburg College for an afternoon tour, the trip's last stop before the ride home.
The group stopped for dinner at South County in York before finishing the drive back to Lancaster, wrapping three days that took 23 scholars through five campuses, a rooftop dinner, and a city built on reinvention. For scholars who'd never seen a place remake itself the way Pittsburgh has, from steel town to a city of hospitals, tech, and now space robotics, the trip was a lesson that showed up outside the classroom as much as inside it. A campus tour can show a student where they might study. A city like Pittsburgh shows them what it looks like to rebuild something entirely and come out stronger for it.
See even more photos from our tours on our Instagram!
About Attollo:
Attollo is a non-profit organization dedicated to empowering youth through education. By providing mentorship, academic enrichment, and college preparation support, Attollo aims to level the playing field and equip students with the tools they need to succeed in college and beyond. Since its inception, Attollo has helped thousands of students realize their potential and achieve their academic goals.
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