For the undergraduates and graduates at UPENN, what were your experiences there? Did you like the school, your classes, the professors and etc? I’m asking because I’m applying ED to UPENN next year. Thank you for your replies.
I liked Penn… didn’t think that it was any better of an undergraduate experience than anywhere else, but it was definitely enjoyable.
School: I was in the College and am generally ambivalent about it. Nothing really to mention… the curriculum was cool since there were no courses that everyone was 100% required to take, allowing me to avoid classes I knew I had no strength in, but I still got a relatively broad survey of coursework in my time.
Classes: Too broad of a question. I took 32 classes at Penn, and they were all unique in their own way. You will have large lectures with 250+ people in them; you will have seminars with 10 people in them. Some professors are excellent, but others are mediocre. Some courses are excellent, but others are mediocre; most courses have some who love them and some who hate them, with the upper-level courses skewed more toward those who love them.
Professors: Some are excellent; others are less concerned with teaching than with their research. It’s hit-or-miss, really.
My most memorable moments of college came outside of class - friendships I made, trips I took, even parties or dinners I went to. I am very glad I went to a large school in an urban setting
I went to Penn and absolutely loved it.
The College provides the best combination of the “practical and ornamental” education that Benjamin Franklin desired in his university. It sits at the heart of Penn and no university offers more interdisciplinary opportunities to its undergrads than Penn. Classes are generally small and in fact there are only 5 classrooms on campus that even fit more than 250 students and only 10 that fit over 100 students so the vast majority of your classes will be much smaller.
Professors are all pretty outstanding. Penn has the highest percentage of full time teachers of all the ivies and thanks to the one university policy, professors in almost every school and research center on campus (including the graduate and professional schools) are accessible to you as an undergrad. Professors are also doing groundbreaking research pretty much across the board at Penn and opportunities to work with these professors and to even get published with them are plentiful.
The required classes encourage you to get a broad education without ever limiting you in studying and exploring your areas of interest. They also offer a very large number of courses that satisfy each requirement and the class styles vary widely so that you can take classes in subjects and environments that meet your intellectual and academic preferences while still gaining exposure to ideas and concepts outside of your comfort zone.
Penn has a strong balance between the intellectual and the pre-professional sides of education, allowing you to emphasize whichever aspects of either that most interest you. While there is definitely more of a pre-professional atmosphere at Penn, it doesn’t come at the exclusion of the intellectual atmosphere- instead both complement one another in profoundly enriching ways.
Penn’s compact yet specious-feeling campus in the heart of America’s 5th largest city and the USA’s only World Heritage City (Philadelphia), also allows you to enjoy the traditional college experience with plenty of grassy quads and Collegiate Gothic architecture while never being more than a 15 minute walk from middle of one of the most vibrant urban centers in the world. With opportunities to intern in the city and to enjoy all of the culture, art, food, and fun that Philly has to offer, it is easy to fill your weekends and evenings with opportunities off campus. The relatively close-knit campus community and the overabundance of campus activities, however, tend to keep students on campus most of the time and fully engaged with campus life. Penn allows you to create your own balance between the city and campus that works best for your personal living style.
Housing at Penn is also great and getting better. Penn’s college houses have only improved with time and the New College house promises to transform undergraduate living in a meaningful way. The traditional Quad college houses are beautiful examples of Collegiate Gothic architecture while the high rises provide for a more apartment-like feel to your undergraduate living experience coupled with beautiful sky-level views of Philadelphia. Off campus housing is also outstanding, very cheap and incredibly close to campus. Most students who live off campus (which is a little less than half of the undergraduates) don’t actually live off campus in the traditional sense at all. Instead they live in luxury apartment complexes or beautiful, converted Victorian homes within a block or two of the campus. The land is often owned by Penn and merely rented out by other companies. It’s a great option for students looking for greater independence and cheaper rents.
At the end of the day, Penn will be what you make of it. It is entirely possible to have a wholly average experience there. If you were to take advantage of all of Penn’s vast resources and the incomparable opportunities inside and outside of the classroom, however, you might find that Penn offers an exceptional education unlike any other. Good luck with the application process!
@chrisw and @PennCAS2014, thank you so much for replying 