UIUC (full ride) or UPenn?

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Pennsylvania
21

Although, if we’re talking presidents, let’s be serious here - there’s a big leap between the super elites (Harvard, Yale) as opposed to even an elite (Penn, Chicago). 8 US Presidents went to Harvard, 5 US presidents went to Yale, a few to Princeton. The representation of the rest of the elites are much more scattershot - Duke might have one, Obama has strong ties to Chicago (but didn’t attend), etc.

In terms of the original question, given the fluidity of college aspirations, taking on drastically less debt is a very good way to go. Poli Sci may be your cup of tea now, but it may not be next year or three years from now - and that’s ok, that’s exactly what should happen in college.

22

^ Princeton has 2. JFK transferred out after a semester and Woodrow Wilson transferred in from Davidson. Madison went to Princeton as well (before it was called Princeton).

Duke has Nixon :stuck_out_tongue:

Chicago doesn’t have an alum but don’t count Bernie out yet :wink:

23

Nerdychica,

I stand corrected. Outside of Harvard and Yale (and Princeton) what top school has produced many US Presidents? Duke has Nixon, Stanford has one or two, Georgetown might have one or two, but is any other school notable?

Does Penn have any? I don’t think they have any graduates who went on to be president. Speaking of which, I don’t know if any have gone to Cornell or Brown, or Emory or Northwestern, etc.

24

@optimyst “The candidates you listed from pedigree schools have more scandals behind them than being exemplary role models. DTrump - Bigot, Clinton - Sex in the white house, Hillary Clinton - whitewater gate, Benghazi, Email and a variety of other gates, Bush - ruined the economy with unnecessary wars and the list goes on.”

The point is that the 4 leading candidates in 2016 as well as the last 4 US presidents all graduated from brand-name, top-10 school.

I am not saying they are all good people or bad people. That is not the point. In politics, what really matters is whether you can get enough votes to be relevant, and these people have been able to do that.

I am also not suggesting what the OP should do, I really don’t know. UIUC is a very good school and I would be tempted to save the cash. It probably depends on just how lofty his/her political ambitions are.

25

My son is in same boat offered full tuition at another state school or pay full tuition to Penn (wharton).

We spoke with many, many corporate executives regarding this dilemma and the consensus was if he wants to go into business or politics… hands down Penn. Anything else take the money.

They said the ivy credential not only gives you instant “credibility” but it also gives you access to a alumni network for jobs and fundraising purposes that you won’t be able to get elsewhere. Don’t underestimate the value of this.

Can you succeed in politics without an ivy degree, absolutely! Can you raise political campaign funds without the benefit of this network, absolutely! Its just harder, way harder.

That said if you want to major in PS/ advocacy because you want to go to law school, IMO take the free ride. If your political aspirations are smaller (so to speak) take the free ride… if you think you want to major in PS because you love creating change/advocacy etc but don’t have much hands on experience in the field take the free ride bc you may change your mind. But for any big positions such as running the non-profit go to Penn

26

It’s not that the Ivys produced the Presidents, it’s the other way around. During the 19th century, the rich and famous sent their children to these colleges to separate them from the commoners at the public schools. They only have the fame, connections, and financial resources to run for President. So even if they sent their kids to Pomona College, they would still be elected Presidents because they only have the resources to run for the office. Some of these Presidents, for example, attended Harvard and didn’t even graduate if my memory of US History is still good.

USNews ranks UIUC higher than UPenn in poly sci. So I don’t see the point of wasting $200K.

27

I agree with everything that @runswimyoga said (including the username! 10 points for you! :slight_smile: )-- except the thing about law school. It’s true you want to minimize debt because law school can be expensive but the reality is that Penn and the other Ivies place significantly better into the nation’s top law schools than anywhere else. in 2014, Penn had 22 grads heading to Harvard Law, 20 to Columbia Law, 12 to NYU Law, 11 to Penn Law-- and those are just the students who chose to matriculate. Many more students get into these schools and turn down those offers for more scholarship money at lower ranked law schools or a strong school in a specific field or geographic market. A place like Penn gives you an advantage at every step (which is essential in a field like law where jobs have all but dried up for those outside of the top schools). You are just assumed to have the credentials before you walk into the door. Whether that’s fair or not is another question but it’s reality.

But in terms of politics (and honestly lots more jobs than many would like to admit), having the pedigree helps. Will it make the difference between a good application and a bad one? Nope. But it still matters. If you’re one of five kids at UIUC in your program then you’ll probably be assumed to be as smart as someone at an Ivy… if they read your application. Some recruiters even outside of wall street and finance just use computer programs to search resumes for the names of these colleges and nothing else. Then those applications are chosen for an actual review. The real world is, perhaps unfortunately, not like a holistic review in a college admissions office. Rightly or wrongly, colleges are expected to have done most of the holistic reviews for the employer and then from those universities, the employer can choose whomever they feel fits the culture best. They risk the possibility of passing over an amazing applicant from a school without the ‘name brand’ but they save the resources it would take to sift through all of the applications they get. This is obviously particular to very elite positions to which many people apply and only a few can be chosen. For less intense positions, the ‘prestige factor’ plays less of a role usually- but that’s not to say it doesn’t matter at all.

28

@Optimyst come on now, do you really think that Obama would have been President coming out of University of Hawaii or Occidental vs Columbia/ Harvard ?? His family wasn’t rich or connected… People backed him financially bc of his education credibility that Columbia / Harvard lent lets be real…

and I change my thoughts, if you want to get in a great law school, go to Penn!!

I also want to point out that Washington is much closer to Penn than UIUC… you can take a quick train ride to go interview/ explore connect w many people in non profits plus Penn has a Penn in Washington that has MANY connections to nonprofits in DC https://piw.sas.upenn.edu

29

I don’t know enough about political science majors and job opportunities in relation to “prestige” to contribute in that part of the discussion. :wink:

I’ll just share a couple of things. First, my sister attended UIUC and graduated with a double major of political science and history. She went on to attend and graduate from Harvard Law. It can be done, but as you said in your original post, you will have to push yourself.

Second, you said “I feel like the atmosphere at Penn would push me to challenge myself”. I agree…especially if you know you are spending $200K to be there. Your challenge, if you decide to attend UIUC, is to take the same approach, when you don’t have that same financial motivation.

Much2learn said

I think it applies even more to UIUC. Get involved on campus. Look into study abroad opportunities. The money you save at UIUC should allow you some flexibility to craft an impressive resume. If you choose UIUC, seek out an RSO (or two) your 1st semester on campus. In my opinion, it’s all about skill building. Good luck!

30

I couldn’t disagree more strongly with PennCAS2014 and runswimyoga re the point about law school. If you are considering law school, please, please, PLEASE don’t acquire a lot of debt as an undergrad. The reason a lot of UPenn undergrads go on to good law schools is precisely because UPenn has a lot of high scoring LSAT takers, with high GPAs. That’s it. If you have a high GPA and a great LSAT, you can get in anywhere - disregarding where you went for undergrad. Law school admissions is much more numbers based than, say, MBA admissions.

A couple years back, a top law school forum compiled the data of undergrads with the highest average LSAT scores. Take a look:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1z7FPSt2L1Qc5dYDPhwoFfldl3mTZRZ8dI7-n2gN9f8E/edit?usp=sharing

Penn is in the top 15 for schools with the best lsats/gpas, only behind schools like Harvard, Yale, Stanford, etc. It’s no surprise, then, that Penn places lots of students at top law schools (but, unsurprisingly, fewer than Harvard, Yale etc. undergrad, because those schools have even higher concentrations of high LSAT/GPA performers).

If you want to go to a great law school, concentrate on getting a great GPA and LSAT score. If you have a full ride to UIUC, it means you’ve got what it takes to get a great GPA (and probably great LSAT) there too.

It’s much better to be in a great law school with a UIUC degree and no debt, in comparison to being in the very same law school with a UPenn degree and $150K+ in undergrad debt. Law school debt is bad enough - don’t add to it with lots of undergrad debt.

Runswimyoga also said that Obama was more credible because he went to Columbia/Harvard Law, as opposed to Occidental. The correct premise there, though, is that Obama had more credibility in his early years because of his Harvard Law degree - that degree opened up elite firms/circles for him in Chicago. If he went to Occidental/Harvard Law it would’ve been largely the same trend. The key there was his law school, not his undergrad.

I should close by saying, at the undergrad level, a top school is really only worth a lot of debt if either a.) you can afford the debt or b.) you’re SURE you’re going into a lucrative major/field (like business). So, for the poster whose child got into Wharton - absolutely, it’s a great idea to go. Top schools have an edge in finance/consulting recruiting. For other fields - the debt is rarely worth it. Columbia might have a better pipeline to writers at the NY Times than UIUC, but if you have $200k in debt, you probably can’t take that $50k/yr entry job at the times anyway.

31

Just in case the link doesn’t work…

The top undergrads for LSAT are:

Harvard and Yale undergrad (167 avg. LSAT)
Swarthmore, Princeton, and Stanford undergrad (165 avg. LSAT)
Chicago, Duke, Dartmouth, Amherst, Wesleyan, Columbia, and Brown undergrad (164 avg. LSAT)
UPENN and Wash U (163 avg. LSAT)
Cornell, Haverford, Northwestern, Rice, and Georgetown undergrads (162 avg. LSAT)

32

@Cue7 yeah self collected data is… not great. Here’s a link to another example in which Penn has the 8th highest LSAT score of the bunch (http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/1190895-mean-lsat-score-by-undergraduate-college.html). Those stats vary quite a bit by year depending on who chooses to go onto grad school straight after undergrad-- which is a little less common for Penn students than their peers.

Anyway-- that’s irrelevant on the whole. Yes, Penn has a higher concentration of better LSAT scores buuuuut they also have an edge in placement. We can use Cornell and Harvard as a case study here because both have data they’ve made available to the public. (http://www.career.cornell.edu/resources/upload/2013-14-PreLaw-Guide.pdf) (http://ocs.fas.harvard.edu/files/ocs/files/law_stats.pdf?m=1429122846)

We’ll take a top law school that neither is not affiliated with either university as an example: Columbia Law School.

Cornell had 120 applicants hoping to enroll in 2012 at Columbia Law. Only 28 were admitted and they had an average LSAT/GPA of 172.2/3.82. So an admissions rate of 23,3% Still better than the overall admit rate for Columbia Law that year… and yet…

Harvard had 150 applicants hoping to enroll in 2012 at Columbia Law school. 66 were admitted for an admit rate of 44%. Their mean LSAT/GPA was 172/3.71. A pretty big difference in GPA and a tiny difference in LSAT.

But if you think Columbia law is a fluke, you can see that the pattern holds true for other schools as well.

Stanford Law: Cornell: 12% acceptance rate. 172.6/3.88 LSAT/GPA. Harvard: 23% acceptance rate. 171.8/3.78.

Or let’s take Cornell law where one would assume Cornell grads have an advantage:
Cornell Law: Cornell: 36% acceptance rate. 168.3/3.73 LSAT/GPA. Harvard: 35% acceptance rate. 166.7/3.61 LSAT/GPA.

And the list goes on.

So on average, the Harvard students were numerically less qualified than their peers at Cornell. And yet they still did remarkably better in the law school admissions game with higher percentages of their students being accepted despite the lower metrics. Now, if you think the difference between two ivies is pronounced, then imagine what the difference between an Ivy and a less ‘name brand’ institution will be (hint: enormous).

I am TOTALLY on board with minimizing debt for law school. But… the odds are HEAVILY stacked against you if you don’t go to a top law school and they’re generally stacked against you in the admissions game if you didn’t go to a top undergrad. “thems the breaks,” as they say.

33

Penncas2014:

From what you show, it looks like going to harvard (vs. Cornell) is worth maybe .10 more in GPA and about 1 LSAT point. Lets assume for a moment that Harvard has that advantage against most of the lesser elites (penn, duke, etc.), and that they lesser elites have a comparable advantage over the very good state schools (of which UIUC is certainly one).

To me, is $200k in debt worth such a minuscule bump? The data you present actually supports my argument that Penn with a lot of debt is NOT worth it over UIUC.

Maybe if penn gave you a 0.5 gpa advantage, and was “worth” like 5-7 lsat points, then we’d by talking. But why in the world would anyone with law school aspirations take upenn with lots of debt over UIUC with no debt?

Heck, the data you presents shows that, for pre-law, if you get a great package from cornell and debt at Harvard, it’d be silly to turn down cornell.

I don’t think that’s what you’re arguing, but I’m actually surprised the harvard grads don’t have a larger advantage in admissions over the cornell grads, since harvard (along with maybe stanford) reasonably had a claim of being the very finest university in the world.

The advantage you argue upenn provides doesn’t seem apparent when comparing cornell and harvard.

The data you present, for me, at least, seems to solidify the decision for the OP to go to UIUC. take the money and run! Upenn with 200k in debt isn’t worth the 1.5 lsat point bump the school may have over UIUC!

34

@Cue7 1 LSAT point and .1 of GPA is actually a HUGE deal in law school admissions. This isn’t the SATs or the GRE’s where a difference of 20 points might not mean all that much. And you’re not competing with a bunch of high school kids with only their k-12 lives to speak for. Getting just one more point on the LSAT is one of those nearly impossible things to do. A 170 out of 180 puts you in the 99th percentile of LSAT scorers but a 163 drops you all the way down to the 88th percentile of test takers and renders you largely ineligible for acceptance to the best schools barring highly unique ‘soft factors’ or an extremely high GPA. An advantage of 1 point on the LSAT can be the difference between getting into Harvard law vs not getting into a T-14 school at all. An advantage of .1 in your GPA can be the difference between being a strong applicant for UChicago and being in the bottom 25th percentile of their entering class and rendering your application all but impotent. And thereby, it is the difference between essentially being guaranteed a well paying job that requires a JD versus being at a law school where barely 80% of the JDs are getting jobs that require their law degrees and even fewer are getting them in desirable legal markets. And the majority are probably not jobs that are paying them well enough to pay back the loans they inevitably took out because they didn’t have just ‘one more point on the LSAT’ to get them big scholarship money. 200k is a drop in the bucket when compared to the earning potential and professional flexibility intrinsic to a law degree from a top school. And frankly, 200K for undergrad can save you 300K for law school because again, students are offered scholarship money based on how much they want to recruit you- and they want to recruit people from top schools because it is useful for their branding.

Harvard doesn’t have the same advantage over the other ivies like Penn and Columbia and similar schools like Chicago. While it does exist, the difference in admissions between Harvard and Cornell is more pronounced. Take the student population at Yale law (because the data is publicly available), for example, where you can assume that the majority of admitted students will attend (since their yield is about 83%). It’s also pretty safe to assume that disproportionately more Harvard students apply to Yale than those of other ivies (and similar schools) given the data we’ve already seen comparing Harvard and Cornell, given that Yale isn’t even among the top 10 most commonly applied to law schools at Penn (http://www.vpul.upenn.edu/careerservices/20142015lawstats.php), and the fact that Harvard often has more applicants to law school than Penn and Columbia despite having a smaller class size than both C & P (Harvard UG enrollment: 6694, Columbia: 8613, Penn: 9746). And while that might account for the difference in the number of students from Harvard and Columbia/Penn represented at YLS-- it’s pretty exaggerated to account for the difference between Harvard and Cornell: (http://www.yale.edu/printer/bulletin/pdffiles/law.pdf)
Harvard: 66, Columbia: 29, Penn: 21, UChicago: 14, Duke: 12, Northwestern: 9, Cornell: 8.
And the year before: (http://www.yale.edu/printer/bulletin/archivepdffiles/Law/Law_2014-2015.pdf)
Harvard: 80, Columbia: 23, Penn: 22, UChicago: 17, Duke: 12, Northwestern: 10, Cornell: 7.
The difference between Harvard and Columbia/Penn could easily be a reflection of the disproportionately large applicant pool from Harvard. The difference between Harvard and Cornell is a little bit harder to justify in that way given how much starker it is and the fact that more Cornell kids are applying to law school than those at Columbia and Penn, and likely in similar numbers to former at Yale Law.
Matriculation Data (as opposed to admissions data which we were discussing in my previous posts) outside of these two years gets a little wonky because there was extreme volatility in the law school admissions process in the 5-7 years prior to these two matriculating classes due to the terrible economy and the terrible PR law schools were getting with regard to their job placement stats. In contrast, these two years saw a relative slow down in that volatility and a closer return to the ‘way things had been’ with slight upticks in apps from schools like Columbia, Harvard and Penn and corresponding increases in the strength of those apps as the market regulated. Either way, while H’s placement power relative to Columbia and Penn is undoubtedly stronger, it diverges much more sharply with that of Cornell. And the patterns continue the more different from Harvard the schools become: https://careercenter.georgetown.edu/graduate-school/law-school/law-school-application/admissions-statistics-georgetown.html
http://staging.web.emory.edu/career/documents/about/outcomes/pre_law_2012.pdf

Until you reach schools where even great LSAT scores and GPAs cease to give these obviously qualified applicants a real shot at admission.

In any case, a lot of LSAT takers would trade the naming rights to their first born for just one more LSAT point or .1 GPA. And even more unemployed lawyers or lawyers in non-JD required positions, school funded positions, or at firms not paying them enough to support their families and law school loans would DEFINITELY be willing to trade those naming rights for an advantage of 1 point when they were applying to law school.

35

PennCAs2014,

I couldn’t disagree more. A difference of one LSAT point is NOT the difference between Harvard Law and being out of the Top 14 law schools, and 200k is NOT just a drop in the bucket for high earning law grads.

If a family is cash strapped, one LSAT point is not worth such significant debt.

Look at Harvard’s Aba disclosures - their median LSAT is 173. If you get a point below that, you’re still in great shape for Stanford, Columbia, Chicago, etc. one point doesn’t make that big a difference, and is not worth 200k.

The lowest Top 14 law school’s LSAT average is cornell, with around a 166 median. There is a wide disparity then, in the top 14, between top and bottom lsat scores.

Finally, there is tremendous variability in top law school grads income. Many are miserable in high paying law firm jobs,and having more debt increases the pressure to stay.

If I’m a top pre law student at UIUC, and the fact I got a 172 on my LSAT means I’m going to Stanford instead of Harvard (and the penn kid with a 172 has options at both H and S) I’m gladly taking Stanford with $200k less debt.

Seriously, if you’re cash strapped, taking out 200k for such a slight bump in the LSAT - for a profession known for toil and unhappiness even at the highest levels, is the worst advice imaginable.

(And yes, going down the line, I’d rather be at Vanderbilt law with 200k less debt than Cornell law with 200k in undergrad debt - and the debate there isn’t even close.)

For an op that admits financially concerns, your counsel here is dangerous.

36

Also, PennCAS, maybe I’m seeing different data than you, but don’t Harvard and Penn have about the same number of undergrads applying to law school? See: http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2016/03/law-school-applicants-from-graduates-of-ivy-league-chicago-duke-stanford-plunge-42.html

All things begin equal, then, wouldn’t the numbers of Harvard and Penn grads at top law schools be a bit more similar, given what you are contesting? There are a whopping 66 Harvard grads at Yale law, but only 21 penn grads at Yale law, even though both schools have about the same number of applicants?

To me, this isn’t that surprising - yes Harvard has an edge over Cornell, but it also has a significant edge over Penn or Columbia or Chicago. The edge may be bigger over cornell, but it’s still significant over those other lesser elites.

(Which is certainly not to say I’d tell a pre law to pick Harvard over Penn if Harvard cost $200k more! The numbers show Harvard’s clear superiority, but it’s not worth that much cash over a lesser elite!)

37

Current Penn student here. I don’t want to tell you which one to chose,it’s a big decision and money is important, but let me give you some information regarding Penn. Our political science and international relations departments are highly regarded. There are lots of opportunities to get involved with politics on campus, in Philadelphia, and in DC. Every year, Penn really pushes people to go to DC, helping them find internships and also throwing funding money at them. Our political science classes are challenging, but rewarding. There are also lots of big organizations involved with politics, including advocacy work. I know lots of people currently involved in advocacy right now, most of them having received guidance from a professor or a Penn program. My favorite thing about Penn was that it gave me opportunities I never would have gotten at my state school. Also, all of your peers will be doing cool, competitive and interesting things, which helps motivate others to do the same. You can still have lots of great opportunities that you find on your own, but the Penn name and faculty to back you up definitely helps.

38

Also I just want to add, don’t stress this too much. Don’t stress what everyone says about these “lesser ivies” or any sort of nonsense like that. Whether you go to Penn or UIUC, you’ll have wonderful opportunities. Honestly, the data doesn’t really say as much as your character does.

39

afternoontea,

Your advice is great, but i don’t think the question is whether upenn provides good opportunities for poli sci majors - it undoubtedly does. The question is whether it’s worth a mountain of debt over a good state school, for a family with financial concerns.

The answer there, from what i can tell, is undoubtedly no. There’s no discernible benefit that seems to be worth $200k in debt.

(Also, note that i use the term “lesser elite” because it separates some great schools - like penn - from ones that have even more pronounced stockpiles of wealth and resources. I also use it because, at least in scholarship in this area, schools like harvard and stanford have received the term “super-elite” to denote the distance they’ve established from a host of other schools.)

40

@Cue7 I disagree but were veering into irrelevancy here. I’ll just add, we aren’t talking about the difference between Harvard and Cornell for OP and we aren’t talking about the difference of just 1 LSAT point (it’s likely greater than that). 1 LSAT point definitely does matter to someone with a 169 who gets rejected from HYSC, waitlisted at Chicago and NYU and yield protected at the rest. But it’s fine, we don’t agree on the value add here and I’m happy to concede that your interpretation of the data is not invalid for many students out there. Though I do still think it’s worth it given the hypercompetitive reality of the law school admissions game, the specific doors and salaries that only certain law schools even among the best schools have access to, and the bleak job prospects outside of the very top schools.

Also, no, while Penn and Harvard have a similar total number of apps, with Harvard having more total applicants some years and Penn having more others, Harvard should definitely have more students at Yale because again: Harvard applies to Yale law with at least (if not more than) double the apps as Penn. So no, their numbers shouldn’t be similar if Yale is the 6th most popular law school to which Harvard students apply and it’s not even in the top 10 for Penn students. Harvard matriculated 66 out of 114 applicants to a school to which it’s safe to assume that less than 70 Penn students are even applying in total (based off of Harvard’s app numbers at its top 10 schools and the ‘comparable’ raw total of apps from both schools. Thus if you assume that Yale is the 11th most popular school choice for Penn applicants, which it probably isn’t, it is unlikely to have more than Harvard’s 11th most popular choice which only has 69 apps). There is a Harvard bump but it’s not exactly a chasm for Penn/Columbia/Chicago etc.

But OP should go where he believes his educational and professional goals will be best met. This conversation is ultimately distracting from that-- sorry about that! :wink: OP, @Cue7 makes good points about being cost conscious as you compare potential outcomes from schools. I assign more value to a difference that I see as pretty major in terms of career outcomes and grad school placement. At the same time, I’m speaking about a specific set of very elite job outcomes and grad school outcomes – Outcomes, that you haven’t even indicated interest in-- so with that- I will stop stealing focus and say congrats again on getting into Penn and I hope you choose t become a Quaker!