UChicago VS. UPenn for an international student

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Chicago ✅
1

<p>Hi!</p>

<p>I'm applying this year for undergraduate courses in the US, and I'm wondering how UChicago and Upenn differ in some aspects. I'm an international student from Argentina planning to major in Philosophy, or possibly Film or Theatre Studies.</p>

<p>I was wondering if you could help me with the following questions:</p>

<p>1) Is it true UChicago is known for its science courses and Upenn is known for business? </p>

<p>2) Which university do you think has a better Arts and Humanities Department/Faculty/School?</p>

<p>3) Which one is more diverse when it comes to international students? </p>

<p>4) Are the universities inclusive or are the international students secluded in their own clique? Which one has more open-minded students?</p>

<p>5) Which one do you think has students which are hard-working yet somewat laid back? I'm looking for an academically rigorous environment, yet I still want the University to have an interesting nightlife and social scene.</p>

<p>6) Do you think the weather will vary much between the two locations?</p>

<p>Thank you for your help!</p>

2

<p>1) UChicago’s reputation is primarily in the field of Economics (and to a lesser extent Physics and Mathematics); Penn’s in is Business and pre-professional studies.</p>

<p>2) Penn is probably better at Art side of Arts & Humanities; Chicago at the Humanities side.</p>

<p>3) Penn has a more diverse total student body (due primarily to size, as its about 2x as large as Chicago), but Chicago won’t be a slouch on this.</p>

<p>4) Based on third-parties, international students at both schools are likely to intergrate themselves in the overall fabric of the school. Chicago will be very moderately more open-minded in a political sense (a result of the conservative intellectual tradition giving a broader breadth of views present and influential at the school) but Penn is probably more socially open minded (for a long time, it was the ‘gay ivy’). For all intents and purposes, they’ll be of similar natures in this regard.</p>

<p>5) Penn will be a little more laid-back overall, but Chicago has normalized itself in this regard (the greek system is rapidly expanding, for example). That said, Chicago>>>Philly in terms of nightlife (though you’ll have to leave HP). </p>

<p>6) Both will be cold in the winter, but Chicago will be colder and windier, with more snow than Philadelphia (though my experience with the two is that Philly gets a lot more rain than Chicago, I haven’t spent all that much time in Philadelphia).</p>

<p>In short: If you get into both, consider this:</p>

<p>You will get to determine much of how your education folds out at Penn, a result of distributional requirements. If you want to devote as much of your time as possible to your field and not need to worry about being told to take certain specific classes/forced to spend more time outside your field, Penn is probably a better choice. If you want to maximize your breadth of study and have a system in place to do that, Chicago is probably the better choice (though at Chicago you still have enough room to concentrate deeply in your chosen field, and at Penn you still have plenty of chance to explore the core of a liberal arts education).</p>

<p>Also, consider your feelings about sports–Chicago has a relatively small sports scene for a college, but the city has a strong professional sports scene. Penn has a stronger on-campus sports scene with a weaker sports city.</p>

<p>In short: Chicago is probably stronger in your interests, but not so much stronger than it’s the clear choice over Penn, which may have more the the personality you want in your college.</p>

3

<p>@kaarboer‌ thank you for answering everything! It definitely helped me understand the essence of each University better </p>

4

<p>It sounds like Penn is a much better fit for you.</p>

5

<p>I wrote a long response to this on the Penn page that is pretty consistent with kaarboer’s answer. But I have a few bones to pick with kaarboer:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Penn was never, ever the “gay Ivy.” That was always, and remains, Yale. Not that Penn doesn’t have a perfectly fine gay community; it does. But Yale was the gay Ivy back when Penn was completely in the closet.</p></li>
<li><p>It is true in general that Chicago has much better nightlife than Philadelphia, but it’s not necessarily true for college students. Philadelphia in general is much cheaper than Chicago, and caters to students a lot more, and the places off-campus in Philadelphia it’s fun to go to are much more accessible to Penn students than the equivalent places in Chicago are to Chicago students.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>For example: Philadelphia has a really strong tradition of all-ages indie rock shows with national acts at affordable prices, generally at venues that are no more than a mile or two from the Penn campus. The same shows in Chicago cost twice as much (or more), rarely admit anyone under 21 (or without an ID that says they are 21), and generally are on the North Side a 45-minute-plus trip from the Chicago campus on public transportation. The Philadelphia Orchestra has an amazing student rush program. There are a number of moderately priced, really fine, fun restaurants that are basically on the Penn campus. Chicago has nothing like that.</p>

<ol>
<li> It’s 100% true that Penn has a stronger on-campus sports scene (although that has been eroding recently, with the current sorry state of its flagship football and basketball teams). It would be hard to find a college with any sort of sports scene at all where it wasn’t stronger than Chicago’s, where the vast majority of students completely don’t care about sports.<br></li>
</ol>

<p>But if kaarboer shows up in Philly with that line about it’s a “weaker sports city,” kaarboer will end the evening in an emergency room somewhere. People in Philadelphia are really, really passionate about their professional sports teams, and they don’t think it’s a weaker scene than anywhere. (Although I doubt people here would be rude enough to call Chicago a weak sports scene. The two cities are actually pretty much the same in that respect, except Chicago has two baseball teams.)</p>