<p>I've been trying to decide whether or not I should apply to UPenn. I'm not interested in business, so I would probably apply to CAS instead of Wharton. However, all I am seeing on this forum is "WHARTON WHARTON WHARTON".
Yes, we get it, Wharton is great. But is UPenn a good school for people who are interested in other fields? What does UPenn have to offer for someone interested in poli sci or int'l relations? Or is Penn so fixated on Wharton and its business dept. that other depts. aren't exactly up to par with other colleges?</p>
<p>Just really curious... I would like some current students who aren't in Wharton to respond too, please. thanks!</p>
<p>Spiffystars,
I'd hate to say this, but unless you are a freshman in high school, that is an absurd questiion. Go to the website, look at a list of the classes your possible major would have and decide for yourself. And a bit more news, this website shouldn't be in your top 5 methods for doing research on a university, particularly one as great as Penn.</p>
<p>The College of Arts and Sciences is the largest undergraduate school, however, Wharton attracts a lot of attention because it has such a strong reputation and is a draw for anyone considering business. Penn has amazing liberal arts and, if you look over the list of majors you will notice one of the ways it is unique--a huge number of majors are interdisciplinary. If you do the research that datdude suggests, you will realize how silly this question is.</p>
<p>datdude and nimby58 - I have done much research on UPenn through their website and the materials and viewbooks they have been sending me. I have noticed all the majors they offer, including the interdisciplinary ones. However, I am asking not for general information, but for something from CCers that the website or official information does not tell me. I was hoping to get some better answers than just "go to their website," which is the obvious method for researching any university. I was looking for something out of the box from current students in the CAS who could tell me how their experiences have been so far, and if it's true that the college is solely focused on Wharton or if their liberal arts program is just as good.</p>
<p>I am a comm major here at Annenberg and it is widely regarded as the best program in the world of it's kind. I obviously couldn't attend every school in the country w/a great comm program to compare, but I have been able to visit their websites before I chose this school and I learned a great deal. The comm major here is so in depth that I'll have a choice of career paths after graduation - ranging from the legal/political field, media, teaching or business. I'll also have a chance at entrepreneurship in every field I named. The comm classes here take a unique theoretical approach and get behind the scenes. The course work is exhilirating, if not, mind-numbing, but you'll love it because that's the challenge you're willing to accept in the Ivy League. Annenberg has a new building currently going up that will house their COMPS program (comm & public service) and the program has neat internships in Washington and is focused on politics and pblc srvc. There are new dorms going up as well as newly renovated dorms, and all this should be completed sometime in '08. The Daily Pennsylvanian, which I write for, is widely considered among the top college papers in the country, and again, go on the DP website and check it out.</p>
<p>Now, to back up what I've said, I ask that you visit the Penn website, go to the Annenberg school or any other school here and check out their course listing. If what I've told you doesn't match then consider me a prankster and apply to Cornell, Dartmouth or Yale. They are great schools, but I PROMISE you this, if you aren't too sheltered and naive about being in a great city like Philly (it truly is great, by the way) this will be the experience of your life. Anyone speaking on behalf of any program here will tell you similarly great things about their program and the city of Philly and not just because of bias. If you come here and you ever get bored, chances are you just don't want to explore the city or the city just isn't for you. I love this place, simple as that, and I haven't met anyone who doesn't feel like I do. Similar to the way there are many colleges in the Boston area but Harvard has the run of that area, Philly has many colleges, but Penn owns this city. Simple as that.</p>
<p>I truly hope I have been of some help this time spiffy. I gotta go cause I have about 2 tons of work to do.</p>
<p>this site is terrible, overall. really don't take anything seriously you find on it. come visit penn (and if you can't justify visits in the face of a $200,000 investment, then you've got your priorities in the wrong places)</p>
<p>At the graduate level: Penn Medicine (the first med school in the USA) and Wharton are both ranked #3; Penn Law is #6 (tied with UChicago); Penn's Annenberg School of Communication consistently ranks in the top 5; Penn Vet, Dentistry, School of Education, Penn Design and Penn's Arts and Sciences are all pretty consistently in the top 10. Only the School of Engineering and Applied Science and the School of Social Policy and Practice are not top-ranked.
At the undergraduate level: Penn's Nursing School and the Wharton School are both ranked #1. The Engineering School I think is ranked #29 (but all Ivy engineering schools with the exception of Cornell are in that range), and Penn's Bioengineering is #6, Penn's Nanotechnology is also very strongly regarded by most tech-journals and has been ranked #1 (not US News). As far as the liberal arts go, no concrete rankings are compiled anywhere with the exception of the Gourman Report where Penn's arts and sciences departments all place in the top 10-15 and several place in the top 5.
Pioneering developments in the field of linguistics were made at Penn by Noam Chomsky and his teacher Zellig Harris (the department has been consistently regarded as the best in the country). Penn has the oldest Psychology department in North America (also top-ranked), the Penn faculty founded the American Psychological Association in 1892, Lightner Whitmer at Penn created the entire field of clinical pscyhology (and the first psychological clinic 1896), Morris Viteles started the field of industrial psychology, Ulrich Neisser wrote 'Cognitive Psychology' at Penn, and Twitmyer (who discovered the knee-jerk reflex) discovered the conditioned reflex at Penn (yes, before Pavlov did). Penn's Psychology department continues to be a leader in the field.
Penn's English and History departments are also extremely well-regarded and have won several departmental rewards (their faculty also has an extremely high conc.of Guggennheim fellows and Pulitzer prize winners). Penn's English dept. has won more awards than any other in the College. Anthropology, Architecture, Economics, Regional Studies (Penn has the most comprehensive language center in the country), Neuroscience are all at or near the top of their fields. Archeology and Ancient History also benefit from Penn's Museum which houses one of the largest collections of Egyptian artefacts outside of Egypt (including a massive Sphinx), and the professors are at the top of their fields.
There is obviously a lot more, several departments have rich, important histories and impressive records (look up architecture for instance). Penn's College also has several important collections of rare books and artefacts that draw scholars from around the world.
Penn is an exceptional all-round university and it's current standing is not simply the result of one department.</p>
<p>^ Just to supplement the above excellent and comprehensive post, when the National Research Council issued its highly respected ranking of Ph.D. programs in a multitude of disciplines in the 1990s, Penn ranked #8 on the list of universities with the highest number of programs ranked in the top 10:</p>
<p>And things have only gotten significantly better since then: increased prominence and prestige both nationally and internationally; phenomenal growth in research funding and endowment; significant improvements to the campus and surrounding neighborhood; major enhancements to the overall undergraduate experience including the development of a college house system and special interest centers and programs such as Kelly Writer's House, Weiss Tech House, Platt Student Performing Arts House, Civic House, Penn Humanities Forum, Center for Undergraduate Research and Fellowships, etc.</p>
<p>Certainly, Wharton Undergrad has an incredible reputation--universally regarded as the #1 undergraduate business program. However, that reputation is due in part to the Wharton Undergrad curriculum's incorporation of and integration with Penn's stellar liberal arts departments and overall undergraduate experience. As a visit to Penn's campus would quickly reveal, there is MUCH more to the excellence of Penn's undergraduate program than just Wharton.</p>
<p>I'm a currently an undergrad student in wharton, but I definitely consider myself a penn student first. being a part of penn and having a very complete experience - academically, socially, with extracurriculars, living in a city, etc. etc. - is really what i came here for, not just for the strong business education. the reason why there are so many wharton posts is probably just the buzz about an excellent undergraduate business education (which not all schools offer) vs an excellent liberal arts (which penn offers, but so do other schools). a lot of posters have already brought up the many perks that penn offers, so i'll just leave it at that...no need to spend too much time singing praises about dear old penn</p>
<p>Actual # of Wharton apps was over 5,000, w/ 9% admit rate, about the same as HYP.</p>
<p>College admit rate around double that of Wh.</p>
<p>Wharton has around 1/5th the enrollment of CAS. When you add in joint prog. apps, Wh. gets 1/3 of all Penn apps. Of the other 2/3, it seems like half of them have a secret plan/desire to transfer to Wh. - a lot of people realize they have no chance at Wh. and view a College app as a back door. Really a dumb idea because many will enter, few will win.</p>
<p>Huntsman program has a yield of 87%, in league with HYP.</p>
<p>The College is a great place - certainly among the top 10 schools in the country, but it is not in the very tippy tippy top tier in most majors. BUT Wharton is the unquestioned #1 in undergrad business, so it is in a different league. Wharton at this point, especially the joint progs. , are competing for (and winning) 2-way admits with HYPS. The College still loses most X-admits to HYPSM and to some of the other Ivies as well (but not all so dont' tell me about you/your friend Joe who got into H but chose CAS). I know it is a sore subject for some even to say that, but it is true, and it explains the disproportionate attention that Wh. gets.</p>
<p>But, if you are not interested in business, this is neither here nor there. If Wharton were to sink into a hole in the earth, the rest of Penn would still be a great university. Even if CAS is not getting the cream of the cream, competition nowadays for Ivies is so fierce that they still get a very talented bunch.</p>
<p>"BUT Wharton is the unquestioned #1 in undergrad business, so it is in a different league."</p>
<p>For business, for business, and only FOR BUSINESS!!!! (and if you want to just take a few business courses, but not major in a business related field, you can do it as a CAS student).</p>
<p>Indeed. Counting joint-apps as wharton apps is a bit disingenuous.</p>
<p>I think there may be a sample bias in the people percy talks to or interacts with, but from my perspective I know more people transferring from Wharton to the College than the other way around.</p>
<p>Now I just need to think of a way to break to all of the College's Fulbright/etc scholars that they are actually not the 'cream of the cream of the crop.' Poor souls, if only they knew...</p>
<p>I think posters on this board actually make the difference between Wharton and CAS like a much bigger deal than it is. I'm a freshman here and I was expecting Wharton to be like..some huge deal on campus because of how people refer to it on here, but it's really not.</p>