<p>Hey guys! I was wondering... what do you think is a wiser choice: a (practically) full ride to UCLA or UPenn?</p>
<p>My major is economics/political science and am planning on going to law school after I finish undergraduate. Some factors to include are prestige, location, social life (aka parties), Greek life and opportunities during and after enrollment. Is it worth it to take out in loans, after financial aid, 7-8K a year for UPenn for the Ivy League label, or does UCLA's prestige stand on its own enough to provide top-tier academics without the longing undergrad debt? My dream is to go to Harvard Law School afterwards. Thank you guys!</p>
<p>Penn is very strong in economics/political science. You’ll be able to take some of your courses at Wharton. Repost your question on the Ivy League Penn forum for additional comments.</p>
<p>For economics, Penn and UCLA is in the same band as prestige with a slight nod to Penn. And the Penn/Wharton might have some synergy, ie might be looking at Economics major when recruiting at Penn.
For political science, the nod is to UCLA, it ranks much higher than Penn. Something like 10 vs 28.
So are you leaning toward economics or political science. If economics then go to Penn otherwise go to UCLA. This is my opinion, 32K in debt for Penn is not substantial. </p>
<p>If your dream is Harvard Law School then UCLA is a better decision. It’s good if you can get high GPA there and you will be debt free for undergraduate.</p>
<p>I would pick the free ride at UCLA over Penn. They’re pretty much the same in terms of prestige if that’s a factor. Save the borrowing for law school.</p>
<p>I say this as a Penn alum (who also had a free ride).</p>
<p>I think most would agree that UCLA and Penn are pretty equal in all of these factors with maybe a slight nod in prestige and social life to Penn.</p>
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<p>Penn isn’t great because it’s an Ivy league school. Penn’s great because it’s a fantastic university. I think most would agree that Penn is easily worth 7-8k a year. I think most would also agree that UCLA provides top-tier academics that are on par with Penn. In fact, some of the highest enrollment in UCLA law comes from Penn IIRC. You should have no trouble getting into H-law from UCLA if you work hard enough.</p>
<p>One thing you should know is that law school is extremely expensive. If that’s your ultimate goal, you’ll want to minimize the amount of debt that you have so that you can pay off your total loans faster and decrease the amount of total interest you have to pay.</p>
<p>UCLA’s Career Center has useful data available about law school application results. For example, last year 44 UCLA students applied to Harvard for law school and 6 were accepted. It would be interesting for you to contact Penn’s pre-professional advisors and compare their admission rates.</p>
<p>Here’s the most recent law school matriculation data from the Penn website. It looks like Harvard Law School was the most popular choice for Penn graduates, with 26 matriculating from the 2011-2012 admission cycle.</p>
<p>There’s a lot of geographical bias in those numbers. Penn feeds mostly into NYC, and many Californians who wanted to stay on the Left Coast would choose Boalt, UCLA Law or USC (the latter two with big merit money) over Penn at sticker, particularly if said Californian ain’t interested in living in NYC.</p>
<p>Further, on average, Penn is a much stronger school, at least for top test takers. UC doesn’t put much weight on test scores for undergrad, but Penn does. So naturally, the mean LSAT scores from Penn undergrads will be higher than that of UCLA. That doesn’t mean that Penn teaches them so well as to ace the LSAT, but rather Penn undergrad screens out low test takers to begin with.</p>
<p>That being said, a private college like Penn for $8k/yr is a great deal for most. But, if the student really does have a full ride from UC, then the OP most be low-low income. Attending college on the other coast has a whole host of additional expenses, not accounted for in the COA, so it would likely be more than $8k/yr.</p>
Not sure what you mean by “mostly” when you say “Penn feeds mostly into NYC,” but the majority of Penn undergrads–and the majority of Penn law students, for that matter–do NOT take jobs in NYC. While the largest plurality do (as they do at virtually all top northeastern schools), the MAJORITY of Penn grads–again both undergrad and law–do NOT. Certainly, many Penn grads end up in the northeast (from DC up through New England), but a significant number go to other parts of the country, INCLUDING California. In fact, the state with the largest number of applicants to Penn undergrad is not Pennsylvania or New York–it’s CALIFORNIA (not surprising given its population).</p>
<p>A meaningless statistic. What matters is jobs, jobs, jobs of the graduates.</p>
<p>~70% of Penn Law grads end up in NY, PA or DC; with over half of those in NY – so yes, I misspoke, its a plurality into NY. Sure, some make it back to California, should they work hard at it. But anyone who gets into Penn Law would get a (mostly) full tuition offer from UCLA Law. But even tho Penn maybe a much higher ranked LS, for someone who wants to practice in California, UCLA for (near) free vs Penn at sticker is a worthy decision. And between Boalt and Penn, Boalt is a no-brainer.</p>
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