<p>help! send me links with as much info as you have because I really can't make a decision.</p>
<p>thanks!</p>
<p>it would kinda help to know what your intended major / career goals are at each school</p>
<p>Choose between Penn and Cornell.</p>
<p>Yeah, you should probably decide first whether or not you want to attend an LAC…it’s a very different experience compared to what you’ll get at Penn and Cornell.</p>
<p>Penn or Swat if you like living in the city… Swat is just a 20-minute train ride from Penn and Philly. Also if you go to Swat you can take courses at Penn. And vice versa I think. I don’t know a lot about Cornell, but as tenebrousfire said, your intended major should be a big factor in your decision. You should visit all three if possible and see what YOU feel about each school. After all, a picture is worth a thousand words.</p>
<p>“Penn or Swat if you like living in the city”</p>
<p>1) FWIW, to be clear: If you live at Penn you are living in a city. If you live at Swat you are living in a suburb, in the company of a very small student population. I live in a suburb, I used to live in the city, the two experiences are not the same.</p>
<p>2) "Swat is just a 20-minute train ride from Penn… "</p>
<p>You mean it’s a 20 minute train ride to the station. But then isn’t there a somewhat long walk, through Drexel’s campus, to get from the station to Penn? And wouldn’t one have to wait for a train? Wouldn’t you pretty much have to budget more like 1.5 - 2 hours for getting there & back, if you wanted to take a class there? When I visited Swat the off-peak trains were only running once per hour, we waited on the platform for 30 minutes. And, are the schools on the same academic calendar?</p>
<p>3) “Also if you go to Swat you can take courses at Penn”
You should check to see how common that is, it can be, in practice, time-consuming to get back &forth, see #2 above.</p>
<p>4) “And vice versa I think”
But since Penn (and Cornell) have so many courses, seems like there would be a lot less interest in this route. </p>
<p>As another point of possible interest, FWIW when D1 was making the rounds the people in the suburban LACs seemed to hold the opinion that their courses were more demanding than Penn’s courses. And Swat courses were hardest of them all. I’m not saying that’s right, but that’s what we were led to believe, by students at Bryn Mawr, Haverford & swarthmore.</p>
<p>The decision tree should include:</p>
<p>1) LAC vs. university;
(some bump given to consortium to improve LAC course limtiations vs. the typical situation, but not much due to time invoved, & infrequency of actual use in practice.If that’s the case)</p>
<p>2) IF university THEN
urban experience vs. traditional college town experience</p>
<p>Swat. You can even take classes at Penn</p>
<ol>
<li><p>It’s not that uncommon for Swarthmore students to take upper-level courses at Penn. Yes, the transportation is less convenient than “20-minute train ride” implies, but it’s far from impossible. As was noted above, it’s essentially unheard-of for Penn students to take courses at Swarthmore.</p></li>
<li><p>Taking classes at Bryn Mawr or Haverford is much more convenient, because there’s a shuttle.</p></li>
<li><p>Still – Swarthmore vs. Penn or Cornell is a classic LAC vs. research university choice. Penn vs. Cornell really boils down to urban vs. rural college town. Swarthmore’s very suburban locale can only be a plus – it’s much less isolated than any of its close peers, but it’s sufficiently separate from the city that there’s a real cohesiveness to the community.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>“Swarthmore’s very suburban locale can only be a plus …”</p>
<p>Disagree to “only”, a matter of personal preference.</p>
<p>A lot of people don’t really prefer suburbs. I don’t much care for them myself, and I live in one. I personally preferred lving both in Ithaca and in the major cities I’ve lived in to living in suburbs. To me, a suburb represents the worst of both worlds, not the best of them. When one walks off campus, one encounters neither the bustle and excitement of the big city nor an immediate environment which consists of, and exists solely for, around 20,00 students your age, as opposed to working commuter families with kids. YMMV.</p>
<p>I used to live not that far from Sarah Lawrence College, and when I saw a bunch of them trooping into downtown suburban Bronxville to have something to do, I kind of felt sorry for them. They were so out of place. To me, a suburb is not where college students belong. In many cases, it is what they are escaping from. Yes, they could get into NYC pretty darned easily. but they evidently don’t always want to make that schlepp. So there they are, trying to hang in Bronxville. While people just like their parents and their little brothers sit there and stare at them. And maybe feel sorry for them too, as I did.</p>
<p>Penn. Of course. It’s amazing. Cornell is in the middle of no where. Penn is awesome. I rejected brown, princeton and wellesley for it.</p>
<p>^^
People who think “Cornell is in the middle of nowhere” haven’t been to Cornell. Stop with the propaganda to dissuade people from going to a place that almost everybody who’s ever been there thinks of as one of the most beautiful and inspiring places they’ve ever lived. If you get bored in Ithaca with all the art house movie theatres, stage theatres, great restaurants, vibrant music scene, wineries, gorges, massive waterfalls, lakes, etc…, that’s your problem. It’s a nice, vibrant college town experience in a beauty setting you’ll probably never have again as you’ll probably live in cities or suburbs the rest of your life </p>
<p>Speaking of which - Agree with Monydad. I have a friend in a small LAC “minutes from Boston” as the viewbook says. It’s extremely isolated - especially without a car - and there’s nothing to do for college students in the town. Getting into Boston’s a pain on various forms of unreliable transit. </p>
<p>As a general rule in life, avoid suburbia. Its era has ended and it’s nothing but a headache now. </p>
<p>That said - the whole reason we’re talking about this is because there’s not a lot of difference between Penn and Cornell (you still haven’t said your major) so it really comes down to an urban vs. college town or a university vs. LAC choice. </p>
<p>Best of luck!</p>
<p>Let’s remember that Cornell is the easiest to get into and the hardest to stay in, whereas at Penn, students go to therapy sessions at the end because they don’t want to leave- and a lot don’t. many continue after at med/law/grad school and some even start the grad programs when they’re still undergrads.</p>
<p>had same dilemma: penn vs cornell - for computer sci no less (haven’t you heard, penn’s just a lightweight in that department) so after 'round and 'round over the usual issues came down for penn. waterfalls, etc all nice but the undergrad program at penn will be challenge and respectable enough, and all that college town stuff doesn’t compare for me with being an hour or two by train to the major east coast cities. so all depends - what do YOU want out of the next four years BESIDES a degree from a great school?</p>
<p>Swarthmore is for people who would really love Swarthmore. When my kid saw it, he fell in love. He just knew it was THE place. I have no doubts about it–for him. But I think it’s intense and very personal and very focused. Maybe too much for a lot of people.</p>
<p>penn is terrific for most majors, but i wouldn’t come here for compsci.
if you intend to focus on the natural sciences / business / certain social sciences (e.g. econ), then I am confident that penn is your best choice.</p>
<p>Gee sooorrryyy monydad 
About the Swatties-taking-Penn-courses-and-vice-versa stuff though I was just trying to point out that IF the OP were leaning toward Penn or Swat, he/she could go to one school and still study at the other at the same time if he/she wants. I know it’s not that convenient, I was just making a suggestion :(</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Or they have higher standards for what they consider to be sufficiently populated surroundings.</p>
<p>Monydad: I agree with you.</p>
<p>To quote the Irish poet Yeats (in response to the wild growth of London’s suburbs in the early 20th century): “God made the country; man made the cities; but the suburbs are a gift of the devil himself.”</p>
<p>Hey jenny. You know I was in basically the same situation as you, and I ended up picking Cornell. I had visited it one weekend and just knew it was the place for me. Shortly afterward I had visited Penn and liked it, and I spent days trying to convince myself that it would also be great for me because it was so close to the city and all (and I know it would’ve been), but I just felt a lot stronger about Cornell and so decided to enroll there.</p>
<p>I hope everything works out with your decision-making! You’ll do great wherever you go.</p>