<p>Hi all,
I'm an international student. I heard that the campus of Penn is located in a rough neighborhood of Philly and the surrounding is a little sketchy. Some people also say that it is dangerous to walk outside the campus alone at night. Is that so??
Being an international student studying abroad, I'm especially concerned about safety issues.<br>
And since it is not practical for me to fly to Philly to check that out myself, I'd like to know if any body here lives in Philly or/and knows the actual safety and security situation of Philly and particularly the community around Penn? (And how safe is Philly when compared with Madison of Wisconsin?)</p>
<p>Any information provided will be appreciated~! :) Thanks in advance!!</p>
<p>Madison is definitely a lot safer than Philadelphia, which is indeed quite sketchy. It’s best not to be out roaming around in Philadelphia (same in Berkeley, East LA, Harlem, etc.) when the sun sets and it is dark out.</p>
<p>The campus crime statistics are online. You don’t want to leave a laptop in a restaurant or library unattended or to wander off campus alone in the middle of the night drunk and waving a full wallet around. You also want to look both ways before crossing the street. My DD walked around campus in the evening and had no problems; campus security are omnipresent. If you are smart enough to get accepted, you are smart enough to keep yourself reasonably safe.</p>
<p>My D graduated from Penn last year. She never had any problems walking around at night. Penn security officers are very visable at night. They patrol the campus and the surrounding off-campus area where a lot of students live.</p>
<p>The campus is in an urban area and may not appeal to you if you like peace and quite. You will need to cross city streets to get to the center of campus. There are 3 hospitals in the immediate area, so you will hear a lot of sirens.</p>
<p>I visited 2 days ago and I really couldn’t see how it * isn’t * safe. Maybe it’s cause I went in the day and didn’t see what it was like at night. There were security officers everywhere and there are phones on campus located everywhere incase anything happens. It looked pretty safe and secure to me.</p>
<p>I think that sanguinee, momjr, and LakeLightning put it pretty plainly: campus is full of officers and there are emergency phones and services all over the place. Penn has free transit vans that roam around at night (which go underused, by the way!), you can call for a walking escort to walk you anywhere on campus at any time of day, and there are Penn Police and private security officers all over the place. </p>
<p>Some people like to say that off-campus housing is dangerous, but simply put: it’s not. There are security officers in NEON GREEN that are paid to stand on corners from midnight to 8am to keep an eye on the streets. I walk all over campus and around campus at all sorts of hours and I have not seen anything threatening. You’d be hard-pressed to find a safer school.</p>
<p>I’ve lived in the neighborhood since I came to Penn in 1968. Things can happen anywhere, but the biggest problem is theft of unattended property. Be attentive, and you’ll probably be fine. There’s plenty of security, both in uniform and undercover.</p>
<p>OREngineering, LakeLightning, momjr, sanguinee, jreeder, Wordworker Thank you all for sharing.
It’s reassuring knowing that security officers are everywhere both on and off campus and that some of you personally visited Penn or some of your Ds went to Penn and actually felt relatively safe there.
I believe that being vigilant and having some common sense will keep me safe anywhere in the world. Well, Thanks again~ :)</p>
<p>My daughter is finishing her freshman year and walks around campus all the time and at all hours. I’m not thrilled but she stays late at the library and walks back to her dorm by herself. She says that its perfectly safe and that there is a visible patrol officer from the minute she exits the library all the way to her dorm even at 2 a.m. She has sometimes called for an escort. So, I’m pretty sure that its safe :o)</p>
<p>I have been teaching at Penn for years. My daughter works there and lives off-campus in University City (I live in a different part of the city.) I’ve never felt unsafe on campus. Sure, things happen on occasion – it’s a city. But the biggest urban risk at Penn, IMO, is getting a parking ticket.</p>