U Penn’s embarrassing geographic gaffe

Parents Forum
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<p>U.S. middle school and HS students are justly criticized for their geographic illiteracy. But the University of Pennsylvania--supposedly one of our nation’s elite universities—takes the cake in that regard. </p>

<p>My D2 just received a promotional brochure from Penn that makes the egregious claim that “60% of America’s population lives within a 2-hour train ride from Philadelphia.”</p>

<p>WHAT?! What are they smokin’ over there in Philadelphia?</p>

<p>I know many people in the Northeast have an inflated sense of their own region’s importance. But this is just ridiculous. According to the U.S. Census, the entire Northeast region of the U.S. has about 55 million people, or about 17.9% of the U.S. population. Granted, that doesn’t include another 8 million or so in the Baltimore-DC metroplex, which is outside the Census Bureau’s definition of the Northeast. But the Census Bureau’s Northeast region does include places like Boston, Providence, Worcester, Hartford-Springfield, Albany, Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo, and Pittsburgh that are well over 2 hours away from Philadelphia by train, so it pretty much cancels out. Or, even if you’re generous and let them claim the entire Northeast plus Baltimore-DC, it still brings you only to 20.5% of the nation’s population. </p>

<p>If you look at actual train schedules and the populations of metropolitan regions served by trains from Philadelphia, the percentage of the U.S. population within 2 hours of Philadelphia by train is probably around 16% by my back-of-the-envelope calculation---not trivial, but a far cry from the 60% claimed by Penn.</p>

<p>Maybe they didn’t mean real trains, but some hypothetical bullet train? The world’s fastest commercially operable train is the Shanghai MagLev which clocks in at a top speed of 268 mph. So in 2 hours at top speed that could take you 536 miles. That gets you Virginia, West Virginia, most of North Carolina, and a big chunk of Ohio. Throw in those states, plus DC and Maryland added to the Northeast region, and it brings you up to 92.3 million people---still just a hair under 30% of the U.S. population, or less than half what Penn claims. And that’s with a hypothetical, world’s-fastest train, mind you, not actual Amtrak service.</p>

<p>Nope. I still think they must be smokin’ something. Either that, or they’re just innumerate, or they’re geographically illiterate. Maybe it’s time for the Ivy League schools to bring back their geography departments.</p>

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<p>Thanks for the post. Please send it to the school in an email- it would be fun to see their reaction.</p>

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<p>Or maybe it’s a simple typo?</p>

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<p>maybe they meant “60% of that percentage of Americans who have heard of the University of Pennsylvania…”?</p>

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<p>One thought (that I don’t have any facts for whatever), could it be that 60% of the likely college going population lives within 2 hours of Philadelphia? I don’t know for sure, but given the relatively high rates of college attendance in the northeast area, could that be possible?</p>

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<p>Ditto to what DougBetsy said.</p>

<p>Can’t believe you actually wrote a huge post about this and looked up train schedules! I’m pretty sure UPenn doesn’t believe they’re the center of the universe. I think they just meant that Philly is close to many important places and millions of people. Not a big deal.</p>

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<p>It’s a fun OP.</p>

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<p>Maybe they have plans for new rail service to bolster their claim:</p>

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<p>That or the Hogwarts Express is heading stateside!</p>

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Or…60% of the students who don’t think U of Penn is part of the public state U system in Penn.</p>

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<p>The only thing I could find that even remotely resembles that quote, is in fact very different. From the Official Convention and Visitors Site for Philadelphia:</p>

<p>[Philadelphia</a> for Business - PhiladelphiaUSA.travel](<a href=“http://www.philadelphiausa.travel/LQxFeJ]Philadelphia”>http://www.philadelphiausa.travel/LQxFeJ)</p>

<p>How did this become “60%” and “2 hour train ride” ?</p>

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<p>And also Philadelphia is within a day’s plane ride of more than 99 percent of the U.S. population!!</p>

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<p>60% of current attending student population?</p>

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<p>Considering Penn’s history with the USNews, could this become one of the new criteria for the Best College Rankings? </p>

<p>“Possible” declaration of Bob Morse: </p>

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<p>Maybe it’s only the 60% “that matters”. (Damn Yankees!) :rolleyes:</p>

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<p>Have no idea what or how this happened…just know that there must be a department that makes these type of flyers and someone made a mistake. All human…tell them so they can correct it. To be honest, didn’t read a lot of brochures about different colleges in great detail. Spent more time talking to people and visiting colleges.</p>

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<p>That occurred to me. Except that it was on one of those “amazing facts & figures” pages (they didn’t call it that, exactly), and if they used the actual figure of 16%, it would sound pretty unimpressive, not the kind of thing they’d bother to boast about. So I think it’s more than just a typo. I think somebody just goofed. </p>

<p>Maybe they sent someone to research it and they phoned in the answer “16%” and the person taking it down on the other end thought they heard “60%” and no one bothered to fact-check or proofread the brochure, or the proofreader thought 60% was a plausible number. Pure speculation, of course.</p>

<p>In any event, they made a laughingstock of themselves, at least in our household. My D2 wasn’t really considering Penn anyway, but she just laughed hysterically when she saw such a wildly inflated claim, and it totally undercut Penn’s credibility in her eyes.</p>

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<p>No, not even close. That’s as far out of bounds as Penn’s “60% of America’s population” claim. College participation rates are a little higher in the Northeast than in some other parts of the country, but not nearly enough to account for 60% of likely college attenders. In 2006, there were 1.3 million U.S. resident college freshmen at 4-year colleges and universities. Of those, roughly 300,000, or less than 25%, came from states in the Northeast from Connecticut down though Virginia—including parts of Connecticut, New York State, western Pennsylvania, western Maryland, and Virginia that are more than a 2-hour train ride from Philadelphia. So realistically, it’s probably less than 20% of the nation’s likely college-attenders live within that radius from Philadelphia.</p>

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<p>Yeah, like it was back-breaking effort to look up train schedules. Do you have any idea how few trains there are in this country? And how few cities with train service are within 2 hours by train from Philadelphia? That took all of 90 seconds. Maybe someone at Penn should have done it before they published something so idiotic.</p>

<p>As for the “huge post”: well, I thought it was a hoot! But maybe we don’t share the same sense of humor.</p>

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<p>I know! I know!</p>

<p>They meant to say, “60% of the population of the New York City metropolitan area lives within a 2-hour train ride from Philadelphia.”</p>

<p>I make that mistake, too, all the time. It’s so hard to remember that anyone else lives in America! Every once in a while, it occurs to me that I, myself, live in America, and so does everyone in Cambridge MA, and Sedona, and San Francisco, too. But all of that is basically a rounding error, no?</p>

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<p>Maybe they were using population data from 1930!</p>

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<p>This is funny! And reading the posts that are trying to figure out what they really meant is just as funny!
I wonder if they meant that 60% of the students that attend U.Penn live within a 2 hour train ride? </p>

<p>Should we start a pool to see who is right? </p>

<p>I like the super secret bullet train/hogwarts train ideas the best, personally!! LOL</p>

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<p>60% of the Penn student population sounds more plausible. I don’t really know what else it could be, besides being simply wrong.</p>

<p>Or “2-hour train ride” uses the fastest train speed in the world, and not merely the trains actually available out of Philadelphia?</p>

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<p>I think they asked one of the Trumps to write that statement.</p>