<p>Does UPenn have a strong, well-known CS program? Also, can I depend on UPenn for financial aid (not heavy on loans)? Those are my criteria for colleges right now, and I'm considering UPenn. </p>
<p>Also, I'm not that familiar with the school, so I was wondering how competitive admissions are at UPenn (and if it matters, for a CS major). How is the local area and school itself? Safe?</p>
<p>Can someone provide me some info for my inquiries?</p>
<ul>
<li><p>For things like CS, math, physical sciences, engineering, etc. Penn is strong but definitely not top. If you are looking for the best programs in the nation, I think you want MIT, Cornell, Carnegie Mellon, and perhaps a few others. But a CS degree from Penn is respected and will get you a good, high-paying job after graduation.</p></li>
<li><p>Ivies have some of the best financial aid in the country. I don’t know what your family’s annual income is. If you can’t get financial aid at Penn, you probably can’t get it anywhere with the exception of perhaps Harvard or Princeton.</p></li>
<li><p>Admissions to all top schools are highly competitive, with acceptance rates of around 10% of applicants. So for every one applicant they accept, they will reject nine. To be considered for admissions, you will want a high GPA and SAT/ACT and a strong body of work outside the classroom (sports, academic competitions, community service, music, etc.)</p></li>
<li><p>Penn has the fourth largest private police force in the nation. Safety is taken very seriously. The advice that you always hear is to use common sense; don’t want down a dark, shady street at 3 AM by yourself. Penn security guards will escort you to any location you want. In four years, I never felt threatened or in danger.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>My best advice is to do a tour of campus. If you can’t do that, just poke around on these websites:</p>
<p>[Penn:</a> University of Pennsylvania](<a href=“http://www.upenn.edu/]Penn:”>http://www.upenn.edu/)
[Computer</a> & Information Science](<a href=“All Degree Requirements”>All Degree Requirements)</p>
<p>@sunkist
Thanks for the info! I’d love to tour UPenn in person, but airline fees are a bit much for my family if I’m already paying for application fees and so much more next year. I probably only have a chance to tour one school of my choice on the East coast.</p>
<p>I do need financial aid. My family makes less than 80k a year, family of four with no ownership of a house (rent only). My GPA is perfect UW (~4.4 W), only slightly off from perfect for SATs, perfect SAT subjects, and I have all the activities with leadership you listed except competitions.</p>
<p>Glad to hear about UPenn’s security. Now, the only deciding factor for me would be their CS program!</p>
<ul>
<li><p>I’m not sure about their CS program but it doesn’t seem to me that Penn is a tippy-top school in that field.</p></li>
<li><p>Financial aid at Penn is VERY good and includes no loans. Even for families with some assets and a normalish income, you can get very good aid.</p></li>
<li><p>Admissions for CS I imagine would be a bit harder, since you’re applying to the School of Engineering and not the College. I think their acceptance rate for the regular decision round this year was 9.9%, although overall it was about 12%.</p></li>
<li><p>UPenn is in Philadelphia, which is GREAT if you’re into the urban campus, city life kinda thing. As with every large city there is SOME crime, but Penn has a super large police force and they make sure you’re safe. This April I was walking right around campus after midnight with a bunch of other girls and we felt totally safe. We saw many Penn security guards patrolling on their bikes and we never felt like we had wandered somewhere dangerous. I don’t know about a few streets away from campus, though, as we mostly stayed within sight of the few buildings we knew.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Edit: If you’d like to visit campus, I know that this year for their Scholars’ Preview they flew in (as in, they paid for your flight and stay) a few people who were either low income, URM, international, or from an under-represented area. It happens AFTER you get admitted but still, it’s good for helping make up your mind.</p>
<p>Penn’s no MIT or Caltech, but its computer science department is very strong. There are also many options you can pursue within it; the program is very flexible. Take a look [url=<a href=“All Degree Requirements”>Program Offerings]here[/url</a>].</p>
<p>Hi,</p>
<p>I’m a grad student in CS so I thought I’d clear up some misconceptions in this post. Penn has a pretty good program. Its not as big/strong as MIT, but is actually better than Caltech, which is not known for CS. </p>
<p>The big 4 programs in CS are Berkeley, CMU, Stanford, and MIT. If you are positive you want to do CS you want to go to one of those schools. For a CS education though, especially if you don’t mind it being on the more theoretical end instead of practical, the ivy league schools are pretty good. Penn is roughly equivalent to Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Columbia in terms of its CS department. Cornell has a slightly bigger/better department, and Dartmouth and Brown have slightly worse departments. Like any school, Penn has its strengths: probably programming languages, machine learning, and theory. The department is ~ 30-40 people, so obviously doesn’t cover as much area as a school like CMU with 300-400 faculty working in CS. If you want to go work at Google though, or go on to grad school, especially if you also have interests outside CS, you couldn’t do much better than Penn.</p>