<p>Please help my son expand his list.
What he likes about Penn:1. the people–they are real and has a random sens of humor. 2. the social scene–friendly, fun but not detracting from serious studying. 3. the academics, the scope and preprofessionalism. Gives more of a sense of focus and purpose. 4. Proximity to a city and activities. 5. Prestige and reputation.
What were your lists and choices? Why did you decide on Penn?
Thank you, people.</p>
<p>I really liked Carnegie Mellon, even though as a whole it's a bit nerdier and a lot smaller than Penn. It's a very good school, and the people there are all really nice, fun people. The social life at Carnegie itself is not as exciting as Penn's, but UPitt's, which is right nearby, is very fun. In terms of scope, Carnegie Mellon is a very well rounded school - they have a bunch of undergrad schools with all sorts of things to study, which I really liked. It is in Pittsburgh, and has a great reputation. My list of schools went Penn, MIT, Cornell, Carnegie, NYU - but then after I visited Carnegie it went up to number 2 on my list because I really loved the atmosphere there.</p>
<p>Penn State is similar to Penn, not only in name but in Prestige and both have the large school feel. The same could be said for Cornell and I believe UTexas as well.</p>
<p>Wow how did u fit UTexas in there. Talk about your cross country trip all in one sentence.</p>
<p>UTexas is probably a lot funner than UPenn...it's got Austin.</p>
<p>Austin Powers that is!</p>
<p>no...he's currently at Cambridge. I hear he's through with acting.</p>
<p>But seriously, Austin is one of the greatest college towns around. Philly...well, it's ok, but it's still Philly.</p>
<p>I was choosing between Penn, Georgetown and Gonzaga. I live in a small town so I wanted to go to a big city school so Gonzaga fell out of the running. I stayed overnight with a student at Gtown and the people there were really cool but the facilities lacked a bit. Penn had everything that I wanted. There are a ton of things to do in Phillly, Huntsman hall is one of the greatest and most technologically advanced buildings I've ever been to, and the incoming freshman that I met at Penn previews were really cool and I could definitely see myself making some good friends at Penn.</p>
<p>"Penn State is similar to Penn, not only in name but in Prestige and both have the large school feel. The same could be said for Cornell and I believe UTexas as well."</p>
<p>I fail to see how you can look at a 40,000-student, above-average state school and a 19,000 student Ivy League school and conclude that the two are similar in feel and prestige.</p>
<p>I think Duke, Georgetown and Northwestern are good comparisons, though all are smaller than Penn.</p>
<p>I agree with nodnard. Penn State???</p>
<p>I also fail to see the similarities.</p>
<p>penn state is huge, but it's a very solid state school. I think it might be ranked higher than Penn engineering wise too.</p>
<p>IMO, here are some non Ivy schools that have similar traits to those you listed for Penn: WashU, Northwestern, NYU, Georgetown, Tufts, Emory, Rice, Vanderbilt.</p>
<p>Columbia, MIT, Georgetown, WashU, Brandeis, and Emory</p>
<p>Columbia is nothing like Penn (much more urban, intense, not strong campus social scene). I would say Brown, Duke, (Dartmouth if you are okay with a more rural school), Gtown, WashU, Northwestern, Emory all work.</p>
<p>Penn State similar prestige? What are you smoking?</p>
<p>Dusk was obviously joking.</p>
<p>Feel free to laugh at me.. and im pretty sure some of you will, but i was just disgussing this topic with my friend yesterday. How about Rutgers. I can make the comparison because penn is literally a couple blocks down from me(penn grad students make up about 50% of the population on my block). Penn students and rutgers sudents are erily alike with respect to the whole offbeat sense of humor, down to earth, and (generally) goal oriented thing . I'm in the honors program at rutgers because penn was too close to me, (and I like the underdog). I know it probrobly won't be your ultimate choice but they do share many similarities (including being founded before the civil war).</p>
<p>WashU, Georgetown and Johns Hopkins University.</p>
<p>georgetown, and to a certain degree duke and dartmouth. obviously duke and dartmouth are in different geographies but I think they have relatively similar student populations.</p>
<p>Northwestern, WashU, and Georgetown are probably the three closest.</p>