Penn vs. Dartmouth

<p>Did any of you Pennsters choose Penn College over Dartmouth or Brown? Why did you make the choice other than the vibrant city life? Is Penn College less selective? Any info would be great. I’m stuggling among these schools. Thanks</p>

<p>College Board Lists these schools with Median SATs as follows:</p>

<p>Penn:
V 650-750
M 680-780</p>

<p>Brown
V 640-750
M 650-750</p>

<p>Datmouth
V 660-760
M 670-770</p>

<p>Penn and Dartmouth are tied. Brown is slightly less selective on SATs. People tend to make assumptions that Penn is less selective because of it's admit rate. It's a much larger school, so it can admit more. </p>

<p>My son probbaly chose Penn as his ED because of the following:
Size: He attends a pretty small school now. So he wanted something with more than 5,000 students. Visits to smaller LACs quickly confirmed his choice for larger schools. </p>

<p>Community: He wants to go to school with kids who are smart, but well rounded. Some of the schools have reputations for having kids who are "over the top" intense. I won't elaborate because I don't want to insult kids from other schools. I think you can understand this point, though. Penn has a rep for attracting the kids who have great personalities and are most interesting, while also being smart enough to get into any school. I don't know about Dartmouth too much. They had a highly publicized racial incident in the past that has given them a black eye and students continue to complain about racial segregation. Brown has a rep for attracting kids similar to Penn's...but slightly more quirky. </p>

<p>As far as Penn college's selectivity goes, Penn takes a lot of Legacies. They're just so large that they have many more legacies applying than the other schools. Once you back out the legacy admits, there are much fewer spots for the rest than most people realize. Thus, the college becomes more seletive. Penn also gets more international applicants than the others....</p>

<p>I thought merely 3-4 % were legacy applicants..</p>

<p>15% of the current freshman class are legacies and I believe the admit rate is ~40% for legacies. --current student</p>

<p>in the sticks (dartmouth), in a very small city (brown) which is an hour from boston or in a larger city (penn)...that is the key...</p>

<p>brown is a very liberal campus...off the liberal graph...no curriculum requirements....dartmouth is very nurturing and penn is more of a "you need to make your own way" school.</p>

<p>so what it comes down to is what do YOU want....</p>

<p>thanks, any more?</p>