I was wondering if I could get some help on my decision on where to apply Early Decision. I have narrowed it down to Rice
and Penn. I have fallen in love with both schools, but cant figure out which one to apply ED to. I think I should apply ED to one, as I am unsure I will be accepted into either without doing so. I am interested in pre-med, economics and maybe a business job in sports.
Rice
Pros:
lots of medical research opportunities-right next to Texas Medical Center
small classes, collaborative atmosphere
houston offers new cultural experience (i live in boston)
have an sport management major (only top school that offers this) with lots of access to internships with houston pro teams
weather
not cutthroat
happy students
beautiful campus
very undergraduate focused
residential college system
easier to double major
Cons:
not as many clubs/activities as a bigger school
far from home
reputation in northeast, where I want to live as an adult, not nearly as strong as penn (not many I know have even heard of it)
pre med at penn is supposedly stronger
not strong sports (besides baseball)
Penn
Pros:
lots of research opportunities
strong economics department
sciences are very good
philly is close to home, comfortable setting for a bostonian
has unbelievable connections in not only philly, but nyc, dc, and boston
bigger school, lots of clubs and activities and different people to meet/interact with
ivy league prestige
Cons:
pre professional, stress inducing environment (or so ive heard)
not as small class sizes
no new cultural experience
no sports management program
students not as diverse
poor sports scene
double major is uncommon
Any input or knowledge about the two schools would be appreciated.
pre professional, stress inducing environment (or so ive heard)
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Yes, true. You don't get the thought-evoking education that you might get at a place like Brown since everyone gets so hyped about consulting/finance recruiting. Adam Grant even described the undergraduate class as the most hypercompetitive of any institution he's worked at. That being said, you'll come out of it prepared for the real world.
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not as small class sizes
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50/50. Core classes at any decently-sized school will be large, but the upper level classes are small (~15 students).
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no new cultural experience
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Agreed, but Tom Brady isn't revered in Philadelphia, so that's different at least
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no sports management program
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Agreed
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students not as diverse
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Somewhat agree. Rice definitely has a larger minority contingent, but Penn has a fairly large international group within the class
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poor sports scene
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Agreed
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double major is uncommon
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This ones a head scratcher. Double majors within the same school are very common, but not sure if the standard for double majors is different at Rice.
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Feel free to reach out if you have any specific questions.
@aoeuidhtns That’s the second time I’ve seen you cite Adam Grant on the super competitive atmosphere at Penn undergrad. I’ve never heard of him, so I googled and I see that he’s a professor at Wharton. So can you be more specific? Is he talking about all the undergrads at Penn across all the schools? Or just Wharton? If he’s talking more than just Wharton, how does he know?
I’m interested because my son is considering applying to Penn, but it would be engineering or A&S, not Wharton and I’m trying to get a sense of whether Grant’s take on things is relevant. Thx.
Hi there- I just wanted to address a few of your concerns about Penn-
Yes, Penn is pretty pre-professional overall. The "pre-professional" vibe didn't really spill into my english or history classes though. They were extremely intellectual and full of students who deeply immersed themselves in academia. I have friends who have gone onto PhD programs in their disciplines and they've all been served well by the serious nature of the academics they found at Penn. Around OCI time, you'll notice that people start wearing suits and stressing about interviews but if you're pre-med then that won't really be your concern. As a double major in the humanities, I appreciated the way the pre-professional atmosphere encouraged me to find resources that were useful for finding a job but it never really detracted from my classroom/intellectual experience. Also, self-identifying as pre-med kind of puts you in the pre-professional camp too :p
Penn's College of Arts and Sciences actually does appear to have as many small classes as Rice. in fact, 75% of classes in The College have fewer than 25 students and 95% of classes in The College are taught by full faculty members. Penn also has a 6:1 student to faculty ratio and you'll have a pre-major advisor, a peer advisor, and a College Office Advisor the day you start Penn. To those three formal advisors, you'll add a major advisor (or two, if you double major) as you decide what path you want to take and you'll add informal advisors along the way. Penn works very hard to ensure that you have the hands-on, intimate educational experience of a small LAC within the context of a top tier research university. At Penn, I never felt like just a number and the biggest classes I took were never actually very large. The vast majority of my classes were small (10-15ish students) with a full faculty member who had done incredible research in the field and was excited to be sharing her knowledge with us in the classroom. Additionally, the College House system at Penn creates a close-knit community among its students as all freshmen are placed in one of Penn's College Houses with their peers, RAs, and Faculty House Deans who live in the College Houses with students and act as informal advisors.
If you think you won't experience any culture shock going from Boston to philly... you haven't spent enough time in Philly yet. Philadelphia is a very, very different east coast city and it's very dissimilar in a lot of ways from the other major northeastern urban centers. It is far more laid back and significantly less expensive. I too thought philly would be like cities I had experienced before. I too was wrong ;)
Penn is definitely diverse and the city of Philadelphia is very diverse. While its true that Rice does seem to have higher percentages of asian and hispanic students, that won't necessarily speak to the vast array of experiences you'll find within these universities. Additionally, because of Penn's larger overall size, while the percentage of students from those two demographics is lower, it is very possible that the absolute number of culturally diverse students is greater at Penn. Penn also has a much, much larger international presence on campus and don't forget that about 42% of Rice's entering class comes from Texas. At Penn, only 15% of students come from Pennsylvania. True, Texas is more populous than PA but even if you add the populations of PA and New York at Penn (two states that have roughly the same population as Texas when added together), they still compose only 27% of the entering class. There are a lot of different ways to measure diversity and when you couple your Penn experience with your experience in philly (which is very diverse along many different, intersecting identities) you won't be at a loss for meeting new people from all different walks of life.
Double majoring isn't uncommon at Penn at all. I was a double major and it was as simple as just declaring two majors. In fact, my major advisors would often meet with me together so the three of us could plan an integrated academic program for me that would complement the experiences I was having in each department. Penn also has a vast array of dual degree programs between its four undergraduate schools and university minors that allow you to combine courses in two school (the college and wharton, for example) to have a truly interdisciplinary experience without having to fulfill the unique requirements to earn two individual degrees. The school of engineering and the College have also opened up opportunities to double major between the two schools as well, lowering the administrative barriers to double majoring even more.
yeah the sports scene isn't great. But i seriously did enjoy being part of the Ivy League. There is a lot of history and tradition in Ivy League sports and it can be fun to participate in these ancient rivalries. Will it ever be the most exciting part of your campus experience? probably not. But students really do get excited for the Penn-Princeton games and they do televise Ivy games once in a while as well.
You also mentioned that Rice is right next to the Texas Medical center but keep in mind that Penn's and Philly's hospitals are all right on campus or not too far away. In addition, thanks to Penn's one university policy, you can do research with professors in the med school, at the hospital of the university of pennsylvania, at CHOP, or at any of penn's research institutes (like the Wistar Institute) while never leaving campus. You'll have plenty of access to the best researchers and opportunities to work very closely with them.
Don’t be fooled by Penn’s overall size. The actual experience in the College is one that is characterized by rigorous, intellectual academic opportunities in small classes with lots of faculty contact and support. I am still close with my mentors from undergrad and my closest friends still come from my freshman year College House. Feel free to reach out if you have any questions about Penn. Happy to answer them. Good luck!
@gobostonsox123 Why do you say the double major is uncommon at Penn? It is in fact extremely common. Penn is especially known for its interdisciplinary focus. Also the biomedical research opportunities and infrastructure at Penn are in the top 3-4 in the country and very accessible to undergrads.
@aoeuidhtns This is not accurate. Not everybody at Penn gets hyped about finance/consulting and you will find many people at Brown getting hyped about those types of jobs too. You can definitely get a thought provoking, intellectual education at Penn if you so choose and many do choose that. What you are describing is mainly Wharton, not Penn as a whole.
Your quoting Adam Grant has two main problems. As @millie210 mentioned Adam Grant is a Wharton professor and it is true that Wharton kids are predominantly focused on preprofessional endeavors, hype up consulting/finance and are very competitive. All these are less true for the rest of Penn. Also Adam Grant is mainly comparing Penn to Harvard when making that statement, not every other top school out there. The other schools he mentions are UMich and UNC which do not attract such a big share of over-achieving and overcompetitive types as the ivies so they are bound to be less competitive.
Accuracy is relative as these are just opinions. I’m not claiming every person at Penn is competitive or that no Brown student enters banking, but there’s a reason Penn has the reputation that OP asked about. Don’t get me wrong, I loved my time there and would encourage OP to apply to Penn over Rice, but I do think it’s fair to paint a realistic picture about the school when a prospective student asks that question.
In terms of “pre-professional” I used Brown as an example since my perception of its reputation is that it’s more “intellectual” than Penn–again, just an opinion. Both schools place about 70% of their class into the workforce; however, of that group, 42% of Penn seniors go into consulting/finance vs. 26% of Brown seniors. Wharton stusents aside, that’s undeniably a large percentage of the undergrad class.
I’ll agree that Grant is probably describing Wharton kids when he says “Penn students” but the statement is still valid: of any institution he’s worked at, he said Penn is the most competitive. I also agree that it’s probably just a Harvard vs Penn comparison, but it still speaks volumes. I should note that he says competition isn’t necessarily a negative, but that it can affect campus climate. Perhaps this culture is skewed toward whartonites but that segment makes up ~20% of the student body and is bound to affect other Penn undergrads as well.
@millie210 The reason I mention him is because he’s one of the most popular professors at Penn–highest student ratings among Wharton profs. And, the youngest tenured prof in Wharton history. I think it illustrates a point when one of your school’s all-star professors says that the student culture is hypercompetitve. I wouldn’t be concerned with this aspect in regards to your son’s considerations assuming he genuinely wants to go to apply. You can see there’s some varied opinion, which is good. @PennCAS2014 and @Penn95 mention that this is not completely true as a blanket statement for Penn.
Anyway, OP asked specifically about the stress inducing culture, and mentions economics/sports management (which sounds Whartonesque), so I’m going to have to stand by what I said: Penn is pre-professional/stressful compared to Rice.
Thanks for all the replies. Many of you have commented about my thinking double majors are not common at Penn,
and you are probably right. I was just going off the Penn CAS website which reads, “And while having an option of multiple degrees or majors might be appealing, just know that only 25% of students in the College graduate with more than one major, and less than 10% with more than one degree from Penn.”
@gobostonsox123 thanks for providing that quote. I now understand why you got the impression that you conveyed i your first post. The reason they include that tidbit is because a lot of prospective students hear about how interdisciplinary Penn is and then feel like they have to double major or do a dual degree to fully take advantage of the Penn experience but, as you can see from the stat, that’s not the case. The percentage of double majors is more a reflection of self selection among students who feel they need two majors to satisfy their intellectual curiosities, not a reflection of the difficulty of double majoring. In fact, it might actually be representative of the flexibility of a Penn curriculum in that students are able to take classes across so many different disciplines without traditional boundaries holding them back that they feel their intellectual needs are satisfied with just a major and their other classes, leaving no need to officially declare a second major. All that is to say, double majoring at Penn is quite easy administratively and quite enjoyable, from a student’s perspective
@gobostonsox123 So in total about 35% at CAS alone do a double major or dual degree, which is not a small percentage comparatively to other top schools. The overall at Penn should probably also be around 30%+. Penn makes it very easy to double major even if your fields of interest are not closely related, because there is academic core and the curriculum tends to be pretty flexible.
@aoeuidhtns definitely agree that as a whole Penn is more pre-professional than Brown. Also agree that it probably is more competitive than Rice. But saying that everyone at Penn aspires to banking/consulting is not true at all. Many many (but far from all) of the Wharton kids have this aspiration, and much fewer College, Engineering, Nursing kids do. I think if you exclude Wharton the percentage Penn and Brown send to consulting/ibanking should be pretty close.
@Penn95 Defintely valid points–can’t argue with anything you said, and thank you for keeping me honest. I’m definitely one of those “Wharton kids” you mentioned so of course I’m biased in my point of view.
@aoeuidhtns I was Wharton and SEAS so I got to see both sides. A good number of the single-degree engineers were interested in consulting/finance but at Wharton it was the vast majority, as expected. And this is fairly recent assessment since i graduated within the past 5 years.
