<p>Don't say UPenn. It makes you sound like an idiot. I'm calling everyone out on this once and for all. There has never ever been a reason to say "UPenn" unless you're spelling out an email address.</p>
<p>If you're making a chances thread, let me put it this way: call the school by its proper name. That will help your chances more than anything else you could do.</p>
<p>you should ask for this to be stickied, seriously</p>
<p>and i should make a new post that says "wharton is part of penn, and no wharton = no penn"</p>
<p>I still like UPenn. Penn sounds like Penn State (a common misconception but nonetheless).</p>
<p>I find that the university is a lot more recognizable in discussion if I say UPenn. If I say Penn, they almost CERTAINLY assume Penn State. I don't think it's a matter of intelligence; it's more of a matter of similar names. To avoid confusion, I usually use UPenn. This is the primary reason, I suppose, for putting the "U" in front of it.</p>
<p>In my essay, though, I always referred to it as "the University of Pennsylvania" or "the university". It sounds more professional. Using an acronym or an abbreviation makes you sound more relaxed. "Penn" or "UPenn" both was a no-no for me.</p>
<p>^ i basically did the opposite in my essays. the first time i called it "the university of pennsylvania" but after that i just referred to it as Penn</p>
<p>Is this a question of what's considered Penn etiquette...or one man's pet peeve?</p>
<p>In this case, they're one and the same.</p>
<p>In discussion, if you are afraid that someone will confuse "Penn" with "Penn State", say "University of Pennsylvania". We have a saying on campus that captures the meaning: "Those who need to know, know the difference"</p>
<p>I'm not saying that I'll raise hell if someone gets it wrong. I'm saying that every time someone (usually a prospective student) says UPenn, it's like they're wearing a giant sign that says they've never stepped foot on campus, read the website, or spoken to professor or student. Make yourself look educated by using the correct name.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I still like UPenn. Penn sounds like Penn State (a common misconception but nonetheless).
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</p>
<p>I've said that I attend "The University of Pennsylvania" to many people who then make a reference to Penn State, Happy Valley, football, or a question if I'm on the main campus. You just have to pick your battles. Would you rather have confusion with a respectable state school or just blank stares and looks of "I've never heard of that school, is this kid smart?"</p>
<p>mattwonder: "If you're making a chances thread, let me put it this way: call the school by its proper name. That will help your chances more than anything else you could do."
-You contradict yourself, you say you want people to refer to the school as Penn, but then you say they should call it by it's proper name, which would be University of Pennsylvania, so I'm a little confused. What you really meant to say was "MY abbreviation is superior to YOUR abbreviation."</p>
<p>"every time someone (usually a prospective student) says UPenn, it's like they're wearing a giant sign that says they've never stepped foot on campus, read the website, or spoken to professor or student. Make yourself look educated by using the correct name."
-Again you contradict yourself, you say anyone who says UPenn has never read the school's website, yet to read the website you'd have to enter the schools URL, which is, in fact, <a href="http://www">www</a>. upenn .edu (spaces to prevent it from automatically becoming a link). And again, there's the small fact that niether UPenn NOR Penn is the "correct" name.</p>
<p>It's people like you who give the Ivy League a reputation for being pompous and arrogant. How about we let people refer to the University of Pennsylvania/UPenn/Penn however they want, and focus on what they're actually saying about the school, not some petty debate over nicknames.</p>
<p>^^Great post.</p>
<p>^Penn is the proper nickname. No student, professor, alum, or anyone else associated with the university calls it UPenn. It's like mispronouncing the school name.</p>
<p>^What do you mean by "proper" name? Do you mean most commonly used, most recognizable, most accepted...?</p>
<p>If we're going to divide ourselves on the basis of how we refer to our school name then we're just being petty. My take on it is if you've gone through the rigors of the application process and have been accepted, you can call it what you want (between UPenn, Penn or the U of Penn).</p>
<p>^Like I said, it's like mispronouncing the name. It's not terribly bad and saying UPenn won't get you rejected. All the same, I constantly cringe whenever my mom calls it "UPenn". It just sounds wrong.</p>
<p>From Wikipedia:
[quote]
^ In addition to Penn, U of P and Pennsylvania, UPenn has come into fairly common usage due to university officials establishing the domain name of the university as "upenn.edu." Penn has been used by sportswriters for at least a century, e.g. Crowther, Samuel (1905). Rowing and Track Athletics. The Macmillan company, 85. [3]. Official emphasis on Penn began c. 1990 and intensified in 2002 with President Rodin's "One University" initiative.[4]. The University's formal branding and usage guidelines [5], [6], [7] specify Penn and the "Penn-University of Pennsylvania" logo but do not explicitly deprecate UPenn or other abbreviations. The recent popularity of UPenn is probably influenced by campus email addresses which use the domain name "upenn.edu," and possibly by parallels with UMass and UConn (which, unlike UPenn, have official status and are trademarked). Daily Pennsylvanian columnist Jeff Shafer traces the origin of the "upenn" domain name to pre-Internet days, citing SAS computing head Ira Winston as saying that in the early days of email the University chose upenn.csnet, which "mimicked the University of Delaware's udel.csnet." Thus the choice of "upenn" was made when computer network names had little public visibility, and before the university decided to emphasize Penn as part of a conscious branding strategy. Shafer says the university studied the feasibility of full conversion to "penn.edu" in 2002 but decided that the costs were too high.[8]. UPenn is seen in college guides.[9]. The abbreviation "U. Penn" appears in novels[10] and in academic journal abbreviations, e.g U. Penn L. Rev[11], (although the National Library of Medicine uses the abbreviation Univ PA).[12] "U Penn"[13][14] and U-Penn[15] are also seen.
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</p>
<p>^^Exactly my point, it doesn't really matter at all. Sounds like a case of tradition vs. that dreaded thing called "change."</p>
<p>There are different types of change. Let's take Russia as the example:
Fall of USSR: good
Rise of Putin who is basically a dictator: bad</p>
<p>Saying UPenn just sounds wrong to most of the people associated with the university. </p>
<p>Would you want the pronounciation of your name to change because others ignore how you say your name and choose to say it however they want?</p>
<p>^^All I'm saying is it's a matter of choice. The usage of UPenn is not foreign to any of us cause we all know what it refers to (I use Penn myself, and sooooo many people don't know exactly what that is). Every single member of the Penn community will never be in full agreement on one usage, so trying to put everyone on one or two prevailing ways to say the school name is all in vain.</p>
<p>It really doesn't matter.</p>
<p>Most people here happen to call it Penn.</p>
<p>Calling it UPenn isn't "wrong," but it just sounds funny, considering that very few here actually say it that way. Saying "The University of Pennsylvania" is just fine, too.</p>
<p>Living on the edges of the Penn community for almost 25 years now, I have never heard "You Penn" come out of the mouth of anyone associated with the university. Maybe it happens now; things do change. But I'm in the "it sounds stupid" camp.</p>
<p>I'm a caddy at a golf club and every single time the golfer asks where I go to school. Everytime I say Penn. Sometimes they congratulate me or tell me their son/daughter went there. Other times they just nod their head.</p>
<p>It's pretty obvious when they understand I'm going to the University of Pennsylvania. But even when they think I mean Penn State I don't bother correcting them - it's not worth it. </p>
<p>It's not all that big of a deal, what you call it outside of campus. But it seems that unless you want to get a funny look or a snicker you should call it "Penn." Penn is the official short name - it's on all the merchandise and apparel.</p>
<p>When people asked me for advice on writing their essays, I reccommended to always say Penn and not UPenn.</p>
<p>I do call it UPenn at times.. when I'm asked where i'm going I neverr say Penn because no one knows what I mean. I agree it sounds kind of funny though.</p>
<p>Some schools can pull it off well though like UConn and UMass</p>