<p>certainly, i respect your own perspective, and largely defer to it, while not disavowing my own.</p>
<p>No offense, but you sound more like a politician there than a student.</p>
<p>As someone who attends Penn and has visited Princeton many times (at least 20 times during the year), and as someone who has seen the academic side of things firsthand:</p>
<p>I think Penn's education is actually a little bit more thorough than Princeton's (at least in the realm of math, econ, language, etc). From what I saw, Penn covers a lot more material, but the books Princeton uses are a little better than Penn's. Also, their tests were really easy compared to the stuff they give you at Penn. I looked at an Econ midterm and was pretty shocked at how much stuff they DIDN'T cover that Penn's classes did.</p>
<p>The choice of classes at Penn just totally dominates Princeton's, also. The ease of scheduling and the flexibility of classes and degree programs is a very strong asset. </p>
<p>The social life at Penn is also unparalleled: At Princeton, I noticed a ton of people were always indoors studying for whatever reason. If you walk around on campus, it's fairly deserted (and yes I am taking class size proportions into account). At Penn you'll always find people just hanging out -- always something fun to do. It's a lot more low-key at Princeton.</p>
<p>And yes, Princeton is in the middle of nowhere (come on, it's surrounded by pharm. companies). You do have to take a train to get to anywhere cool -- at Penn, Philly is just a hop and a skip away. Where are you going to go at Princeton that is nearby? Trenton? It's just not the same -- it's very isolated. Penn's like this domain of perpetual osmosis or something, people always coming in and out from various locations. Princeton's location is good in terms of being between NYC and Philly, but again you can't really <em>walk</em> anywhere, and nobody on campus really does. At Penn, people are walking back and forth to Philly all the time, enjoying nightlife, clubbing, whatever.</p>
<p>Admittedly though I did enjoy some of Princeton's eating clubs. But they were no different from the frat houses on Penn's campus (people dancing/lounging around drinking). It's the main source of social entertainment on campus. You won't find people hanging out with each other in the dorm houses. You won't find anything like Hill's social scene at Penn.</p>
<p>Princeton is quite beautiful though... if you like trees, grass, flowers, great architecture, etc, it's a good place to be. But, if the urban scene is more up your alley, go Penn.</p>
<p>if i'm not mistaken, you applied to princeton, no?</p>
<p>I did apply to Princeton, yes, but I also applied to many other Ivies and schools that I thought had a good educational experience. Don't get me wrong -- Princeton is a great school, but I am still glad I wound up at Penn.</p>
<p>2 cents</p>
<p>Penn lets students take a handful of grad school classes as an undergrad.</p>
<p>Majors at Penn typically don't require the equivalent of 120 credits, so you can study abroad or lighten the load to study for grad school (e.g. mcat, gmat, lsat) exams</p>
<p>There is sometimes the chance to submatriculate straight into a grad school program (thus doing only 3yrs undergrad)</p>
<p>Penn offers a large number of evening classes through the College of General Studies program.</p>
<p>Time will tell, but Princeton may not have the grade inflation that it once did. Penn still has their grade inflation. This may be a factor if you want to move on to a grad school program.</p>
<p>First of all, you are calling Wharton students arrogant because the bookstore has realized that Wharton merchandise is in high demand and therefore stocks a lot of it.</p>
<p>Second, while there are some arrogant people in Wharton (as in ALL schools), you don't see them parading around boasting their Wharton pride or writing articles in the DP about how superior they are. You do, however, see a lot of people in other schools complaining about Wharton students for things they have no control over.</p>
<p>The whole studyroom/computer usage complaint has been around since Huntsman opened. The idea of Huntsman was to combine all Wharton students - undergrad, mba, phd - into one building to increase the sense of community within Wharton (since before undergrads were in SHDH and mbas were in Vance and phds were who knows where). Wharton students have a ton of group projects for their classes - it only makes sense that they get to reserve those group study rooms. The same with the computers - those computers have Wharton specific programs on them, so why shouldn't a Wharton student get to use them over everyone else? And you all realize that if you are taking a Wharton class (regardless of what school you are in) you end up getting a Wharton email account, access to Spike, and the ability to log-in to Wharton computers and use the study rooms.</p>
<p>Every once in awhile someone from the DP writes a whiney article complaining about Wharton. The whole thing is so overdone and melodramatic.</p>
<p>whartonalum,</p>
<p>Great post!</p>
<p>with all due respect, i think this purported graduate-school-access advantage is being exaggerated. remember that princeton, too, has graduate programs in all of its departments, including architecture, engineering, and public policy; princeton students can and do take such graduate courses. as said before, what princeton actually lacks are the professional schools (business, education, law, med, nursing, etc.). and realistically, with the possible exception of business students, very few undergraduates take courses offered by such professional schools, if they even can at all (e.g. law).</p>
<p>really, with the exception of wharton for those absolutely committed to a pre-professional business education, i believe almost all of advantages alleged on this thread on penn's behalf are relatively minor ones. many of princeton's advantages, on the other hand (and i'm sure i'll be bashed here for stating this flatly) - stronger faculty, stronger student body, and greater prestige - are of the major variety, for prospectives choosing between the two.</p>
<p>finally, if the above post, #46, is directed to me, please note that <em>i</em> never called wharton students arrogant. in fact, my point was rather that a certain amount of wharton envy and bashing by non-whartonians is real, and is arguably only a bit more prevalent in the wake of the debut of wharton's sparkling new wharton-only facility.</p>
<p>there's only one ivy league school whose web page is the following:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.pussyivy.com/%5B/url%5D">http://www.pussyivy.com/</a></p>
<p>'nuff said.</p>
<p>(no offense directed to princeton; i love princeton, i just love penn more)</p>
<p>(and no, i'm not responsible for that link, as can be seen by anyone who visits the pertinent facebook group)</p>
<p>F. Scottie,</p>
<p>I'll concede the prestige factor, for whatever that's worth. I think fit and enjoying your four year experience is more important. Many confuse Penn with a state school, so Princeton wins there. Now, it's your turn to acknowledge that Harvard & Yale have more prestigious names than Princeton.</p>
<br>
<p>I'm waiting.</p>
<br>
<p>as soon as you acknowledge princeton's stronger faculty and student body, too. this is, after all, a penn vs. princeton thread.</p>
<p>meh, f.scottie, i think there are plenty of really smart kids at penn, and even if princeton has a more qualified student body, the difference isn't really that significant. they're all smart kids and i don't think the advantage that princeton has matters that much when you're talking about 2 schools that are, in the first place, pretty selective. do you see what i mean? kids at penn are already fine scholars so the fact that princeton has smarter kids isn't really a big deal or a point of contention at all. the slight difference stops mattering when you're already talking about the top kids in the country. it's not like we're comparing princeton to some state school.</p>
<p>"as soon as you acknowledge princeton's stronger faculty and student body, too"</p>
<p>Don't believe it's true, so I won't acknowledge it. You brought up "prestige", so address that issue.</p>
<br>
<p>I'm still waiting.</p>
<br>
<p>harvard clearly enjoys top name recognition. yale, well, i "don't believe it's true, so i won't acknowledge it." at least i doubt it, and i think it's arguable. any gaps among HYP, however, are minor in comparison to the huge one between those three and their ivy peers, including penn ("no, not penn state, it's a private school in philadelphia, in the ivy league"). and if you don't believe princeton has a stronger student body, you have a serious case of denial.</p>
<p>What is your definition of "stronger" there good sir? I hate to break it to you, but a small GPA/SAT difference fails to make a student body "stronger," regardless of your definition.</p>
<p>well, then the burden's on you to show otherwise. i'm all ears.</p>
<p>A) What are you talking about "burden's on me." You made a point; feel free to back it up with any form of concrete information.</p>
<p>B) Even if I wanted to, how could I prove something that you have failed to define? Again, what is your definition of stronger?</p>
<p>yeah i'd say that penn's student body is more well-rounded and social, and less pretentious and preppy. in my opinion that's "stronger." also, that's just my opinion. again, both penn and princeton are at/near the top of college admissions. an SAT difference of a couple points and some higher GPAs = just as arbitrary a standard as the opinions i just mentioned</p>
<p>you're espousing the minority/contrarian opinion, so the burden should be on you to convince those of us holding the majority/orthodox one. but since your denial on this point seems particularly strong, here's one input and one output measure:</p>
<p>percentage of national merit scholars, 2005 entering class :</p>
<p>princeton 14.7%, penn 4.1% (7th in the ivy league)</p>
<p>number of rhodes scholars since 1947:</p>
<p>princeton 126, penn <27</p>
<p>ok now that is some significant data. thanks f. scottie. but again, i don't really think it matters all that much in the big picture but it does answer the question, which has a smart student body</p>