I always see UPenn listed very high on party school rankings. Is this accurate and what do most students do for fun?
We talked about this on page 86 of the ED discussion post. It’s like half way down the page, starting with @TheWaffleMan149 's question. I think a lot of us applying aren’t party animals. The general vibe I got from current students and campus visits is that Penn students socialize a lot but they also work hard
@naeaf1 the post above is very accurate. Penn students are very hardworking and motivated but at the same time most of them know how to socialize, party and have a good time. By elite school standards Penn students are probably party animals, bu that doesn’t say much. Imo it is great that the majority is very motivated, smart, hardworking without being nerds/socially awkward.
Penn is definitely a party school, insofar as any large university can be generalized down to a two-word descriptive phrase like that. Disclaimer: obviously there are people from all walks of life, meaning that if you don’t want to drink, you can make a lot of friends that don’t want to either. If you want to go do a BYO every now and then, there will be people in that boat, too.
With that being said, I’ve visited other state flagship and private universities and been to frat parties, bar crawls, and tailgates at them. Penn can hold its own and then some. The biggest difference is that the partying is condensed into Thursday night, Friday night, and Saturday night at Penn. That’s because students here have other stuff to do, such as serious extracurriculars and never-ending schoolwork. (I don’t mean to imply that people at state schools don’t have these, but these things tend to take up a lot more time at Penn.) Contrastingly, my friends at UF tell me that Monday night is the big bar night, and a lot of bars have all-you-can-drink specials starting, say, Friday at 11am. Plus, these schools have football tailgate scenes, which Penn does not. Or, my friends that went Greek at state schools will have mixers on Tuesday and Wednesday nights. That’s absolutely unheard of at Penn.
Basically, the parties themselves are as crazy / wild / etc. as any other school out there, but that’s on weekend nights, not during the week and not on weekend days.
The party scene, in a humorous exaggerated tone is described:
http://theodysseyonline.com/upenn/top-10-reasons-why-penn-the-best-ivy/235045
In fact most of the time Penn students work very very hard.
i wouldn’t say they are anywhere close to a state school scene speaking from experience. Really good for a school with a lot of smart people in it though!
my friend goes to upenn and he says that the parties can get crazy sometimes, but I agree in that they are nowhere close to state schools, like PSU, ASU, or WVU. I think upenn can be named the top party school among the ivies. still a pretty good reputation to have
work hard play twice as harder
I’m a sophomore at Penn. Parties get as wild as you want them to. I’m very active in clubs and we have BYOs at restaurants downtown a ton, especially now that it’s the end of the semester.
However, I went a period of maybe 5 weeks not going to any parties because of illness and just general disinterest, and I was perfectly happy. There’s really no pressure to be a part of the party scene if you don’t want it. One of my best friends here doesn’t drink at all or go out and she loves it here.
I went to Penn undergrad, and I agree with @cassat… Penn can be a very work hard, play hard environment. People are innately hardworking, but enjoy to be social, too. That said, there are plenty of people in the library Friday and Saturday nights 