<p>Hi, first-time poster, trying to figure out where to ED. I love the vibe of Penn and the educational offerings there. It's a little close to home and lots of people from my HS go there typically. I'd like to branch out a bit in college and try to go more than 50 miles from home. I have the requisite good SAT scores, National Merit SF, high (but not perfect) GPA. Sports, drama, writing and community service EC's as well. I like the fact that Penn has a great business focus and great pre-med success rate (if I decide to go that route). And it's fun if you want it to be. I like the idea of a Div I school with sports worth watching, Ivy sports are OK or a good Div III. I might try to walk-on for my sport but did not try to get recruited.</p>
<p>What other schools are like that? I have some ideas but wanted to crowdsource a bit. Thanks in advance!</p>
<p>Lehigh might be close to where you live. Good business
NYU has great business undergrad and is less than 50 miles from Phili
JHU is relatively close to Phili </p>
<p>First, IMO if you love everything about Penn I wouldn’t worry about it being 50 minutes from home. First the school is so large that you will find tons of new friends and you likely won’t be running into HS people all the time unless you choose to. In terms of distance, here is my story – after looking up and down the east coast for my S he ended up at a college 20 minutes away. We had a long honest talk before he chose the school. He lived on campus for all four years and we all agreed to treat it like he was hours, not minutes away. As parents that meant no “stopping by while we are in the area” and for him it meant no “dropping by to do laundry” and the like. It worked out great. He found living in NYC was very different from living in the suburbs and he loved it. And a couple of times the closeness was helpful (ex. once his laptop died so I drove down with an old one for hm to use while his was being fixed). And while he did end up going to grad school halfway across the country, he is now back living and working in NYC and he loves that a ton of his college friends ended up there as well. IMO, if you want business and you have a shot at Wharton, I’d take it and not worry about the distance.</p>
<p>In terms of other schools you can consider Notre Dame, Cornell, BC, Villanova, Lehigh, UVa, UT-Austin, UNC, UC Berkeley, UMichigan (much more attractive if you get a preferred admit to Ross), Vandy, and if you want good merit aid, maybe Fordham or Tulane.</p>
<p>Northwestern comes to mind. Also Georgetown, Columbia, Lehigh, Emory.</p>
<p>If you love Penn, apply! I went to Penn because my father was a faculty member so it was close, very close, to home. About 20 kids from my high school class also attended. Unless I made an effort, I never saw them, and I don’t even know who attended from other years. So you can go to Penn and make it seem far from home.</p>
<p>It is a big deal to get a preadmit to Ross happy1. Michigan however, is still a great all around school. Engineering and Economics are very strong as are virtually all of the majors one can take for premed. </p>
<p>Like Penn – the other urban and semi-urban Ivies (ie. Columbia, Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Brown) and Duke, Georgetown, Northwestern and Stanford.</p>