<p>I’ll be a sophomore at Penn next year. Assuming my GPA stays around what it’s at now (3.6-3.7), what are my chances at transferring to Brown?</p>
<p>There are a lot of variables. Just from grades, good from another Ivy. BUT it also depends on number of spots in any year, you having a good case as to why you “belong” at Brown, or what ever quirk you bring to Brown that they might think will add to the school. IE, some of the same arbitrary factors as admissions. There are threads on CC you should look at from recent transfers who did and did not get in to see where you compare. (and remember that number of slots in any year can be very different. )</p>
<p>Why do you want to transfer?</p>
<p>Penn’s incredibly superficial and its focus on pre-professional academics inhibits the growth and appreciation of intellect. I know a lot of people will say that most people aren’t that way at Penn and it’s just a select few that are so arrogant and “Wharton and money=life,” but the 3/4 of the people I met and became friends with were money-hungry bit****. It is so centered around Wharton and you’re constantly surrounded by people who think intelligence doesn’t mean anything if you aren’t at Goldman. Even the ones that aren’t so outwardly stuck-up still deep-down, at least a little bit, think they’re better than everyone else. I’m gonna see how next semester pans out and try to meet new people/branch out etc… but if things don’t change, I think I’ll apply to transfer.</p>
<p>And the social scene is dominated by ******bag guys trying so desperately hard to be cool. I like to party but Penn is way too high school for me.</p>
<p>I’m not the super intellectual type; it’s just Penn is just so anti-intellectual. But as I said, maybe I met all the wrong people. We’ll see…</p>
<p>You make a pretty good argument for leaving Penn. Do you have an even better reason as to why you should end up at brown? (feel free to not answer, this question is almost just rhetorical)</p>
<p>I think in many ways, stereotypes do reveal a college’s core principles and its social foundations. People think Brown students are chill and carefree, and just do whatever they want without thinking of societal pressures. Yeah, the extent of this varies among each student, and may not be the case for many, but the it’s the fact that this stereotype even exists that shows how much more freedom you get at Brown. I don’t mean freedom in the sense that you get to choose your curriculum; I mean the freedom to study what I want (IR or PoliSci) without the scorn of Wharton kids. I wouldn’t feel pressured to be a banker or trader. </p>
<p>When I was wrote my Why Penn essay in high school, I talked about PPE and how awesome I thought that major was. But majoring in that doesn’t mean **** when you feel bad about not being a finance concentration the entire time. And yes, I could very well just say “**** what Wharton kids think,” but the entire university fosters pre-professionalism rather than learning. And when you’re surrounded by that 24/7, it gets pretty tough to ignore it all.</p>
<p>I like that Brown prides itself on letting each student choose their own path rather than follow the one that is laid out in front of them by someone else…as cheesy as that sounds.</p>
<p>But yeah you’re right, many of the reasons I like Brown are the same reasons I hate Penn. </p>
<p>Oh, and I like its location too.</p>
<p>But my main question is, how much of an influence does being a Penn student have in the admissions process?</p>
<p>^ I don’t know the answer to that, but I can only imagine that you’ll have an edge being from another Ivy. The Ivy competitiveness is kind of strong, even at Brown lol.</p>
<p>It is true that if there’s a spectrum of preprofessionalism in the Ivy Leage, Brown and Penn are at very opposite ends of that spectrum. I didn’t hear the term “I-Banking” until well into my college experience, and I am very grateful for that.</p>
<p>Though you’ll hear about Goldman Sachs… a lot. But no one pressures you to be an econ/coe concentrator because of it.</p>
<p>I found the finance/consulting circles to be very compartmentalized at Brown. </p>
<p>Coming from another Ivy will do you well.</p>
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<p>That’s what my experience has been as well. You have several Econ/COE/AM-Econ concentrators who talk about investment banking (and, consequently, Goldman Sachs) for internships and jobs, but I think that’s about it. I guess it depends on your friend group – if you spend a lot of time with people in one of those concentrations, you’ll obviously hear a lot more about i-banking. But even then, it’s definitely not to the Wharton-worshipping extent that you’ve described.</p>
<p>Lol my Econ friends and I joke about IB and our future “90 hours a week lifestyles” sometimes (totally as a joke! I mean I’m sure some of them will end up in IB but we all know it’s not a division that people just get into because they went to a good school). That’s as much as I hear it, and all the classes I take are full of Econ/COE/Am-Econ kids :P</p>
<p>Thanks for the info guys : )</p>
<p>Yeah, it’s very compartmentalized. I never heard about Goldman Sachs et al, and not a single one of my friends followed that path.</p>
<p>Interestinggggg. I am currently a rising sohpomore at a 4 year university. I initially considered UPenn for their PPE major, but now I am set on Brown and one or two other schools. It seems that the culture of either school is opposed to the other.</p>