Harvard vs. UPenn

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Pennsylvania
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Hi, I was recently admitted to Harvard and UPenn (and Duke and Dartmouth, but these two are the front-runners), and I’m unsure of what to choose.

I’m looking to party in college–or at least have a pretty “traditional” college social scene–and I think in that aspect I would enjoy UPenn more. In fact, I like a lot about UPenn: Philly, the campus, the opportunity to take classes in/double major at Wharton (I got into CAS).

However, Harvard is, of course, Harvard. I am interested in Classics (which Harvard is top notch in, moreso than Penn (I think)) and political science (honestly not sure). My vague long term goal is law school, but who knows. I think I could get a better academic experience at Harvard, with more opportunities for learning and careers later on. I don’t want to feel I compromised my future in favor of a fun college time, so turning down Harvard would be an extraordinarily hard decision and one I’m afraid I’ll regret if I made it.

So, that brings me to my questions.

What’s the social scene at like Harvard? Are there parties, bars, etc.? This is what I’m most intrigued by.
Do you think Penn’s academics would be a step down from Harvard’s?
For classics/political science, what’s better?

I have a friend at UPenn who says it’s a great school (and I’m sure it is!), but I imagine the same is true of people at Harvard.

Finally, I’m aware this is the UPenn forum, so I’ve braced accordingly.

Thanks!

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@howtobe As I said in my other reply to you, fit is very important especially when we are talking about colleges at this level. As I said before you sound like a better fit for Penn than Harvard.

Just to reiterate, Harvard has greater prestige, but you will not be missing out on any opportunities if you attend Penn. That said of course I get how hard it is to turn down Harvard. If you end up picking Harvard, at least make sure you actually like the place and you can fit in there somewhat well., don’t do it just because of the prestige.

Another thing I forgot to ask in my other post is what are your career interests?

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This is a tough one. Harvard is Harvard. It is difficult to turn that down.

D1 is at Penn, and after visiting Harvard, she had zero interest in even applying. After her visit, she was convinced that she would not enjoy her experience as much at Harvard. Honestly, I tried to convince her to at least apply, but I failed in that effort. She is thriving at Penn. and I don’t feel like she has forgone anything. In another month she is heading off to Google for a summer internship, just like many of her Harvard counterparts.

Reasons to choose Penn?
Penn is the Social Ivy. You will be there for four years. You want to enjoy your experience and have a traditional college experience. If you think you will be happier in the Penn environment, it is worth considering. Those experiences also create the bonds that lead to a strong Alumni network.

Penn has better weather. As the southernmost Ivy, it gets a lot less snow and cold than Harvard. Another quality of life improvement.

Any difference in academic rigor should be slight, if it is noticeable at all. Incoming Penn students have a bit lower test scores than Harvard students, but had higher high school GPA’s. Not much of a difference. Penn’s experience is that GPA is more predictive of success than test scores are.

With regard to careers, Harvard can’t be beat for opening doors. However, after Harvard, Penn grads have the second highest average salaries in the Ivy League, so it isn’t a huge step down, and for many it isn’t a step down at all.

An irony of this process is that many students want top colleges because of the brand. However, the students who actually get in and are successful don’t really need the brand. I suspect you will, be a big success, wherever you choose to enroll.

Overall, Harvard is a slightly better opportunity, but if you think you will fit better in the Penn environment, then you may be more successful where you feel you belong and fit in better. It has worked out very well for my student.

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It’s Wharton. When you can name the business school and not have to add the college name, that speaks volumes.

If you weren’t in Wharton, i think it’s a harder choice. I loved Penn when I visted with my D. The NPC was substantially higher at Penn so D didn’t apply. She also didn’t like it as much as Princeton and Harvard. She did get in to Harvard. If she was accepted to Penn and the price was the same, it would not be an automatic answer of Harvard. I like Boston much better than Philly but it is definitely colder. I’ve lived in RI and in MD so just south of both schools and there is a big difference in cold and snow between the two if that matters to you.

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@Sportsman88 OP is in CAS, not Wharton. He/She would be interested in pursuing a dual degree with Wharton.

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Duh, CAS is College of Arts and Sciences. I purged most of Penn’s brief since it really wasn’t likely to be affordable.

I was thinking CAS was one of the special programs in Wharton. I didn’t realize you could double major in Wharton if you were CAS, I thought only the reverse - if you are admitted to Wharton.

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Penn is a campus with very social undergraduate students. They have their calendars packed with classes, research and studying, but every other available space is filled with social events (plays, sorority / fraternity socials, club socials, pre-professional society events). If this type of schedule fits your personality, it is a beautiful and fulfilling place to spend 4 years with students from all 4 schools. Students get large discounts and many Philly events.

For our D, it became the #1 choice after touring over a dozen schools and realizing that she could immerse in a technical program and socialize among a broad student body that neither conformed nor desired to act out-of-the box.

On the other hand, there are over college 250,000 students living and socializing in Boston. Socializing, attending events and dating has no college campus boundaries. We still refer to Boston as Bean Town because in comparison to NYC and Philly it feels more like a town and not a large metropolitan city. Walking through Cambridge, the Back Bay, on Commonwealth Ave, or the Garden, you cannot identify a group by their college. Trains and streets are usually filled with medical professionals and students. You do need to tolerate the weather though… 2017 Spring has not yet arrived.

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@Sportsman88 Yes of course you can do a dual degree with Wharton from any school and vice versa. CAS is College of Arts and Sciences, one of the four undergraduate schools at Penn (the others being SEAS, Wharton, Nursing). Wharton doesn’t have any special programs that i know of. Maybe you mean the coordinated dual degree programs between Wharton and CAS, SEAS and Nursing? There are called LSM, M&T and NHCM, respectively.

And yeah I agree as much as I love Penn, most applicants def choose Harvard over Penn. A good number of the coordinated dual degree program admits does choose Penn over Harvard, it that is it really. While the opportunities will be comparable in both schools, Harvard has a name that is rather hard to turn down.

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@howtobe you can’t go wrong with either. Harvard will have plenty of social opportunities (at BU! didn’t you see Social Network…) and Penn will have plenty of good classics profs. (Also, Penn has a deal with Bryn Mawr, Haverford, Swarthmore. You can take (almost) any class you want out there, if there’s a particular prof that floats your boat.)

The reality is Philly and Boston are pretty similar, Penn and Harvard are pretty similar. They pull from about the same student pool. Harvard grabs slightly more of the top stats kids, Penn is a bit bigger so might have a bit more variety of students. (probably not enough to matter.)

If everything is equal, go to Harvard just for the brand factor, but if there is something about Penn or Philly that speaks to you, you will not be harmed by going to Penn.

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Hi There- i can’t say i was in an identical position but that being said, I did choose Penn over Yale which is pretty unanimously considered “more prestigious” than Penn. I would start by saying that your Harvard education at the undergraduate level will not be superior to your Penn undergraduate education. I work with lots of Ivy alums and frankly, everyone from Columbia and Yale are just as smart as the kids from Penn, Princeton and Harvard-- they attract strikingly similar student bodies on the whole and provide very similar opportunities to their students. Harvard students do tend to have marginally higher SAT scores but Penn students have marginally higher high school GPAs. Both schools will be full of diverse and passionate students who are excited to take on the most exciting educational endeavors of their lives. At this level of university, I think it’s most important to consider fit. Harvard and Penn students take nearly identical jobs after graduation and attend nearly identical graduate schools (the variations between them are probably due in large part to self selection). Harvard has a much more experienced staff for students trying to attain Rhodes Scholarships but the difference between them is negligible and Rhodes Scholarships are so rare that you shouldn’t really consider it as a major factor when choosing a school. And Penn does have its share of Rhodes scholars and since they’ve instituted policies similar to those of Harvard’s they’ve been sending more students to Oxford with much greater frequency. That being said, Harvard has the most name recognition in the world and if that matters to you then Penn will never satisfy you. On the flip side, Penn students have a much more relaxed, accessible, and exciting social scene.

And Penn has Locust Walk. Yes, harvard has the yard… but there is just nothing quite like locust walk :wink:

Feel free to reach out if you have any questions about how I ended up choosing Penn over “more prestigious” options. I’ll say that my Penn degree has consistently helped me to attain my goals and I wouldn’t trade my experiences there for anything :slight_smile:

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Thank you for the advice everyone! It was great to hear from people with personal experiences with this or similar decisions, and the main lesson I’ve got so far is that I can’t go wrong… which is definitely a good problem to have. I’ll be going to a Quaker Day and a Visitas soon, so hopefully that will help me make a decision. As crazy as it sounds (and it sure sounds crazy to me) I’m leaning toward UPenn. Hopefully I can pick up my prestige points in grad school if I can’t get them in undergrad! If anyone has anything else to offer, especially about the social scenes at each but also anything else, I’d love to hear it.

@Penn95 I plan to attend law school (but those plans are extremely vague and very subject to change). I’m looking to keep my options open, which I feel both colleges could offer: Harvard with its strong departments in just about everything, and UPenn with its one university policy.

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@howtobe i also want to emphasize that you’ll still be picking up ‘prestige points’ with Penn! Compared to Harvard, no school has prestige points! But compared to the rest of the universities in the entire world, Penn has about as much prestige as you can imagine.

Also- the most important things for law school admissions are your LSAT and GPA. The prestige of the school does play a small role but the difference in prestige between Harvard and Penn is not big enough to make a difference. So your best bet is to go to the school where you think you’ll have the highest GPA, have access to the most resources to build a unique resume, and have the most opportunities to incorporate into your ultimate application. You’ll usually find those things at the school at which you’ll be happiest and most capable of thriving! So if your long term goal is law school, then go to the school where you think you’ll be in the best position to do your best work.

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@howtobe
Regarding prestige just keep in mind that the difference is relative. Yes, Harvard is more prestigious than Penn for sure, but Penn is also pretty prestigious itself where it matters. The prestige difference with Harvard is that you can impress the random person on the street who has no knowledge about top schools, but with Penn you usually can’t.

Penn has great departments, you wouldn’t be sacrificing academics or anything. For undergrad all the top 10 schools or so will provide you with practically comparable academic quality and opportunities more or less.
The one University policy helps a lot. You can even take law school courses at Penn Law as an undergrad. Also there is an option os sub-matriculating into Penn Law as an undergrad.

Honestly if you feel you will be happier at Penn go for it. Some sacrifice in prestige is worth being happier and fitting in better during you college career. You will have better college life and usually you perform better in a place where you fit in well.
Whatever you choose, think it through well first and make sure you are honest with yourself so that you have no regrets.

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and a fun little piece from Forbes:

“University of Pennsylvania: Once-gritty West Philly is now thriving University City… Like Columbia, Penn has Engineering; like Dartmouth, it has Business. Unlike the others, Penn throws toast at football games, reveling in its reputation as the “Happy Ivy.” The place is enough fun that I once had a student decline an offer from Harvard in order to be a cheerleader at Penn.”

https://www.forbes.com/sites/christeare/2016/04/17/why-applying-to-all-eight-ivy-league-options-makes-no-sense/#58d8c6cf3a97

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@PennCAS2014 @howtobe John Legend also turned down Harvard to come to Penn hahah :slight_smile:

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@howtobe, if you pretty much care about the name in general, then H. From what I read from your mind based upon your posts, Penn probably FITS you genuinely. GL

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I went to Harvard and it is definitely not a “party” school. Sure, people go out but if you are into party weekends, beer drinking, and a traditional “college” scene, you may find Harvard disappointing. While it isn’t high on your list, you may much more enjoy Dartmouth.

The one nice thing about Harvard is we rarely had to write long posts extolling the virtues of the place or why it was a great university. Indeed, the only place we used to complain about was Stanford and how it had much better weather!

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@exlibris97 Harvard is Harvard, no one needs to extol it any further. The name alone does the job.

@howtobe just curious, what did you end up choosing?

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@Penn95 Not just Harvard, many universities are exceptionally well known and have no need for “extolling”. The insecurity or whatever is self-generated. Almost without exception, universities are better regarded from without.