<p>That’s good to know, nj<em>azn</em>premed. I wasn’t talking about Penn ED applicants in general, but rather the ones from my school. I, too, have a 2340 SAT, am in the top 5-10% of my class, and want to apply to Penn ED because I really like it. I’m just happy that Penn’s overall population isn’t like the one from my school :)</p>
<p>also there are soooooooo many transfer students. they need to make it more difficult to transfer and start to discourage that.</p>
<p>^ Only about 230 or so new transfer students a year out of 10,000 undergrads–not sure that’s really a lot. Also, the admit rate for transfers is roughly the same as that for freshmen–about 17%:</p>
<p>[College</a> Search - University of Pennsylvania - Penn - Admission](<a href=“College Search - BigFuture | College Board”>College Search - BigFuture | College Board)</p>
<p>-I think that fewer transfer students should be accepted. Look at Harvard, that accepts no transfers. It would do Penn well.
-I also think that ED should be eliminated because that creates a division- we already have the four schools that divide us enough. And there is a big advantage ED and that advantage should be eliminated.
-I know that with ED, come the legacies but I have to say, I wouldn’t want my kid to apply ED to have an advantage because of me. I think it’s almost penalizing the legacy kids, for whom Penn might not be the right fit.</p>
<p>^ You guys need to understand a bit of the historical basis for Penn’s use of ED. Prior to Penn’s extensive use of ED beginning 20 or so years ago, it was predominantly NOT the first choice school for the vast majority of Arts and Sciences and Engineering undergrads who were there (as opposed to the vast majority of Wharton and Nursing undergrads, for whom Penn long has been a first choice). As a result, the sense among the majority of Penn undergrads was that they had “settled” for Penn because they hadn’t gotten into their first-choice schools (believe me–I was there at the time :)).</p>
<p>Then, beginning about 20 years ago, and intensifying during the presidency (1994-2004) of Judith Rodin, Penn embarked on a concerted effort to enhance the overall undergraduate experience (extensive physical campus and neighborhood improvements, establishment of college house system and various campus centers and programs, etc.), and to establish a mood on campus that Penn was a highly desirable–indeed first-choice–place to be. Extensive use of ED was a MAJOR part of that, ensuring that for almost half the entering class, Penn was–by definition–their first (and only!) choice. And for the RD applicants, the admit rate decreased significantly, making Penn effectively more exclusive and more desirable. The change in the mood of the place was palpable, and Penn was able to shake off the Ivy Leage “doormat” and safety-school image that had burdened it for so many years.</p>
<p>So Penn has developed quite a love affair with its ED program over the last 2 decades, and isn’t about to dispense with it anytime soon, and certainly not before the administration is condient that the school has successfully made the leap “from excellence to eminence” at the center of Amy Gutmann’s “Penn Compact” and the current $3.5 billion capital campaign.</p>
<p>Thanks for the helpful and enlightening explanation- although now I feel like I chose to go to this place that other people settled for. I second guess myself sometimes but ultimately realize how perfect this place is for me.</p>
<p>Just out of curiosity, years back, what was your first choice before you settled? Where are you from?</p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
<p>“-I think that fewer transfer students should be accepted. Look at Harvard, that accepts no transfers. It would do Penn well.”
That’s really, really recent. (Princeton doesn’t either). The reason they do that, though, is because they were finding they were getting a ridiculous number of applications and then accepting almost nobody…so it didn’t make sense to be spending the time reading the applications when they were only going to admit a very few people. I don’t know why Penn accepts so many, but honestly, once you get to a certain level of ‘intelligence’ and ECs and whathaveyou, the difference isn’t that big. I know a bunch of people going to Harvard…and while some are geniuses, most are pretty normal. Like, there are at least 10 people going to Harvard from my school this year (I think) and I know I had better grades than most of them did because I made cum laude (top 20%) and they didn’t.</p>
<p>**also, when penn accepts x number of people, there are a lot of people the admissions officers think would do well at Penn but were crossed off the list because the people in x had some advantage or struck the officer or whatever. like yeah, some of that 83% that didn’t get in was totally unqualified, but there were a lot that were qualified as well. so when you get transfers…well, they’re perfectly qualified. it’s just the way things work.</p>
<p>
Susie, it was more than 20 years ago when most of the Arts and Sciences undergrads at Penn seemed to feel that they had “settled.” As I indicated, Penn has expended great effort to change that situation, and it certainly is no longer the case, so no need to second-guess yourself.</p>
<p>When I applied to Penn, I was from the mid-Atlantic region, and my first-choice schools were the usual suspects. When I started at Penn, I was in the College, but transferred after my freshman year into Wharton (it was MUCH easier to do that back then). That was DECADES ago–really ancient history, given how far Penn has come since then in terms of national/international prestige and desirability. Other schools also have ascended significantly in that regard in the last several decades–e.g., Stanford, Brown, Duke–so really, don’t second-guess your choice of Penn merely because several decades ago it didn’t have the national/international prestige it now has, and which it continues to increase (“excellence to eminence” 
).</p>