UVA or UPENN (General studies) ?

<p>nahrafsfa, i wasn't hating on your grammar, i was poking fun at the fact that uva does not have lots of diversity, especially compared to penn.</p>

<p>I don't think I have a shot at the College of Arts and Sciences at Upenn. However, I think i have a good chance of getting into the General Studies program. I guess I am concerned that the GEneral studies program is not as highly regarded as the traditional BA degree from Upenn.</p>

<p>well eh...UVa is 30% minority and rising...</p>

<p>First of all, let me say that Penn is a great school. However, I don't believe Penn is any better than Virginia. If US News is what you are basing your decision on, let me remind you that in 1991, US News ranked Penn #13 while Virginia was at #18. At one point in the mid-90s, Penn was at #16 I believe. Furthermore, University of Washington at St. Louis was something like #24 in 1991. Do you really think that Penn changed that much in less than 15 years (and probably more like 5-10 years)? Obviously no. US News changes its methodology to sell magazines. HYPS are in a league of their own. Penn, Cornell, Virginia, Chicago, Duke, Berkeley, and the other ivies are about the same in academics and prestige. MIT and Caltech are like HYPS but for technical subjects. Stanford, on the other hand is good at both science and engineering as well as other subjects (in my opinion - the best university in the world - hate to admit it as a Virginia Alum, but it is true).</p>

<p>So, you can either go get a Bachelors from Virginia or a General Studies Degree from Penn. If you were comparing a Bachelors from Virginia vs. a Bachelors from Penn, they would be equal (in terms of prestige and jobs). Since you are not, Virginia wins out.</p>

<p>Second, Virginia is less expensive than Penn (at least for Bachelors - I am assuming the same for General Studies as well).</p>

<p>Third, Virginia is located in Charlottesville - ranked Best City to Live in America recently (see the Virginia thread). Penn is in Philadelphia. I used to live in Philadelphia, and let me tell you - Penn is not in a safe or nice area. Plus, Washington DC is only 1.5 - 2 hours away from Charlottesville.</p>

<p>Fourth, Virginia sports are better than Penn sport. Period.</p>

<p>If I were you, I would only choose Penn over Virginia if you were attending Wharton (Darden is great, but it is no Wharton). Hope this helps.</p>

<p>UVa lives and dies by their US News rankings. So much so, it's the driving force behind their admissions process.</p>

<p>Philadelphia is 2hrs south of NYC.</p>

<p>UPenn is ivy.</p>

<p>Philly has a real music, arts/museum, sports scene.</p>

<p>Philly is about an hour away from the Jersey shore. C'ville is land-locked.</p>

<p>UVa has the lowest % of students of all universities in the nation who qualify for the Pell grant. This alone is quite a telling statistic.</p>

<p>C'ville listed a realistic #90 on Money Magazines top 100 places to live.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.usatourist.com/english/places/pennsylvania/philadelphia.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.usatourist.com/english/places/pennsylvania/philadelphia.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Let me start off by saying that I think that spyderman hates UVa (some people say it is because he was rejected from it (based on his previous posts) - just a rumor, however). </p>

<p>First, I believe UVa cares more about its students than US News Rankings.</p>

<p>Second, UPenn is an ivy - but ask an ordinary person and they will think UPenn and Penn State are the same school. Ask an educated person and they will say UPenn and Virginia are equal.</p>

<p>Philadelphia is a big city - but it is not a safe city - look at the crime rate statistics for Penn. Charlottesville has lots of things to do and you will be very close to DC.</p>

<p>Money ranked Charlottesville #90 - but was considered a "top" 100 city. Money also recently ranked Charlottesville #32 - hence you can see the rankings change a lot. See my post on the Virginia thread for more info about other rankings.</p>

<p>UVa has a new program called AccessUVa that will help low-income students afford Virginia.</p>

<p>Lastly, please do your own research and do not rely on spyderman.</p>

<p>UVa is about 2-2.5 hours away from Va. Beach....Really landlocked if you ask me :)</p>

<p>Perhaps, if you're doing 85 the whole way, but the traffic in Richmond gets ya every time. So, it's more like 3+ and yes I'd call that land-locked.</p>

<p>VirginiaAlum, if you debated me instead of attacking me you might see I don't really hate UVa. Like I've said, I'm here almost every day. There are problems at UVa that need to be addressed, and AccessUVa doesn't come close. I don't like it when people mislead impressionable young students, and there's a lot of that going on here.</p>

<p>VirginiaAlum. I hope to God you are joking. There is no way UVA>Penn. </p>

<p>1)UVA is much bigger than Penn. Penn has a larger endowment.You do the math. Penn's dorms are amazing -- all upperclass dorms have been renovated as of this year. Penn doesn't care about its ugrads? Please.</p>

<p>2)Employers know that UPenn is not Penn state. The top investment banks also know that Penn>UVA which is why you will find a MUCH larger representation of penn grads (not just wharton, but engineering and college as well) on Wall Street than those from UVA. Penn is the most represented school at Goldman Sachs -- the #1 investment bank in the US.</p>

<p>3) I'm not obsessed with prestige and so the UPenn = Penn State issue doesn't bother me at all.</p>

<p>4) Don't even try to argue that Charlottesville is better than Philadelphia. Penn's campus is incredibly safe, we have our own police force and crimes are so rare these days that when they happen it's a big thing. Downtown Philadelphia (~5 minute walk from campus) simply blows charlotesville away. </p>

<p>Lastly, one goes to a top school to establish connections that will lead to bigger and better things once he/she enters the workforce. Penn has lots of blueblood families and such connections are very easy to establish. the same cannot be said for UVA.</p>

<p>to answer the original question UPenn would be the better school - but you are applying to General Studies which is different. I assume you would be a normal ugrad at UVA. In my opinion for a normal ugrad experience go to UVA. you won't mix much with the normal penn undergrads at general studies and most of you rlcasses will eb at night -- it's basically penn's version of harvard extension school.</p>

<p>Spyderman24, for someone who doesn't hate UVa, you spend a lot of time in the UVa section bashing UVa. Sad really. </p>

<p>How about spending your time creating a student center that helps current students at your college? Why won't you establish an alumni organization and become a president of another one to help alums? Why won't you try to raise money for your alma mater instead of attacking UVa? </p>

<p>These are the things I've done for UVa, and I'm a liberal gay minority alumnus who's spends quite a bit of my free time helping a school that people like you love to stereotype as a college for conservative wealthy Southerners.</p>

<p>If my commitment to UVa doesn't speak volumes of how special Mr. Jefferson's University is then I don't know what does.</p>

<p>In the General Studies program at Penn, students fulfill the same academic requirements as traditional undergrads and receive the same degree...however, just like interested123 stated, the majority of your classes will be in the evenings (until you get into your classes for your major). It really depends on what suits your interests/needs. Columbia's General Studies program is supposed to be very good. Harvard's Extension school is good, however, you have to take like 3-4 writing classes before you can be considered for admission into their degree program.
So, is Penn's CGS any better than UVA's BA program? It really depends on what fits your schedule as far as classes are concerned.</p>

<p>Interested123,</p>

<p>1) Smaller is not always better. Are you saying that Vassar which is smaller than UPenn is better? The following schools have larger endowments that UPenn. Are they ALL better?</p>

<p>Harvard University $22.6 billion<br>
Yale University $12.7 billion<br>
Stanford University $10.0 billion<br>
Princeton University $9.9 billion<br>
University of Texas $9.7 billion<br>
Massachusetts Institute of Technology $6.0 billion<br>
University of California $4.8 billion<br>
Emory University $4.5 billion<br>
Columbia University $4.5 billion<br>
Texas A&M University $4.3 billion<br>
University of Michigan $4.2 billion<br>
Washington University St. Louis $4.1 billion<br>
University of Pennsylvania $4.0 billion </p>

<p>2) Wall Street is not the end all, be all. Most UVA grads go to DC, then NY, then Atlanta. UVA grads hold their own against Penn grads. I know. My boyfriend and his buddies went to Penn and Wharton. Not to diss them, but my UVA friends are just as good and successful.</p>

<p>3) It's good that you don't buy into the Ivy League BS. Oxford doesn't either. UPenn is not even one of the top 10 producers of Rhodes Scholars in America. They are in descending order: Harvard, Yale, Princeton, West Point, Stanford, UVA, Dartmouth, Air Force Academy, Naval Academy, U. Chicago, Duke, and MIT. </p>

<p>4) Dude, I live in NY, and I went to school in C-ville. Please! Philly is not as nice as Charlottesville, and it wishes it was as good as NYC.</p>

<p>Lastly, UVA has its share of blue bloods. That's Spyderman24's entire TIRED argument.</p>

<p>Nontrad9, since we're talking about General Studies, you'll have to look at each school carefully. They both offer great programs. You should visit both schools to see which one fits.</p>

<p>
[quote]
Haha...I'd rather go to one of the best public schools in the country rather than one of the LOWER Ivies. Don't they realize that people think consider the rest of the league prestigious outside of Harvard, Yale, and Princeton because of the halo effect - because they're in the same "league" as HYP? Hello, it's just an athletic conference! (And a tragic one at that.) Twenty years ago, people always confused UPenn w/ Penn State. Probably, a lot of people still do.

[/quote]

I don't think there is anything such as a "lower Ivy". You're either an ivy league or not. And you're right that it is just a athletic conference that no one really cares about. But all the IVY league schools are great in their own unique way. Just because a person goes to Brown or Upenn, doesn't necessarily mean that he didn't get into Princeton, Harvard or Yale. Some choose to pick those schools over the so-called "higher Ivy" as I did.</p>

<p>And just because a school isn't an Ivy doesn't mean it's not a great school. Take Stanford, MIT, Rice & Duke. All are exceptional schools with great programs. I really hate USNews & World magazine. They really are being unfair to alot of universitites with their rankings. My relatives in England don't think any school in the U.S. can hold a candle to Oxford.</p>

<p>Funny thing is, out in the real world, your undergrad education will only get you so far. But if you really want to impress colleagues, get into a great Graduate school. That's why it's really important to go to an college where you'll be happy and do well in your undergrad. Few reputable grad schools will take you with a 2.5 GPA, whether you graduated from Harvard or Yale.</p>

<p>i visited UVA yesterday and thought the campus was amazing. After an informative meeting with the transfer dean, i went on the campus tour led by a uva student. </p>

<p>Beautiful. THe campus was absolutely stunning. Walking around the campus made it easy for me to understand the UVA -work and play- ethic.</p>

<p>I'm going to visit the George Washington and Upenn campus sometime next week...</p>

<p>Hey Nontrad, did you get a chance to visit the Aquatic Fitness Center? It's the modern-day gem of the U. Just an amazing facility.</p>

<p>Are you kidding????????????????</p>

<p>Penn > UVA in a second, but UVA >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Penn GS. At Penn GS you won't get undergrad housing and will be an outsider, you'll also miss out on the same recruiting. The people on this board don;t understand what GS in I think, they keep comparing the college at Penn to UVA.</p>

<p>Kipling,</p>

<p>First of all, I don't want you to think that I don't respect UPenn. I know and recognize that it's a great school. The thing that irritates me is that people often assume schools like Penn, Brown, Cornell, etc. are better than schools like UVA because they're in the Ivy League, which to reiterate is a horrible yet mythogized athletic conference.</p>

<p>Yes, US News sucks. When it was created, it was established with the assumption that Harvard, Yale and Princeton would be at the top so they use criteria that enforces that. If US News started using other criteria that students often think are important (i.e. sports, financial aid, "best buy," quality of life, diversity, etc.), I don't think many of the current Top 10 schools in US News would still be in the Top 10.</p>

<p>Again, each school has its strong departments and stellar aspects that make each of them special. These aspects should be what a student pays attention to when choosing a college, not what athletic conference a college belongs to...unless that is...sports is really your thing.</p>

<p>
[quote]
are better than schools like UVA because they're in the Ivy League, which to reiterate is a horrible yet mythogized athletic conference.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I think the word you are looking for is 'mythologized'.</p>

<p>Oops. Thanks. Bad spelling.</p>