<p>Interestingly, if top LACs primarily excel at producing academics, it is noteworthy that Forbes Magazine’s 2010 Best Colleges ranks Williams (#1), Amherst, Swarthmore, HYP and Stanford in the top 10 and Penn at #36. Forbes isn’t exactly a pedantic/left-leaning publication, a bit more practical and success-oriented than that. I do actually know a bit about Penn (5 close relatives attended and one relative was a dean at Penn), and it is a fine school. “Quantitatively” (which ignores self-selection of applicants), Wash. U. also looks quite selective, but it also has to try a bit harder.</p>
<p>^ Dad2, are you familiar with the criteria used for the Forbes ranking? They’re quite silly, and it’s a ranking not generally taken seriously by those familiar with elite college rankings and admissions.</p>
<p>Again, you’re revealing an understanding of the elite college pecking order that is quite dated, and erroneous (your initial reference to Penn’s purportedly current “upward trajectory” in the US News ranking was the first tip-off :)).</p>
<p>Forbes just purposely chose different methodology than US News because if they used the same methodology and got the same results, then their list wouldn’t have been interesting reading. That list puts Whitman College in front of Caltech and Chicago. It is a joke. Claremont McKenna beats out Yale! The average student at Yale will run intellectual circles around Claremont McKenna’s students. </p>
<p>Here they describe their methodology: our list of more than 600 undergraduate institutions is based on the quality of the education they provide, the experiences of the students and how much they achieve. Sounds appropriately vague! </p>
<p>You claim to work at an Ivy League grad school. Maybe you do. But to me it wouldn’t matter if you’re the top engineer at NASA because your posts are full of misinformation and spurious arguments. Your argument for the professional success of top LAC gads is that Forbes ranked them highly, and the general tone of Forbes magazine is practical and success-oriented? Seriously? I feel like I’m debating a 12 year old. </p>
<p>At NY’s top firms, the two top undergrad degrees are Harvard and Wharton. Princeton, Yale, Williams, Dartmouth and a few others are also highly respected. Maybe the recruiters accidentally skimmed over the college rankings in Forbes. When they eventually read them, I’m sure they will change their recruiting practices accordingly. In the interest of full disclosure, yes I go to Wharton. So did my dad, who can confirm what I said about recruiting practices, although he’s actually too busy to post on an online forum so you’ll have to take my word for it.</p>
<p>^ But it’s NOT a joke when US News ranks Wharton’s MBA program at #5?</p>
<p>To be a more successful anti-Penn ■■■■■, you need to at least try to be a bit more consistent! ;)</p>
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<p>And for this, you are the Joe Schmo of all joe schmos. Oh wait…are you offended? Guess I don’t care.</p>
<p>^45 percenter- excellent point 
powerbomb- LOL…</p>
<p>Looks like our friend googlepo and his posts have been purged from this thread.</p>
<p>Isn’t it obvious what is going on here? Dad2 has an oh-so-darling daughter that, regardless of persistent pushing, went to an LAC over a tier-2 state school after being rejected from all the ivies. Dad2 was disappointed to be paying full freight for a school that no one knew about, let alone heard of. After months of getting “Oh… and where’s that?” in conversations about colleges with other parents, he slowly decided to justify his daughter’s decision by claiming to those around him that LACs are superior to the mid-bottom(non-HYP) ivies. </p>
<p>Sample Conversation:
Dad2 - she’s going to Swarthmore
Typical Parent - Oh… and where’s that?
Dad2 - Ahh, you’ve never heard of it. It’s a prestigious LAC that is better than many ivies such as Penn and Columbia. She made a good decision.
Typical Parent - (Upon hearing Penn and Columbia in the fray)Impressive. </p>
<p>So, as you can see, the poor guy has created a vision for himself to use on other parents. Seeing its success, Dad2 has slowly believed his own lie as justification that his daughter made a good decision(and he is paying 55k each year for that decision). </p>
<p>So cut the poor guy some slack. Had he been paying 55k each year towards Penn, I’m sure he would embrace the college and say it’s better than Harvard, Yale, and Princeton combined. </p>
<p>Man I love snow days… :D</p>
<p>^ kidPenn, I just looked at Dad2’s thread/post history.</p>
<p>You nailed it. :)</p>
<p>sorry for a weird interruption, but Penn has snow days?!?</p>
<p>what? I’m not in Penn, I’m going to Penn next year(Penn '15). We had a snow day(high school) today and I was just passing time.</p>
<p>Reading Dad2’s post history is actually quite hysterical. He literally cannot go two posts without praising Swathmore, regardless of how unrelated it is to conversation at hand, and degrading all other schools.</p>
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Wow Powerbomb. Way to misquote me once again. You forgot the emoticon of the tongue sticking out, a clear giveaway of sarcasm. </p>
<p>I guess either Penn these days accepts people with no common sense or who deliberately misrepresent information. I came to this thread pretty unbiased, but it’s students like you who make me glad I never applied to Penn in the first place.</p>
<p>Steller et al: actually, the only ivy attended by my immediate family is Harvard (X2); Penn has been successfully used as a safety (accepted, not attended). I just happen to be a champion of top LACs as the best possible undergraduate education for many (however, the naive don’t seem to turn the page after reading the USNWR universities list): if you’ve explored my posting history you’ll see that I am jazzed about most top tier LACS (SWAP, etc.). Major universities, including ivies, are generally best for graduate and professional school (Wharton is an exception, of course), but are also fine undergraduate schools.</p>
<p>The comments on this thread range from reasonable to self-serving to dumb and pretentious, but I think that Dad2’s post #63 hits the point.</p>
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<p>If Penn were ranked around 15, would anybody actually be surprised? No. </p>
<p>Would it be any less prestigious? No, unless you are simply winnowing the definition of prestige to mean whether college-bound seniors care about it.</p>
<p>Would the educational quality be significantly different? No; the only difference may be that you’d get a slightly lower-caliber student attracted to the school, which would doubtfully have a major impact on the university’s quality.</p>
<p>People here seem to be struggling with the fact that prestige =/= quality. If Harvard suddenly decided that it would try out a new teaching method where professors would simply stand in front of the classroom and try to telepathically communicate the day’s lesson, would prestige suffer? Not really, it’s still Harvard.</p>
<p>As far as prestige goes, at least according to my definition (what percent of people know/care about it), you have Harvard (gap) Yale and Princeton (gap) MIT, Stanford and Columbia (gap) and then maybe places like Georgetown, Michigan, Berkeley, etc. that have huge name-recognition but aren’t set on a pedestal. </p>
<p>PS: So people do not simply come back and attacking me as an anti-Penn ■■■■■, please feel free to use the same logic for WashU. If we were ranked 25, nobody would blink an eyelash (if it weren’t to happen overnight, that is), but we would still be just as good a school, and our prestige (among the general populace) would be identical.</p>
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<p>I seriously doubt that many current-day Harvard applicants view Penn as a safety, with a probable Regular Decision acceptance rate this year of 9.6%. Perhaps not as preferable to many as Harvard (or some other school), but in no way a safety as that term is commonly used.</p>
<p>Also, you don’t seem to understand that many applicants to Penn and other top universities do consider–and apply to–the top LACs, but ultimately prefer and choose the opportunities (in terms of breadth and depth of available courses, research opportunities, extracurriculars, and social life) that are available at research universities and not at top LACs.</p>
<p>It’s really a matter of personal preference and fit, and one type of experience is not superior to the other in all cases and for all kids. And it’s one thing to advocate for the advantages and benefits of top LACs, but quite another to make blanket statements that they are more prestigious than, or provide an undergraduate experience that’s superior to, other top schools such as Penn. Or to refer to Penn as a “safety” for top LACs, or for any other top school for that matter (including Harvard). Or to assert that Penn’s prestige is due to its “upward trajectory” in the US News ranking. Especially when the readily available facts (comparative admit rates, yields, SAT ranges, and high school GPAs; prominent prep school college choices; Penn’s top-7 US News ranking for 14 straight years; etc.), completely undercut your assertions. Quite frankly, such assertions–especially when made gratuitously in a thread about Penn’s prestige in the Penn forum–make you come off as a bit of a ■■■■■. I assume that’s not your intent.</p>
<p>Bottom line: continue to advocate enthusiastically for the strengths and benefits of the top LACs, if you so desire, but avoid the gratuitous swipes at other schools in the process, especially when those swipes are so thoroughly impeached by the readily available objective evidence.</p>
<p>And continue being an involved and supportive dad (something to which I can definitely relate 
).</p>
<p>i don’t like dad2 (a bit illogical)…
ok, lets be honest now… (m not biased)
internationally, penn isn’t really renowned. But so isn’t wharton, so does that make it a bad place? Definately NO…!! If i say that i got into the worst course in yale, people here would be 100x more impressed if i said i got into M&T… but we all know how exclusive M&T is…
Conclusion: We should never talk about prestige and what the ‘common people’ think or say…</p>
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So what did you think your sarcasm was going to get accomplished? </p>
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<p>Don’t worry, I wouldn’t want you at Penn, either.</p>
<p>EDIT: Gosh, I’m not going to respond to you anymore, but I’ll end by saying that it is pretty quite funny how much offense you take at the word Joe Schmo. Good luck.</p>
<p>To show my age, one of the most impressive things I saw in the late eighties at a Penn football game (250th??). The band spelled out PENNSYLVANIA. As it was happening, we, from the other school, thought there was no way they’d have enough people. It went from endzone to endzone. It’s an Ivy. Nuff said.</p>
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<p>I think a lot of people would be surprised. The only school that I would agree to put before Penn from 6-15 is MIT…and maybe Caltech.</p>