<p>"Yong Tang: I have a question about reputation. I hope this would not offend you. Penn is an Ivy League member. Penn is among the top ten universities in America. But frankly speaking its reputation is far behind Harvard, Yale, Princeton and etc. Many Chinese people mistakenly think Penn is a public university and confuse Penn with Penn State University. Given its academic excellence, Penn should have been much more influential. Do you have any plans to enhance public awareness of Penn in China and in the world?</p>
<p>Amy: We were just named by 2006 College Guide as the hottest university here. We have been ranked No. 4 by US News and World Report in 2004 and 2005. Penn experienced an increase in applications overall this year with more than 20,300 students applying for the Class of 2010. Our international applications also increased about 7 percent to 2,913. We saw a 20% increase from Mainland China and Hong Kong.</p>
<p>I would love to get the word out even further. That’s one of the reasons why I travel to talk about Penn and engage our alumni. But we are doing very well and we are getting too many applications.</p>
<p>Yong Tang: Maybe the school name should be blamed. The University of Pennsylvania sounds like a public university.</p>
<p>Amy: It doesn’t prevent the best and the brightest students from applying to us. (Laugh). It doesn’t prevent us from moving forward. (Laugh). That is our name and we are proud of it. It really would not make sense for us to change the name after so many hundreds of years. That would create more confusion. The people who need to know about what we are are the people we try more and more to inform about what we are doing.</p>
<p>Yong Tang: Penn is really an excellent university. You just need more PR in China. (Laugh)</p>
<p>very interesting post, it's nice to know about that. Thank you. </p>
<p>People DO confuse the two universities in China a lot. I suppose the change name question is there to light up the mood. Otherwise, it would simply be stupid if he really meant it. Amy Guttman(correct spelling?) seems nice...not at all like how she was portrayed in the whole non-confidence crisis. I wonder exactly how it happened in the first place.</p>
<p>What non-confidence crisis are you talking about? This is her second year here, and she is doing a great job, especially considering donations to the school have already reached $110M this year, twice from this point last year.</p>
<p>I think you're confusing her with Larry Summers up at Harvard.</p>
<p>I think the mere "conincidence" that Byerly posted one little section of an interview which spans 5 articles shows that he is trying to indirectly put down Penn, an act which to him is supposed to make Harvard look "better" in comparison.</p>
<p>Just a thought. I thought it was an interesting interview too...</p>
<p>Oh and actually, the title that Byerly made for this thread shows that he didn't even read the other sections. In the first part of the interview, the caption says: "Yong Tang, People's Daily Online Washington-based correspondent, conducted an exclusive interview with Penn President Amy Gutmann in her office on Penn campus." Doesn't seem like she's in China. I guess Byerly was simply googling sites that "back" Harvard's prestige.</p>
<p>Maybe I read it wrong, but I think I did read an article in the Daily Pennsylvanian about a non-confidence vote against Amy Gutmann. Something about Prof Andrew Shatte having led the thing. </p>
<p>I am a great admirer of the Penn president - who is a Harvard grad. Indeed, she has TWO Harvard degrees, and both her daughter and son-in-law are Harvard students.</p>
<p>I don't believe recent cross-admit numbers indicate that the "threat" is imminent!</p>
<p>But Penn has done a good job of utilizing the Early Decision process in order to achieve a higher yield rate and, in consequence, a higher USNews ranking ... higher, currently than Stanford or Duke!</p>
<p>"A" school with an 80% anticipated yield rate needs to admit only 5 people to gain 4 matriculants. </p>
<p>"B" school with a 40% anticipated yield rate needs to admit 10 people to gain the same niumber of matriculants, who will, most probably, be far weaker than the matriculants at school "A".</p>
<p>This is where "selectivity" begins and ends.</p>
<p>If both have 1,600 seats to fill, and 20,000 applicants, School "A" needs to admit 2,000 of them - a 10% admit rate - while school "B" needs to admit 4,000 of them - a 20% admit rate.</p>