<p>Haha I would never have noticed that if someone didn’t mention it.</p>
<p>But I have a question about the essay anyway… how long should it be? Is a paragraph fine, or should it be a couple hundred words?</p>
<p>Well, mine was a couple hundred words. It only gives you like what, 1000 char I think? It’s not too hard to fill up. My paragraph was maybe 6-8 sentences.</p>
<p>But how can you honestly say who you would want to work with, and give a big explanation as to why that person is your choice? How clear a picture can you get of who a professor is just by looking at her/his page on the UPenn website?</p>
<p>The truth is for me, I can’t. Which was like the first sentence in my short answer. It went something like this: Even though I cannot truly say who I want to work with based on the lack of spending time with the professor, I can pick someone I would like to research with based on the interests I show in his/her work. ~~ So that’s like something I included in my short answer b/c I felt that was important and truthful. When I was looking through the UPENN biology department website for faculty members, they all looked ridiculously boring tbh. Idk what the majority of w/e they are researching because it is so specific in their area of study. You kind of have to fake it unless you really are interested or have some sort of connections.</p>
<p>Okay, at least I know I’m not the only one who feels that way. And I actually went to ratemyprofessors.com to get an idea of what students think of different professors that caught my eye on UPenn’s page, so hopefully that helps a little.</p>
<p>… that site sure would’ve come in handy LAST NIGHT when I was writing my short answer… :l</p>
<p>Haha no worries, at least you’re done. 
I have yet to start mine.</p>
<p>it’s not a new question i had it a couple years ago.</p>
<p>i think this question is really to show more about your intellectual interests than “how much homework have you done on penn”</p>
<p>you guys are right; it’s very difficult to really know what a professor is like. just make sure what you write about doesn’t contradict the professor’s academic beliefs.</p>
<p>sounds obvious, but i know a friend who wrote that he wanted to study something in finance that contradicted EMT under Prof Siegel…the problem is that Siegel believes in (or at least he teaches) EMT in his class!</p>
<p>the person who said it was new wrote that in 2005…</p>
<p>Hahaha I got very lucky with life on this one…</p>
<p>Cuz when I was tour guiding at New Delhi, I actually got to GUIDE a UPenn prof for 3-4 hours… AND he’s a mechanical engineering professor, which is the major I’m interested in… </p>
<p>So he’s the perfect one to use, because not only does his research interest me, I can write about his helpful personality :)</p>