<p>Sometimes eatyourcereal is amusing. Other times, an even worse use of carbon atoms than climate-changing. Take the good with the bad, I suppose.</p>
<p>As for the original question, I found Penn’s location in Philadelphia to be the best in a “goldilocks” sort of way. NYC is too big, Providence is too small, and Philadelphia is just right.</p>
<p>NYC is unquestionably a bigger, better, more amazing city than Philadelphia. That however is exactly why it’s not where I wanted to do undergrad. Too distracting from all the delightful stupidity of days gone by on the college campus. Besides, I’ll almost assuredly end up in NYC at some point in my life. Better to do something different for college.</p>
<p>Philadelphia is a great, still big city with all the big city amenities like world-class orchestra, art museum, a top-notch culinary scene. It has tons to do, but isn’t so big that it sucks the energy out of on-campus life. </p>
<p>Penn is also much closer to Center City and Old City than Columbia is to downtown Manhattan. You could take a 5 minute subway ride, a 10 minute bus ride, or a 20 minute walk (30-40 mins if you take it at a more leisurely pace)</p>
<p>Columbia is also a long subway ride away from downtown Manhattan, and with recent cuts in the MTA’s “doomsday” budget, that could be a bigger issue with fewer trains running and higher fees to use them.</p>
<p>There are lots of other things I liked about Penn but I’m not sure if they would make a difference for you. For example, the One University policy is great, but if you’re focused on linguistics and just linguistics, the ability to take classes in the business school, law school, etc (whereas Columbia won’t let you and Brown simply doesn’t have them) might not be as big a draw for you.</p>
<p>All 3 schools are excellent.</p>