Penn School Spirit

I come from a high school with A LOT of school spirit which I love so much. I was wondering what Penn’s school spirit was like all around for the school in general and then for their sports teams considering I find going to sports games extremely entertaining. Thanks!

If you are accustomed to A LOT of school spirit and good attendance at sports events, you are likely to be disappointed. Having said that, I do think the new AD is making an effort to improve the athletics department as a whole and part of that is general school spirit and better student attendance. It’s a culture thing that will likely take a while. Football had an unexpectedly good season last fall, as co-winners of the Ivy, so that is always a big help. Winning has a way of boosting these sorts of things, so hopefully they can keep good momentum across all sports and it will improve.

I came from a high school with a ton of school spirit, and Penn was a major let down in that respect. I was told that it was silly for me to be upset about the lack of school spirit due to all of Penn’s strengths, but I disagree - school spirit is an important part of undergraduate life for some people, and that is perfectly reasonable.

Attendance at my high school’s football games was generally higher than it was at Penn’s… of course that was a few years ago, so it may have changed a bit.

In general, I found that there is a lot of enthusiasm and spirit for Penn among alumni, but less so among students.

@bweebler “I was wondering what Penn’s school spirit was like all around for the school in general and then for their sports teams”

Penn alums tend to have a lot of school spirit and to be very strong supporters of Penn, and Penn graduates. They usually say they received a great education and loved the time they spent at Penn.

In contrast, Penn sports are not the biggest events, but they are D1, and they are bigger than most high schools. I attended one football game this year (I am a parent) and I would estimate there were about 5 thousand people there. If you like to attend sports they are easy to attend, and the athletes are actually very good. Also the professional teams in Philadelphia are close by and are a lot of fun.