<p>I'm looking to potentially leave my current school to go to one of these two universities. I have <48 hours to make a decision, so any help would be appreciated.</p>
<p>Academically, I'm going to probably be majoring in Economics. I think I prefer Brown's atmosphere (I've heard Penn is very competitive - feel free to dispel that rumor though!), but I'm a bit concerned that the university's job placement is weaker than Penn's. On the other hand, I'll be in the College at Penn, so I'm likewise concerned that I'm going to miss out on job opportunities compared to students at Wharton.</p>
<p>Socially, I'm choosing my leave my current school due to a lack of intellectualism and the large presence Greek life has on campus. Ultimately, I'm looking for a diverse university that is not so exclusive and homogeneous in terms of the types of students and social offerings.</p>
<p>I'm getting down to the wire, so any help would be appreciated!</p>
<p>I do not think Penn CAS would offer you an advantage over Brown in terms of professional placement. I would go with your gut on this one. Are you currently enrolled at Duke or Georgetown? If so, why leave? Those two schools are just as good.</p>
<p>Perhaps he doesn’t like it. I transferred from Emory (well Oxford College of Emory) and have no regrets. At some of the better schools, the intellectual atmosphere that a student craves may be almost entirely absent.</p>
<p>In this case, and this is just my opinion, I would recommend Brown. Penn has much in common with Duke (Greeks, work hard/play hard social life, lots of type-A personalities, very preprofessional culture etc…), so it may be more of the same. And do not worry about professional placement. Only Wharton offers Penn a professional placement advantage over Brown. CAS may have a slight edge (or not), but it is negligible. Like I said, this is my personal observation, definitely seek out more advice and do your own due diligence.</p>
<p>I’ve basically eliminated Penn as I feel it’s too close to my current school (Duke) and I’m not sure if it’s worth giving up my very high GPA here to go to such a similar school. The decision has ultimately come down to Brown v. Duke. Thanks everyone for all of your advice!</p>
<p>(On an unrelated note, also welcoming commentary on Duke v. Brown if anyone has made that choice…)</p>
<p>I can’t edit my original post - but I actually haven’t eliminated Penn yet on second thought, so if anyone has advice, please feel free to offer it!</p>
<p>I took time off, so I have 2.5 years left at Duke (if I choose to overload) and 3 left everywhere else. Going abroad also isn’t an option, but thanks for the suggestion!</p>
Have you been to Penn recently? The dining options are substantially better than when you and I were there in the 1970s. For example, 1920 Commons underwent a $6 million renovation just last summer:</p>
<p>Also, Penn now has lots of little cafes and coffee shops spread around the campus in places like Williams Hall, Meyerson Hall, Van Pelt Library, Steinberg Dietrich Hall, and Huntsman Hall, not to mention the wonderful food court in the basement of Houston Hall (Houston Market).</p>
<p>And the noise from the hospitals? I’ve never heard any Penn student or alum mention or complain about that (and I know lots of current Penn undergrads), except for you!</p>
<p>Sometimes I get the sense that your opinions of Penn, its campus, and the surrounding neighborhood are based entirely on your experience there back in the 1970s. As one who was also there in the 1970s, but who visits frequently now, I can assure you that the Penn of today is nothing like the Penn we attended back in the '70s. The transformation has been astounding, and continues apace (e.g., the recent addition of the 24-acre Penn Park).</p>
<p>Seconding 45 Percenter here. I just visited Penn last month and it is vastly different from the Penn of the 70s and 80s; although I wasn’t really impressed with the new 1920Commons dining hall. </p>
<p>That said, the students are still the same - very very preprofessional and Type A. So, if you’re trying to escape that type of social environment, don’t go to Penn.</p>
<p>I should have clarified - I don’t issue with the kinds of people at Duke, per se, but the structure of the social scene. Something like 3/4 of students are affiliated with a Selective Living Group/Greek organization and these parties are closed, leaving little to do on the weekends.</p>
Well, let’s not get too hyperbolic in our stereotyping. ;)</p>
<p>Yes, the presence of Wharton and Nursing add a preprofessional dimension to Penn not present at its liberal-arts-only or liberal-arts-and-engineering peers. But Wharton and Nursing comprise only about 25% of Penn’s undergraduate student body. Plus, about 40% of Wharton undergrads DO NOT go into finance or Wall Street jobs upon graduation, not to mention that many Wharton undergrads are NOT Type A, driven personalities (speaking from lots of personal experience with Wharton alums since the 1970s and current Wharton students). And although technically preprofessional, it can hardly be said that Nursing students are typically Type A people.</p>
<p>Which leads us to Penn’s College of Arts and Sciences, its largest component by far with about 6,400 of its 10,000 undergrads. In liberal arts schools, “preprofessional” generally means pre-med and pre-law (as in the “learned professions”). And each Penn graduating class of about 2400-2500 students typically includes about 700-800 who go on to law or medical school. Even ignoring that some of those pre-meds and pre-laws are Wharton, Engineering, and Nursing students, the ratio of 700-800 pre-med and pre-law students to 1,600 graduates of the College of Arts and Sciences is fairly comparable to that ratio at virtually all of Penn’s peers, including Brown. And that also means that the majority of the graduates of Penn’s College–or about 900 students–are NOT, by definition, “preprofessional”. Again, a number that is quite comparable to Penn’s peers.</p>
<p>Moreover, the students in the College–and Nursing and SEAS–are no more “Type A” than are the students at Penn’s peers. Unless, of course, you believe that of the 2450 or so graduates in Penn’s Class of 2012, the:</p>
<p>22 Architecture majors
25 Area-Ethnic-Culture-Gender Studies majors
251 Biological Sciences majors
77 Communication majors
61 Computer and Information Sciences majors
286 Engineering majors
96 English majors
80 Foreign Language/Literature/Linguistics majors
175 Nursing majors
140 History majors
44 Math and Statistics majors
113 Philosophy and Religion majors
43 Physical Science majors
114 Psychology majors
425 Social Sciences majors
79 Visual and Performing Arts majors</p>
I agree that the upstairs is nothing special, but did you check out the large, atypical Starbucks on the lower floor with the large indoor terrace and fireplace (great place to hang and/or study), and the well-stocked take-out/convenience/grocery store on that level? And I forgot to mention the new food-station dining in McClelland Hall in the Quad–yet another of Penn’s many new dining options and locations (compared to the 3 large dining halls we had in the '70s).</p>
The transformation has been astounding, and continues apace (e.g., the recent addition of the 24-acre Penn Park).</p>