Upenn and brown decision

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Pennsylvania
1

<p>I have been preoccupied about my decision for the past three weeks, as this upenn-brown decision is truly a dilemma! I have chosen brown, but i feel like i made the wrong choice and am considering withdrawing my spot at brown. Please give me your feedback, guys. That would be awesome.</p>

<p>I did not apply to wharton. I applied to the college as an anthropology major but will change that to a cognitive science at upenn. (At UCLA I was doing psychobiology and the accounting minor). I am also interested in business, which is what draws me to upenn. However, i don't think you can receive a degree at Wharton as a transfer, which was one of the reasons i did not pick penn. i believe you would only be able to take classes at wharton and/or get an interschool minor, which is what I would be doing. This is what I’ve been told, so if you have heard otherwise, let me know. Furthermore, as a junior transfer, i doubt I would have the time to take a significant amount of wharton classes, given that I have only two years to complete my cognitive science major plus whatever GE’s I am missing.</p>

<p>I never got the chance to visit both schools this quarter, as i was completely bombarded with school, finals, etc. So location was never an issue for me. However, my friends at penn have told me that the student body there is more rigorous and harsh, which i felt was not conducive for a transfer. I was mainly scared that i wouldn’t be able to fit in, and brown just seems more accommodating in that respect.</p>

<p>My main issue with brown is its lack of national and international prestige, as well as it being the ivy with the least endowment, which says something I suppose? My parents are extremely asian, so they would rather spend the 40k on upenn, which they believe has a stronger prestige presence. Furthermore, brown's unorthodox curriculum, i feel, might be looked down upon by employers especially in business or other professions as a diploma that wouldn’t carry significant weight to it. Ideally, I would like a job at a consulting firm and recruiters are always at penn. On the flip side, though, it seems like I could be put at a disadvantage given the immense numbers of Wharton people competing for the same jobs.</p>

<p>i really liked brown for its open curriculum, and i would be able to double major in a shorter period of time- cog neuroscience and the commerce, organizations, and entrepreneurship program. </p>

<p>again, i am still very conflicted and do have occasional thoughts of withdrawing from brown and attending penn instead. Could this be cold feet? Maybe. Prestige/image of the school is a huge factor. so is social life. id be happy at upenn, but imagine id be even happier at brown. but the happiness difference is minimal, so I can see why penn would give me a good combination of prestige and happiness. Please tell me your concerns about both schools as well as your take on my situation. I’d love to hear them.</p>

2

<p>Frankly, both are terrific schools.</p>

<p>Go with your gut on this one.</p>

3

<p>furthermore, i care about the prestige of my school because employers are the ones that will be hiring me when i graduate. employers aggressively come to Penn to recruit students for internships and full-time jobs. Citigroup only recruits on-campus at 6 schools across the United States. Penn, not brown, is one of these 6 schools. If you don't go to one of the 6 schools, you go through the main selection pool online, which makes it very difficult to land an interview. Furthermore, going to Penn would carry a lot more weight and open up more opportunities than Brown, since the school is larger and it has Wharton as one of the schools so the employers put Penn on their radar.</p>

4

<p>I'd say Penn, but then again I almost always do ;)</p>

5

<p>I would personally go to Penn over Brown, but I wouldn't worry about landing a job after Brown. Both schools are great, and difference in prestige is too small to measure. Isn't it too late to take a spot at Penn (if you withdraw from Brown) though??</p>

6

<p>yeah, is it not too late to still accept penn's offer?</p>

<p>i would also choose penn over brown btw ;)</p>

7

<p>its great that youre telling me penn, but do you mind backing up your claims?</p>

8

<p>hrm, well i didn't apply to brown... but i'd say the open curriculum would be a bit of a deterrent... penn has a somewhat structured curriculum, but you're also given A LOT of freedom to choose classes... the curriculum ensures that you're given a well-rounded education by requiring you to take classes in different subject areas, but also gives you flexibility within each area.</p>

<p>also, the location of penn is arguably better... for me, i love volunteering and knew i wanted to help the inner-city youth in philadelphia, which would be less of an option in providence. philly trumps providence for many other reasons as well (music, sports, etc) -- although i am quite fond of the homey community, thayer street, and the providence mall that brown has to offer.</p>

<p>and overall, i'd say penn does have a slight leg-up in terms of prestige, although it's pretty negligible. </p>

<p>good luck!</p>

9

<p>Oh, please! They are both great colleges. Penn is larger, and has somewhat -- but only somewhat -- more "brand" recognition because of Wharton and its other professional schools. (Penn's additional endowment, by the way, is very much tied up with those professional schools and the hospitals it owns.) Brown, traditionally, has been more selective and has attracted a slightly stronger undergraduate student body. (I know several people who turned down Penn and Stanford, Columbia, even Harvard to go to Brown.)</p>

<p>There is just about NOTHING at stake in choosing one vs. the other. Both provide more world-class opportunities than one person could take advantage of in twenty undergraduate careers. What you do at either will be up to you, not the university. Both have excellent reputations with anyone who knows his butt from a hole in the ground. The people who recognize Penn more aren't the people who are making hiring decisions, you can count on that, with the possible exception of people whose hiring is limited to Wharton, and that won't be of any help to you.</p>

<p>The "unconventional" curriculum is a total red herring. No one in the real world gives a hoot, and if they did all they would care about would be what an individual student did with his curriculum, not what someone else might do. Someday I would love to see a study of what difference Brown's lack of requirements makes. My strong belief is that, on average, it makes less than a course difference vs. a place like Penn with relatively weak distributional requirements. Most of the students at Brown, and all of the advisors, believe in a broad-based education, and they select their courses accordingly. The few who really take advantage of the open curriculum do so to focus very early on in a particular area. I suspect they come out of college looking more, not less, rigorous than the average student just about anywhere else.</p>

<p>Brown is a lot smaller and more intimate than Penn -- really more like Princeton or Dartmouth. That could be a little better or a little worse, depending, but I would think that it would be a plus for most transfer students.</p>

<p>I'm not telling you that Brown is better than Penn. I could argue that either way. I AM telling you that there is no rational argument, none, that Brown is so inferior to Penn that it could possibly have been a mistake to choose it. Do not lose sleep over this. Do not give up your place at Brown unless you are 100% sure you have one at Penn. And even then, don't switch unless you are absolutely sure that's what you want.</p>

10

<p>Both are excellent schools with similar job placement. Don't choose between these two amazing schools for any reason outside of fit. Both will get you the job you want and are equally prestigious.</p>

11

<p>I completely agree with JHS that neither is better than the other. I would just choose Penn because it's a better fit for me. I love Philadelphia, I love the campus, the people are awesome, and it's an overall fun place to be. I'm not saying that Brown isn't, by the way.</p>

12

<p>Anyone ever hear the version of "the red and the blue" we sing when we're playing Brown?</p>

<p>come all ye loyal classmates now in hall and campus through!
Lift up your hearts and spirits for the royal--broooooown</p>

<p>* Fair Harvard has her* broooooown, * old Yale her **broooooown,
* But for dear Penn-syl-van-i-aaa..
We wear the--broooooown</p>