<p>My son is deciding among Penn and some other excellent-but-not-ivy choices. Our primary concern is safety. Perusing the crime reports is not particuarly reassuring. Aggravated assault at noon on Walnut Street?</p>
<p>Can anyone give me some straight talk about campus safety at Penn?</p>
<p>A lot of people at my high school tried to play up West Philly as a dangerous place saying, but in reality being at Penn is like living in any city. If you have common sense and street smarts you’ll be fine. West Philly itself is perfectly safe, I walk west to 46th street regularly during the afternoon and I’ve always felt safe. You may not want to do that at night, but that’s the same anywhere you go. There is security everywhere on campus, they have a camera system so often if you are alone at night on locust walk for example, one of the Penn Police might actually approach you and ask you if you need an escort.</p>
<p>Unless your son is exceptionally reckless and/or naive, safety should NOT be a factor in deciding whether to attend Penn. It attracts more and more top applicants every year (almost 32,000 this year), its acceptance rate continues to go down (12.3% this year), it continually maintains one of the highest admissions yield rates in the country (63%), and it remains one of the most popular schools in the country for top students who have PLENTY of great choices. Common sense, alone, says that if student safety were a real issue, Penn would not be so popular.</p>
<p>As Poeme points out, any big city school–and even suburban schools–will have occasional issues with crime or personal safety (e.g., a student on the bucolic, suburban campus of Swarthmore College was recently attacked by a group of local teenagers). But as long as your son acts with the same level of reasonable prudence that characterizes the other 10,000 Penn undergrads–and 10,000 grad students–safety should not be a concern (e.g., don’t walk the streets of the far reaches of West Philly, alone, at 3 AM, etc.).</p>
<p>Nothing annoys me more than when kids here complain about safety or west philly being bad. Every big city has ****ty areas, Philly not being some extraordinary exception. I haven’t had a single problem here and most people don’t as long as they’re not doing something they shouldn’t be. I understand your concern for your son but he’s a big boy and he’ll be alright at Penn.</p>
<p>This happened at Swarthmore College, which is in the suburbs: [Students</a> attacked in possible hate crime at Swarthmore | The Daily Pennsylvanian](<a href=“http://www.thedp.com/article/students-attacked-possible-hate-crime-swarthmore]Students”>http://www.thedp.com/article/students-attacked-possible-hate-crime-swarthmore)</p>
<p>Penn is a very safe campus despite the reputation of its surrounding area. But safety is an issue at any campus, as the above article demonstrates.</p>
<p>Consider this. In the University City district, somewhere between 50 and 60 thousand students attend school. Penn employs 40,000 people, and there are around 100,000 people living within one mile of the center of Penn’s campus. Have there been incidents during which members of the community have been attacked by others? Yes. But you are far less likely to be attacked as a Penn student doing normal activities (read: not going to, say, 52nd and Market to hang out at 2AM) than you are as a normal person living in a normal city.</p>
<p>What may be reassuring is that the police force is very large – Penn’s own police is the seventh largest police force in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and officers have power of arrest anywhere in the Commonwealth. Penn has a separate security guard system, posting guards on bicycles in such a manner that there is no point when you are on Penn’s campus or anywhere in the zone west of campus out to 43rd Street and you cannot see a security guard.</p>
<p>What actually works out nicely for Penn students is that because it is a city, the police have better things to be doing than arresting students for petty crimes. Whereas it is a feat for students at most schools in rural PA to make it to 21 without getting an underage drinking citation, Penn takes the stance that safety is paramount, so if a party gets broken up, the police will ensure that students go home safely from an off-campus party. If there are a lot of very drunk people, they make it easy to call for a security escort anywhere in the Penn Patrol Zone. It is rare that universities actually care about policies promoting safety in typical adolescent and young adult behavior as opposed to criminalizing it and in the process creating a dangerous environment in which students would rather risk alcohol poisoning than be found by the authorities.</p>
<p>There is much I didn’t like about Penn, but security is one thing they have absolutely right.</p>
<p>Exhibit A.</p>
<p>Me.</p>
<p>I’ve lived in University City, outside dorms, since 1970. I’m out at night a lot. No problems. If it’s late or I’m tired or dressed up, I get a cab or the (free) Penn bus or shuttle from 40th Street.</p>
<p>Anywhere can have a random problem, but careful behavior can prevent a lot. (How many times do I see a student leaving an open purse in a shopping cart at the grocery store?!)</p>
<p>Yeah, the biggest crime problem at Penn is opportunistic theft. People will steal your stuff if you leave it unattended, so although it is absolutely ridiculous that a Penn student would feel the need to take someone else’s things, just recognize that it happens and be slightly careful.</p>