I recently attended a Penn regional info session and I really liked it. I never thought about applying to Penn in the fall until now, but I don’t really know a lot about it besides what they say on their website and brief info session.
How is Penn’s CS program? I plan on majoring on CS in college. What makes Penn unique from other schools? How is the social life there? Are the classes small or large? Is the campus in a nice area?
If there’s anything else I’m missing please let me know.
To answer your first question: Penn’s undergraduate CS program is one of the top programs in the nation, is more academically rigorous than some of the stereotypical CS schools (i.e. Stanford), and has absurdly good job placement across the board.
Genuinely curious - why do you say this? I don’t know much about the Penn CS department, but I haven’t heard anything on it before either. When people talk about CS in the ivies, I think Cornell or Harvard before Penn. In the CS world I know, Penn isn’t considered as high as that top tier. Is there a different teaching philosophy? Smaller class sizes? What makes it more rigorous?
That first post has a pretty good tier assessment:
While I think you could add a few more to both Tier 1 and Tier 2 (Harvey Mudd, UT Austin, and UWashington immediately come to mind), and there’re a few more tiers between there, I think this is a pretty accurate starting point.
Overall Penn is probably a very solid choice for CS, but I’m skeptical that it offers more rigorous or quality CS than Stanford and some other big names. Both of those quora posts were surprisingly well articulated and accurate from my experience, down to the smaller details even.
Overall, I think these are the more important questions. If you’re considering Penn and are competitive for admission, chances are you will have lots of good schools to pick from in CS. I would say focus on fit significantly. I’m no Penn expert again, so I’ll leave those questions to posters here who know better.
@PengsPhils I think @“Keasbey Nights” prob meant that Penn is more rigorous because Stanford tends to have higher grade inflation than Penn. I don’t think he/she meant that Penn CS department is better than Stanford’s.
To answer the original question however Penn CS is super strong for undergrad, with top notch placement and I think its advantage for ugrad over some other more traditional CS schools like CMU, Berkeley, Georgia Tech, UIUC is that you can get a very rigorous technical education and at the same time a more well rounded education given Penn’s strength across the board and its more well-rounded curriculum.
If you are thinking about starting your own tech company, the added bonus with Penn is Wharton, the best undergraduate B-school in the world. It is no surprise that Penn has produced the most billionaires.
Super cool to see those Quora posts; I TA’d Dhruv at Penn, and I took CIS 262 with Aaron Roth.
With regards to Dhruv’s post: he wrote it before matriculating to Penn, and therefore only knew about CS program reputation based on hearsay. I would agree with his tiers in terms of reputation. I would disagree in terms of academic rigor, having many friends and co-workers who did undergrad from the top CS programs. Moreover, quotes like this:
are gross, gross understatements of Penn’s job placement. It’s also hard for someone to compare courses based on syllabi.
Professor Roth’s post is all true, but again, it doesn’t touch upon my point, academic rigor. I will say that his problem sets were super, super challenging (:
Penn offers an academically more challenging experience than Stanford, based on what Stanford undergrad friends have willingly told me and based on my own experiences. I define this in terms of how challenging the courses are. It’s true that Penn has less grade inflation than most schools, but even ignoring this, I straight up think the courses are harder at Penn at the undergrad level. I agree that Stanford might be a better place to do a Ph.D in a lot of fields, but there’s a massive difference between what undergrads and Ph.Ds go through. Stanford core undergrad courses have been watered down these days, according to my friends who went there. And this makes sense when you consider just how many people at Stanford take those classes every year.
This is absolutely true with regards to Harvard, too. I think Cornell is at an equal level of rigor, based on what I’ve heard.
In my experience, tier lists generally focus more on things like brand name and researchers, rather than undergraduate program rigor.
I think it makes sense that accepting my claim requires a leap of faith. There’s no way to quantify academic rigor. I think that rigor is orthogonal to research prestige and brand equity. For example, you could easily take a calculus class at a local community college that is more rigorous than one you’d take at an Ivy League school.
I think the point I was trying to make was this:
I think you would actually learn more at Penn than some of the traditional "top" CS programs due to the intensity and expectations of the undergraduate courses.
Job placement is basically equal.
You should therefore be confident in picking Penn for reasons other than CS strength, which coheres with what other posters have mentioned.
I’ll be honest here: I’m obviously a biased source. I loved the hell out of my Penn CS experience, and I feel like its program is underrated, so I want as many people as possible to consider it. And given that one might actually learn more here than at a “traditional” heavyweight CS program, there’s almost no downside (assuming that one is a good cultural fit for Penn). Case in point: I have many friends who turned down CMU SCS for Penn SEAS.
Hope this helped people understand why I made the claim I did! Of course it’s anecdotal and can’t exactly be verified, but that’s just the name of the game.
Wow, thanks so much. That’s really helpful. @“Keasbey Nights” and of course Wharton is also a huge bonus which is one of the main reasons why I’m interested in Penn in addition to their CS department.
Solid post @“Keasbey Nights” ! Obviously, there’s no way to ever have an objective claim on more rigorous, but I think your reasoning makes sure that people can use their views and make a judgment given your experiences. Exactly what I was looking for.
I also understand the bias too - I’m a Northeastern CS student, and frankly looking at other programs and how they’re taught, I think we have one of the best undergraduate CS teaching philosophies out there, above some of the larger names as well. So I’m also understanding of the grad vs undergrad experience.
To add in one point: I think that grade inflation isn’t always a bad thing. One of the reasons I think it is very common in top schools is because it is aimed at easing the stress of grades and encouraging a more learning for the sake of learning environment. It really depends on the students - others benefit from being pushed to get that A- by working incredibly hard. In my experience, difficulty isn’t always correlated with how much you learn. Something for the OP to think about.
To echo @“Keasbey Nights” comments, Penn has a very rigorous CS program.
CS receives a lot of focus from the Penn and SEAS administration because it is the largest major in SEAS. The 40 credits required to graduate are more than most schools, and the gpa average for SEAS is about 3.2. Not very low, but low enough to put some added pressure on students.
The most difficult component has been the extensive, time-consuming projects. For the first two semesters, D1 averaged about 30 - 40 hours per week of homework (on top of classes and recitations). In her third semester, it was 50-60 hours/week, after she dropped a class to manage the load. The fourth semester was back to about 30 hours per week. I should add that she is a top student, not a struggling student. I am convinced that the level of work that these students are regularly asked to do is only achievable by CS students at a very small number of schools.
I don’t know how Penn recruiting compares to others, but I can say that her options for interning this summer were embarrassingly amazing. She had multiple offers, from brand name firms, and didn’t even bother with Penn Career Services. She applied at job fairs, and companies immediately started contacting her.
She chose Penn CS over Berkeley (Regents and Chancellors), Cornell (w/likely), Columbia, and Carnegie Mellon among others.
Opportunities to sub-matriculate into Masters programs
“How is the social life there?”
Penn is know as “The Social Ivy,” and social life is important to students. This results in students having a more positive experience while attending Penn, and also a strong, connected Alumni.
“Are the classes small or large?”
Freshman classes tend to be larger, and get smaller as students become more advanced.
“Is the campus in a nice area?”
The Penn has a large campus that is walking distance to downtown Philly (City Center), a 20 minute taxi to the airport (PHL) or to the train to NYC (abt. 1 hr 15 min). The campus is on the west side of the Schuylkill river, and is nice, and safe. Campus crime is primarily minor crimes such as kids steeling iPhones or bikes. There is a higher crime area further to the west of campus, but it does not seem to cause problems or concern for students.
- I’m a Northeastern CS student, and frankly looking at other programs and how they’re taught, I think we have one of the best undergraduate CS teaching philosophies out there, above some of the larger names as well. So I’m also understanding of the grad vs undergrad experience.