During a recent stay in State College, Pennsylvania, I had the opportunity to stay at the Scholar State College Hotel. This hotel is a Tapestry Collection hotel within the Hilton portfolio of properties. Being a part of the Tapestry Collection means it doesn’t follow a worldwide floorplan like many chains do. This can be a refreshing hotel experience for those who don’t prefer the chain cookie-cutter hotel layouts.
State College, Pennsylvania is the home of Pennsylvania State University. I was traveling to the area to attend a college football matchup and wanted a hotel close to the campus to make exploring and attending the game easier. Hotel rates in the area become astronomical on big game days. Therefore, this was a perfect opportunity to use Hilton Honors points. The Scholar State College often has rooms available between 28,000 and 40,000 points per night. Compared with the cash rate of over $400 per night on the weekend I traveled, this was a great use of points. The majority of the year doesn’t see rates like this which are commonly between $110 and $140. However, due to its proximity to Penn State University, the rates (and availability) are heavily influenced by university activities (sporting events, graduation, orientations, etc…).
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Guest Rooms
Scholar State College has nicely appointed large rooms. The rooms feature either a King bed or two Queen beds. The beds were comfortable and provided a nice night’s rest. The bed featured four pillows that tended to be on the soft side. If you prefer the soft feather pillows, you will like these. I prefer a more firm pillow so these left a little to be desired for me.
The guest rooms also feature a nice wardrobe cabinet with shelving, a hanging rod, and an in-room safe. Each room also has a couch that transforms into a pull-out bed. I can’t comment on the comfort of the pull-out sofa since it wasn’t used. However, the couch provided a great place to sit, work, and watch Saturday football games. The room provided a large 40-50 inch TV with about 20-30 of your basic channels available. If you want something more specialized like SEC Network or Longhorn Network, you won’t find it in the listings. Also, a table on wheels was provided. This table functioned equally well as a desk, dining table, or gathering place in the room.
The remaining portion of the guest room living area was arguably the best part, a full kitchenette. Each room features a kitchenette equipped with a refrigerator, microwave, stove, sink, and dishwasher. This miniature kitchen gives you many options for storing food, beverages, and snacks along with space for entertaining. It’s also good for those who want to save money on dining out. It is equipped enough to enable you to make some food in your room. While I wouldn’t describe the kitchenette as “fully stocked” from a kitchen utensils perspective, it does have all the bare necessities (pots, pans, silverware, cooking spoons and spatulas, can opener, etc…). If you need anything special though, I suggest that you bring it with you.
Finally, the bathroom was nicely organized. It featured a good size shower and a sink with sufficient room to unpack toiletries. The surfaces were clean upon arrival and all toiletry products were well stocked.
Amenities
The Scholar State College hotel did not provide many additional amenities other than the room. The hotel also didn’t advertise many amenities either so that’s not a bad thing. A “business center” was available to guests who needed to access the internet, use one of the hotel computers, or print something. I put “business center” in quotes because this was literally two computers and a printer located in an out-of-the-way hallway on the first floor.
Free internet is supplied to all guests. As with most Hilton hotels, the free internet speeds were sufficient enough to get online but weren’t anything blazing fast. You do have the option to upgrade to premium internet if you need additional speed. However, the free internet should be sufficient for most of what you need to do.
The hotel also had a small fitness center. The fitness center had 3 treadmills, a stationary bike, and a stair stepper for cardio equipment. The gym also contained a bench and dumbbells ranging between 5 and 75 lbs. for strength training. While this is a basic setup, it should provide enough of a workout during a weekend away from a normal gym.
Parking
One nice amenity is that they contract with the parking deck across the street to provide convenient parking with in and out privileges. Parking in the downtown area of State College can be difficult, especially when you are as close to the university as the Scholar State College hotel is. Even more difficult is parking on big football weekends. Parking rates for these events routinely get up to $40 for the night of the game. For comparison, the hotel will charge $12/night to your room for parking in the deck and provide a key card to the deck that allows you to go in and out as many times as you please. While this rate probably doesn’t save a ton of money on less popular times to be in State College, it is nonetheless very conveniently located.
In addition to the deck, there is a small temporary parking lot directly to the north side of the hotel. This is the drop-off area so you don’t have to drag luggage to and from the parking deck to load and unload. There are temporary spaces available on Beaver St., but parking in their lot is so much easier and avoids oncoming traffic.
Food
Breakfast
Unfortunately due to COVID-19, a full breakfast was not being offered at the Scholar State College. Bagged breakfast was available upon request. This included a granola bar, a muffin, Greek yogurt, and an apple. This is a little underwhelming as far as breakfast goes, but it’s not unusual in the COVID era. This breakfast was not proactively offered; guests had to ask for it at the front desk.
In accordance with new policies from Hilton, US-based hotels are offering a $12 or $15 credit per person in lieu of breakfast for Gold and Diamond members, respectively. As a Gold member traveling with a guest in the same room, I was eligible to receive a $24 credit per day towards on-property food and beverage charges. The only opportunity to use this credit was the on-property restaurant and bar (Social Food + Drink – info below) or the convenience area with water, sodas, and snacks.
Social Food + Drink
The Scholar State College on-property restaurant and bar is titled Social Food + Drink. It is located just off the lobby and is relatively small (seats around 50 people). The restaurant and bar are only opened between 5 PM and 10 PM each day. Unfortunately, these hours mean that the restaurant doesn’t provide breakfast or lunch. The limited hours also make it difficult to visit (especially if you have dinner plans elsewhere). Given that we were in State College for the first time, we wanted to experience some other dinner locations. We, therefore, didn’t visit Social Food + Drink.
Based on the menu and reviews, I believe Social Food + Drink would be a good place to gather for pre or post-dinner cocktails, wine, or beer. Their dinner menu was not very extensive so you could definitely find better food in the surrounding State College area. However, if you are wanting to stay close to the hotel and potentially avoid lines that can appear on college football weekends in State College, this can be a good option. If you are a Gold or Diamond member with Hilton, you can use your food/beverage credit here. It’s hard to beat free drinks if you have the opportunity.
Location
Perhaps one of the best parts about the Scholar State College is its location. The two primary streets in State College are Beaver St. and College St. The hotel is located between these two streets and is less than one block from the Penn State campus. Its location is right next to the Old Main on campus. This makes it a great location for visits to campus or college football weekends. You are in the center of everything and will not need to use your car in the crowded and congested areas around campus. This is particularly important on big football weekends as was the case during my visit.
One downside of being in the middle of everything is that you do get a little pedestrian and street noise in the guest rooms. It’s not a lot, but it was somewhat noticeable on the weekend I was there.
Service
Upon arrival, check-in was smooth and efficient. Check-in is available online through the app if you prefer to get your key that way. However, if you need access to the parking garage you will need to check-in in person upon arrival. As we were parking a car, we needed to check-in in person.
Towels and toiletries were restocked daily. Due to COVID, housekeeping was not entering rooms unless specifically requested, but new towels and toiletries were provided daily at the room front door as requested.
There were two downsides to my Scholar State College visit that I will put under this category, but they weren’t so much bad service as things that were overlooked when clearing and preparing the room for the next guest.
First, upon arrival in the room, there was a K-cup’s worth of coffee grounds around the garbage can. It appeared that a previous guest had missed the trash can when disposing of their coffee and that housekeeping had missed vacuuming it up given the black coffee against the dark floor.
Second, the shower drained extremely slow. It was so slow that a 20-minute shower meant you were standing in water up to your ankles. Given that we were in and out of the room so much during the weekend, we chose to just deal with the slow draining shower. We made the property aware of the issue upon our departure, so I can’t provide any information on how quickly the issue was resolved.
Bottom Line
All in all, I was happy with my stay at the Scholar State College. The convenient location and guaranteed parking were the main reasons for booking the hotel. However, the spacious guest room including the kitchenette was a nice touch. If I have the need, I wouldn’t hesitate to book the Scholar State College hotel again (especially during a big gameday weekend).
