<p>Aha. JohnnyK, thanks for the illuminating comment.</p>
<p>However, you guys go to the school with all the business guys running around.</p>
<p>You know that the concept of a corporate culture is valid. I once worked for Sun Microsystems. An entire company full of either smart asses - like Scott McNealy - or wild-eyed brilliant tecchies - like Bill Joy. </p>
<p>Are you guys representative of the Penn culture? Or some wide streak of it at least? Come on, 'fess up.</p>
<p>Alumother, pm Hazmat. You will get the Penn view from a high quality person.</p>
<p>i'm sort of puzzled as to how one can grasp the culture of a school based on generally humorous / non-serious posts on a forum aimed primarily at severely overachieving ivy-questing high schoolers (for the most part).</p>
<p>so... what is your perception of the penn culture from what you've seen here?</p>
<p>I also know someone who is going to Hamilton Law School</p>
<p>How can one grasp a culture from a limited dataset? Lots of experience - if the dataset is representative.</p>
<p>My perception of the Penn culture from what I have seen here? Very male - in the mountain-goats-butting-heads-on-the-mountain style.</p>
<p>Very intelligent kids who are loathe to display the anxiety or "trying too hard" persona often seen on HYP boards.</p>
<p>So, perhaps kids who in high school were not the top students, but could have been if they were willing to show that they cared. Or kids who did study really hard but that whole please the teacher in class thing they thought was stupid. Maybe kids who scored high on the SATs but refused to study for them. Maybe kids who didn't score over-the-top high on the SATs but IRL show an extreme quickness of mind. Maybe kids who are often described as having a lot of "street smarts". Maybe kids who are really killer with banter but have disdain for big words.</p>
<p>Umm, smart asses? Bound together by affectionate insults? Artful Dodger and his crew?</p>
<p>considering that as far as i know, the only current students posting here are male... then yes, that first point makes sense (any female current students here, feel free to chime in)</p>
<p>we try to cultivate the work hard / play hard concept - we didn't get the social ivy reputation just by chance.</p>
<p>and there's a mix of all of the personality types that you mentioned here - but don't forget about all the pure achievers, too - some turned down hyp to come here, often for wharton, engineering, or nursing...</p>
<p>for a helping of penn humor you can also look at our humor magazine, 34th street:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.34st.com%5B/url%5D">www.34st.com</a></p>
<p>we love midgets</p>
<p>Alumother is giving us a full psychoanalytic work-over.</p>
<p>I never made it out of the Phallic phase, myself.</p>
<p>Well acquainted I presume</p>
<p><em>shrug</em> message boards don't have genitalia. I have to wonder if half the posters you think are males may in fact be assertive females. Or trannies.</p>
<p>The thread didn't stay serious because, to be honest, it's a bit of an pointless question - what benefit can a potential applicant gain from hearing why we're all like snowflakes? Nothing we say is helpful, unless that person <em>also</em> happens to be the only Jew from Idaho or Miss Teen USA. Hell - there really aren't many ways to be an "above average" Penn applicant unless you're a Valedictorian 1600 SAT Jewish URM from Alaska who also was Miss Teen USA and a self-made millionaire published author and inventor who runs their own business. </p>
<p>I would say that the majority of Penn does have a bit of a chip on its shoulder - it comes from being the unknown of the big dogs (academics), and big dog of the underdogs (in the $ sports). Your analysis probably described me at 18 pretty well.</p>
<p>That said, I'm sure there were plenty of valedictorians who ended up at Penn. With 10,000 kids, I'm sure at least one of them liked to study, or else they were in the library at 2AM for a cult of some sort.</p>
<p>9,800 thank you</p>
<p>Well- I'm a girl. And I did start this board to console myself knowing that people who perhaps had "hooks" had modest ones, like President of a unique club, or special internships or something, rather than being the most utterly fantastic, glorious, spell-binding musician/athlete/artist/humanitarian ever to grace the planet.</p>
<p>Thanks for the answers guys. I appreciate the time. Seriously.</p>
<p>And just to be clear, I have been lurking on this board since I visited Penn with my son last week. So my analysis wasn't drawn just from this one thread:).</p>
<p>I got into Cornell because I studied abroad during the summer and attained fluency in a foreign language..I think that's what got me in. Also SUPERB recs and great interview.</p>
<p>If only it was enough to get dulce ED in to Penn...oh</p>
<p>dun worry dulce you'll enjoy cornell better :)</p>
<p>And we'll enjoy Penn more as a result</p>
<p>Should we start a pool for how long dulce will be at Cornell before jumping into a gorge?</p>
<p>no,</p>
<p>Dulche deserves his own facebook group</p>
<p>i was going to make a crass comment about how the title of the group should suggest the killer at Vtech forgot someone (dulche), but I'm won't spell it out for you.</p>
<p>getting banned in 4, 3, 2, 1.....</p>
<p>hundreds of children and people, all with families, die in Iraq each day</p>