what do you think?
What other colleges?
just in general. like other ivies
Is this an attempt to have CC help you write your Why Penn question?
@targetduke1 Not that I don’t want to help you, but you should do your own research instead of expecting others to spoon feed you answers. In general Penn emphasizes interdisciplinary approach to academics/research and its culture can be more preprofessional than other ivies/top schools.
UPenn & Yale stand out from the other ivies in being in a really bad neighborhood.
Work hard play hard
Backup school for HYP rejects?
Well, it’s the only Ivy league school in Pennsylvania, something Columbia and Cornell cannot say.
Wharton school. it is better than HYPSM for some students.
No other university in the world can lay claim to having dueling tampons at a major campus intersection.
The only Ivy sometimes confused with a state school?
As opposed to Cornell, the only Ivy that partly is a state school.
- Wharton
- "One University" policy
- Only lower Ivy with an urban campus
Flexibility and diversity of dual degrees! I applied to the VIPER program at Penn and it overlaps with my desire to study engineering, chemistry, and solar panel research! There are other programs aligned with more business oriented students, but the pre-professional mindset at Penn is simply incredible!
Damn why are some of yall roasting penn “lower ivy” and “part state school” stfu XDD
- One University Policy allows students to take classes and/or do research in all of Penn's undergraduate, graduate and professional schools. This means that all Penn's students have access to a world class liberal arts education regardless of the school they've matriculated to within the University and students in the College can take on double majors in Engineering or do a minor in Wharton like Consumer Psychology/American Public Policy/Actuarial Mathematics/Etc. Undergrads can also broaden their educations with classes from the Law School or research with a professor in the Med School. Professors also hold dual appointments between schools allowing them to unite seemingly disparate fields of study in individual courses. These aspects and others create a fully integrated educational experience for students in every school.
- Interdisciplinary opportunities- With more fully fleshed out, substantive dual degree programs than any other top school and genuine undergraduate access to a much wider variety of schools/academic disciplines all on Penn's singular, compact, yet spacious campus, Penn is uniquely positioned to offer its students unparalleled access to an incomparable number of truly meaningful interdisciplinary opportunities. And they've been doing this for centuries, well before "interdisciplinary" became a nearly meaningless buzzword.
- Penn's campus is an actual campus with lots of trees and green space located in the heart of America's 5th largest city. Philly is exciting and interesting enough to offer Penn students a lot of variety in their social/academic lives but not so large and overwhelming that it ever detracts from the robust school community life that Penn's nearly 300 acre campus fosters for its students. And Penn's campus and surrounding area is exceptionally safe.
- Research- Penn and Columbia have the two highest Research and Development expenditure budgets in the Ivy League. Penn does an outstanding job of connecting its students to the projects this money funds through the one university policy and offices such as CURF (Center for Undergraduate Research and Fellowships).
- Social Ivy- Penn has a reputation as being far more social than its peers which translates into students taking their social lives as seriously as they take their academic lives. Students know when to put down the books and decompress. There is a great emphasis on being friendly and collegial as students are frequently reminded that their peers become their network in the professional world and that can be invaluable. Penn has a lively party scene that consists of a mixture of Greek Life, Philadelphia's nightlife, parties thrown by various clubs on campus (ranging from the debate team to the rugby team and everything in between), and more. Philly has a ton of BYO restaurants so Penn students can enjoy inexpensive, delicious food at restaurants that won't charge them an exorbitant amount of money to have a drink. But if partying isn't your thing, Penn's reputation as a social ivy still holds true. Students across the board are happy to relax on a friday night or to go to one of the many school sponsored social activities.
These are my top 5 but there are many more. I’d be happy to answer any questions you have about Penn. I chose Penn over several other Ivies (most notably Yale and Columbia as both really appealed to me) and I couldn’t have been happier with the decision. It’s a wonderful school that is populated with wonderful people and I cannot recommend it highly enough! Good luck in the college search process 
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@targetduke1
First of all, Penn is not a lower ivy, more like in the middle along with columbia (HYP at the top and brown, dartmouth, Cornell at the bottom)
To give you an idea how Penn competes with the other ivies: In general it is very rare for people to choose Penn over Harvard or Princeton and that almost never happens. However there are a quite a few cross-admits who choose Penn over Yale, especially those admitted to Penns dual degree/coordinated programs(LSM, M&T, Huntsman,VIPER, NETS) as well as to Wharton or Penn engineering, due to the relative strength of Penn vs Yale in these areas. With columbia the cross admit split is around 50-50, and with Dartmouth, Brown, Cornell Penn wins by a lot.
Now to answer what makes Penn stand out from the other ivies:
Starting with academics, Penn is the ivy where an interdisciplinary approach to education is most emphasized and encouraged. There are many dual degree programs, many people double major, you can take courses in any school including many graduate/professional schools at Penn. There are many opportunities for interdisciplinary research, there is a program called Penn Integrates Knowledge, under which Penn has been able to snatch top professors with interdisciplinary interests from other top universities. Also obviously Penn has many top notch departments and some big name professors but that is true also fro many other ivies.
When it comes to finding jobs, Penns employment and salary statistics are better than all other ivies apart from Harvard. This is due to Penn having a strong element of pre-professionalism. The variety and quality of recruiting opportunities you will find at Penn, you will not find at most other ivies. Everyone and their mother comes to recruit at Penn.
Lastly, Penn is the only ivy with a really great social life. Penn kids know how to kill it in the classroom but also have fun outside the classroom. They are the cool nerds. There is a work hard play hard culture, however if partying hard is not your scene you can easily avoid that, there are many people people who are more mellow than this.
Lastly in term of location, I believe Penn has the third best location of all the ivies, after Harvard and Princeton. New Haven is a boring s***hole, and columbia does not have much of a campus community because everything gets sucked out by NYC. Penn has both a solid campus feeling and is in a major city, which gives you the best of both worlds.
Just to sum up, if you get into Harvard or Princeton, I am not gonna tell you to pick Penn over them, cause I am pretty sure i wouldn’t have either. However i think Penn is in many cases a better deal than Yale,depending on what you are gonna be studying and in general a better deal than Columbia. As for Dartmouth, Brown, Cornell it is a no-brainer.
@Penn95 “In general it is very rare for people to choose Penn over Harvard or Princeton and that almost never happens.”
In my experience, this is less true than you think. While they both win the majority of regular admission cross admits from Penn (especially H), I think they lose a significant number of battles before that point. In my experience, there are a fair number of top students that visit all the Ivies, decide Penn is the best fit, and do not to even apply to Harvard or Princeton. This is especially true if the student has an egalitarian streak and isn’t interested in “Supper Clubs”, Secret Societies, and pretentiousness.
@Penn95 “Lastly in term of location, I believe Penn has the third best location of all the ivies, after Harvard and Princeton.”
Penn has a major city, a sizable, traditional campus and the best weather of the Ivies. In my book that makes it the best location. Harvard can turn into a snow bank for months, and Princeton is not in a major city.
I think any Ivy can be the best school for the right student. I agree that I would generally suggest that a kid choose Harvard over Penn, but even then there are can be good reasons to choose Wharton, or SEAS coordinated or special programs.
In my experience, Penn Alums, more so than any other Ivy are likely to tell you that they not only got a great education, but also loved the four years they spent at Penn. That is the kind of advertising that money can’t buy.
@sillyface , I think the reason the thread started the way it did was because people were pretty sure that the OP was asking people to write his “Why UPenn?” essay for him.
They chose not to make it as easy as starting a thread on the subject.