<p>My son #2 wants to come to Penn badly. He doesn’t know what major he likes yet. He has a leaning towards business but does not want to do business at undergrad level. He wants to get a wider scope education and explore his interests. So it is very likely he would have to go to grad school.
He is only good in math, i.e. manage to get A’s in the regular to honors level math in a competitive hs but not as good as the engineer type.
My son #1 is at Penn bioengineering right now and he was very good in math and yet even h found math at Penn very challenging and only manage to get B’s. From his comments, I gather Penn’s grading is not like Harvard, Stanford and Brown, it is definitely not a GPA factory.
With these considerations, I would like your advise on 1. how dos Penn rate in placing students in high ranking grad programs? 2. How difficult is it to get good grades? 3. Is it smart for him to come to Penn? or Should he go to schools like Brown or Dartmouth ? 4. How is IR at Penn?
Thanks.</p>
<p>What type of grad programs are you thinking about? Grad programs are far more diverse than the undergrad programs, ranging from Anthropology to Zoology.</p>
<p>Penn's undergrad is the top feeder to Penn's Wharton (MBA), Med, and Law schools. Wharton enrolls about 50 students from Penn each year, which doesn't seem a lot, but is actually 2-3 times the amount from other Ivy schools.</p>
<p>By raw percentage, Brown and Dart are slightly better, but it evens out if you consider that 2/5 of Penn comprises of preprofessional Wharton/engineering/nursing students who aren't as likely to seek graduate schools as liberal arts students.</p>
<p>Thanks Aurelius.
I realize that Penn is very good in feeding intoPenn's own professional grad programs.
But since my son really doesn't know what interests him at this point. I would have to consider grad programs in any top school in general. Yes, it could range from anthropology to zoology.</p>
<p>Since There are so many gradudate fields, many of which receive rather few applicants, I doubt anyone can fully answer your question. Even for professional schools (fewer fields, more applicants), placement comparisons tend to be incomplete or flawed.</p>
<p>But Penn is pretty well-rounded, has a high-quality student body, and itself a research-heavy school, it should have pretty good grad school placement.</p>
<p>bioeng,</p>
<ol>
<li>how dos Penn rate in placing students in high ranking grad programs?</li>
<li>Is it smart for him to come to Penn? or Should he go to schools like Brown or Dartmouth ? </li>
</ol>
<p>there are several programs at Penn that allow a student to submatriculate into Penn's graduate programs. If one is in SEAS, he/she can start the graduate engineering program from junior year, Wharton also allows submatriculation into its PhD program or the Penn Law school. That said, Penn is indeed very pre-professional. In spite of there being a liberal arts college (College), students do already have a strong inclination towards a particular career. In that case, your son might be better at a more "broad-based" education like the colleges you mentioned. But personally, I feel that main draw of Penn is the variety of dual-degrees offered that several other Ivies don't. Depending on your son's interests, he might want to work for some years before starting grad school. Having 2 degrees in completely diverse fields definitely opens many doors which otherwise, I guess, might be closed. Several colleges like Stanford also offere dual-degrees now. I have some friends who graduated from a liberal arts college and started work and later did not feel like going back to school. In that case, being in the dual-degree programs would be nice.</p>
<p>Also, Brown and Dartmouth have a smaller undergraduate population than Penn, so professors / advisors would be more accessible and able to advise on a more personal basis.</p>
<ol>
<li>How difficult is it to get good grades?
This is very subjective and varies with the priorities that students set for themselves. I guess it would not be right to judge Penn based on the Math courses as several other departments like Econ, IR, Finance have great professors. Every course is competitive though.</li>
</ol>