<p>A troll is defined as: "a post intended to provoke readers; or a person who makes such a post"</p>
<p>You would argue wrong. By posting for the sake of creating controversy, you're trolling. </p>
<p>"If you think that's not okay, you may already be advocating censorship."</p>
<p>No, I'm not advocation censorship. I'm "advocating" that you're a low-life troll who is just whining because Stanford is a single place below Penn.</p>
<p>Wait... is that it again? Yes, I think it is! It's the worlds smallest violin playing just for you. Boo. Hoo.</p>
<p>I'm gonna have to agree with Sam Lee here. I would not classify him as a troller. To be entirely honest, a lot of the immature post-swingers have actually come from this forum, I've noticed. When evaluating two schools, or comparing two aspects, I'd rather see hard evidence derived from these aspects instead of rankings. Then it may be easier to make a more accurate judgment. Just saying "X school's Y program is better than Z school's Q program" doesn't really give any evidence. WHY is a certain school's program better than another? Using evidence instead of prestige-based and/or heresy-based quips would be much better.</p>
<p>What productive would come out of discussing why "Penn shouldn't really be #4 because of X"? (which was his original post)</p>
<p>Absolutely nothing. His main argument was that parts of the formula weren't weighted correctly against others. Why use Penn as an example? Why take it to the Penn forum? Simply to make controversy (like he said himself)? That's trolling.</p>
<p>If he really wanted to discuss the formula, he should have made a post in the main forums talking about the formula, rather than focusing on Penn and Stanford. It's obvious his intention is not to create healthy debate on the method that US News uses to calculate schools, but just try to rile up the Penn board (especially looking at his previous posts, which make it obvious that he just [sarcasm]can't believe[/sarcasm] that Penn is higher than Stanford).</p>
<p>Forgive me if I missed something as I only scanned things briefly but it did not sound like he came here to simply bash Penn? I think he is just after an explanation as to why Penn is ranked the way it is, and I don't think that's so wrong to do just because it may be controversial. </p>
<p>"Why use Penn as an example? Why take it to the Penn forum?"
Because his question pertains to Penn I'd imagine.. can you show me posts where he is hypocritical in his claims or assumptions?</p>
<p>i wouldn't say hypocritical, but definately intentionally inflammatory, look at posts 32 and 40 for starters, and it generally goes downhill from there</p>
<p>Read his previous posts (even before this thread). Of course he's here to bash Penn.</p>
<p>Here's some good examples:</p>
<p>"UPenn (again) above Stanford? ***??"</p>
<p>"Of course it doesn't impact my opinion. I always think Stanford is a better school. "</p>
<p>"I think Stanford looks underrated because Penn is overrated. "</p>
<p>It's obvious what his opinion on Penn is, and how his mind won't change no matter what "constructive" arguments we have. He doesn't really care about the formula, he's just angry that Penn is rated higher than Stanford, and wants to release his anger under the guise of "healthy debate". Debate is only "healthy" when both sides are willing to be influenced by the arguments of the other, and as Sam Lee said himself, "I always think Stanford is a better school."</p>
<p>He is trolling here. He should have taken his discussion about methods to the board I agree. Plus when you add in the Ad Hominen arguments it took away any validity to his arguments.</p>
<p>Alright please ignore my previous posts... I think I have a better idea of what's going on. I don't like these "discussions" though. Obviously school spirit will rise above all. It would be like Batman saying "You know what Joker? I think that, after considering all the evidence, you are better than me. I submit to your inherent superiority and accept my position as a lowly peon compared to you," when he should be saying "I respect your badassness, but I will still own your face."</p>
<p>Actually, legendofmax, your logic is flawed, since Penn & Stanford aren't enemies, but competing superheroes. It's more like if Superman told Batman he was better. </p>
<p>Ok, so Stanford may have slightly more qualified students than Penn, but other than that and engineering, why is it that people think Stanford is a better school? All these rankings of individual departments are based on peer assessments by profs from other schools, meaning they're based on perceptions, not hard evidence.</p>
<p>Penn is underrated by many because it has gotten so much better so quickly, that it hasnt had time to sink in to people's minds. Yes, Stanford is better at engineering, but Penn is better in other fields, such as communications.</p>
<p>The only real advantage Stanford has is a stronger student body (except for Whartonites), because everyone thinks that Stanford is better, so it attracts more top-ranked students. Other than that, both schools are about equal.</p>
<p>You ask me why Penn is ranked higher than Stanford, when Stanford is a better school? Well, I respond with: why is Stanford a better school to begin with?</p>
<p>Penn's dramatic turnaround in terms of it's academic quality if even more impressive given the location of the school: on the east coast in direct competition with schools courting students also considering other Ivies and top LAC's. Stanford has the destinct advantage of being THE school out West, with Berkeley (at the undergrad level) running a pretty distant second. In general the Ivies and Stanford pull about 50-60% of their class from their prospective regions, giving Stanford the ability to admit (and be attended by) marginally more qualified applicants than Penn. When you have 1 school drawing most of the attention at one end of the country, and 10-20 schools vying for students at the other, it either speaks volumes about Penn and its ability to improve under these competitive circumstances, or it reflects very, very badly on Stanford, who under these circumstances should be able to elevate its reputation beyond any school in the country, which it clearly hasn't.</p>
<p>^ Good point. I would also like to add that Stanford gives away several hundred athletic scholarships, thereby diminishing the academic standards expected of athletes and lowering the quality of the student body as a whole. By having a different athletic conference to compete in, Stanford's administration has seen it best fit to adopt this policy. But no matter how spirited Penn is in athletics, it requires its students to have a certain academic index and only awards need-based aid. (I can't believe I'm actually involving myself in the argument!) Not that this necessarily makes any real difference per se, just an observation.</p>
<p>phillySASer08's comment was an excellent post. It does show a lot about Penn that our student body is almost as strong, with the competion we have on the east coast. It truly has become the most "Happy to be There" school in the country (according to Newsweek/Kaplan)</p>
<p>Stanford competes on a NATIONAL LEVEL with HYPM. The P is for Princeton, of course. Harvard still takes away most of the cross-admits, whether they are from the West Coast or not. It's not about regionalism (as Byerly would argue) but instead who can take the best students from around the country. Penn hasn't been able to do that in any significant way. </p>
<p>Penn's reputation and its USNews ranking are different. Stanford will still win the vast majority of cross-admits from Penn, and Harvard will probably take 90% of them. Sure, it has improved, but it still remains below the schools named in the acronym HSYPM.</p>