<p>What are the good and bad things about UPenn that need to be stated regarding specifically:</p>
<p>Dorms
parties
Social life
Girls
Academics
Campus feel
Architecture
Classes
Greek Life
Surrounding city</p>
<p>And how do I major in pre med or is it a bunch of classes? Unsure how it works?
Thanks</p>
<p>“pre med” is not a major at any US college but in reality, an advisory track so that you can take courses & MCAT in preparation for med school apps. You can be a theater major and apply to med schools if you’ve taken the pre-reqs and MCAT.</p>
<p>For your question about the good and the bad about Penn, I suggest you look at a website called College prowler. It will give you letter grades for each of the sections you asked about and all of the reviews are from students of the school. Here is a link to check it out! </p>
<p><a href=“University of Pennsylvania - Niche”>http://colleges.niche.com/university-of-pennsylvania/</a></p>
<p>Dorms: Good. Social for freshmen (can be dirty/tightly spaced). Hall dynamics for freshmen really depend. I know people who have super-social halls and get along well with their hallmates/roommates. I was in the converse situation… My hall is very quiet and my roommate hated me so much that he left. Oops. Spacy/apartment style for sophomores and above.
Parties: Good, very prevalent. If you want to party, you will find them. Big during New Student Orientation and Spring Fling. Many campus organizations throw their own parties.
Social life: Very big at Penn. Known as the “social Ivy” for a reason. Join campus organizations and you will find your social niche.
Girls: Attractiveeee. You’ll be fine.
Academics: On the bad-ish side… Hard classes, competitive environment. Very worthwhile though. It’s great knowing how much you learn from semester to semester.
Campus feel: Good. The campus is small so it takes ~15 minutes to walk (at an average pace) from one side of campus to the other. Locust walk is the main artery on campus and you will cross paths with many people you know. Very tight-knit feel.
Architecture: Varies from building to building. Some buildings look new, cool, and super nice while others look old and wacky and don’t really fit in with anything around it. Other buildings like College Hall look super cool and give that defining look to Penn. It took me a while to get used to the very heterogeneous look of Penn’s campus.
Classes: Hard or easy depending on the professor (some people would say class, but I definitely say professor). You learn a lot if you work hard (which you will). See Academics.
Greek Life: Kinda a large deal at Penn since they are a big part of the Parties/Social Life categories. ~35% of campus is involved in Greek life. However, do not think that if you’re not involved then you won’t have a social life. Lots of people not involved in Greek still have better social lives than those involved with Greek. Everyone should rush to see if it’s for them. Don’t pledge if it’s not for you.
Surrounding city: Philadelphia is a great city. SEPTA is easy to use to go back and forth between Center City and campus. Lots of resources at Penn students’ disposal.</p>
<p>Good:
Academics overall are excellent. The Professors are incredibly accomplished and many are incredibly nice and easy to talk to. I love my particular department and the professors in my department have all been wonderful mentors to me. I have also enjoyed most of the classes I have taken outside of my field of study</p>
<p>Campus and City are great. Philly is a very nice city for a college student with a lot of really neat places to go. The area around Spruce and Baltimore past 40th is also a very nice area. Safety issues are taken care of pretty well by the Penn police.</p>
<p>Research opportunities and resources are outstanding, very easy to become involved and incredibly accomplished if you stand out as an undergraduate researcher</p>
<p>Diversity in social lives of student body is really great since Penn is not dominated by a particular group of people. This makes it possible for anyone to eventually find friends</p>
<p>Lots of diverse extracurricular opportunities </p>
<p>A big emphasis placed on community service</p>
<p>Bad:
The dorms are terrible and overpriced. For freshman year it is nice especially if you have a nice hall, but beyond that they are very depressing. Not much community at all in the high rises and the rooms look institutional. You could get a whole apartment the size of a high rise three bedroom quad off campus for the same price one student would pay to live in that type of room in the high rises</p>
<p>The following is definitely not true of most Penn students but people can be pretty cliquey and the undergraduates who are preprofessional are very vocal and it sometimes feels like they overshadow the rest of the student population, although they don’t
Some people can be a bit snobby and insensitive and/or are just not that smart.</p>
<p>Oh, and the work hard play hard attitude is actually very harmful as it is taken to extremes which is not healthy. For example, people think this means locking themselves up to study all week and then getting black out drunk and waking up in a strange place on the weekend. Moderation is the key to life, if you take breaks from studying you will be much productive and produce higher quality work than if you do it nonstop. Also, control your drinking. While it’s fun to have a few drinks and be social, no one wants to always have to take care of the friend who doesn’t know their limits and gets themselves into precarious situations.</p>