<p>I read the Penn forum and I'm really surprised to see so many students so desperate to get in. It's good to want to get into a good university, but many, many of the posts seem borderline crazy and very obsessive about it. </p>
<p>I just wanted to say that Penn was the 4th university I attended. The previous 3 universities I attended range from not even top 3000 in the world, to top 500, to top 20 and all in different countries. </p>
<p>I really thought Penn would be different (as many others probably think) because it's 'Ivy League', very prestigious and extremely hard to get into.</p>
<p>Penn definitely was the richest school I went to, with everything a university needs and good professors. I took courses in Wharton, CAS, SEAS. I was surprised to find that the academic standard didn't stand up to it's prestige, and I was very disappointed by that and left Penn early.</p>
<p>I wish I could say going to Penn was a life changing experience for me, but it wasn't. There's a very big price tag to study there and as an outsider I'm not sure if the supposed prestige is worth all that. The professors aren't magical superstars and in general the courses are far from insightful or cutting edge. It's a bit absurd how well marketed the university is, and just how much people put themselves through to get in.</p>
<p>Maybe I can pass on a little bit of perspective: It's just another university. Penn definitely has some weak departments too, and like any university, nothing is perfect about it. I would say the academics are below average, but professors above average but in most cases, they aren't going to hire you. </p>
<p>There's a flip side to everything - as much as you want to get in, remember there's also is a lot you can miss out on by going to Penn.</p>
<p>MartinMorrison, you’re obviously entitled to your opinion. But I’m not sure how valuable it is given that you’re only 20 years old, and apparently base it entirely on a single semester as an exchange student at Penn. There are literally thousands of professors and courses at Penn, and you’ve sampled, what, maybe 5? You’ve made some rather sweeping generalizations based on such a tiny sample. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>Sure, I can only comment on the 8 courses I sat in on (and only 5 of which I actually took the entire semester), but I have a reasonably good idea of what to expect from a semester of university courses and I just feel the Penn courses didn’t deliver very much (especially considering I took classes with only Seniors/Juniors/Masters and PHD students). This opinion was also shared by the majority of students in my position. I think the main reason should be attributed to the lack of structure in the US undergraduate system, and that isn’t unique to Penn.</p>
<p>I’m not going to agree nor disagree with your evaluation of Penn courses. I’ve found — and bear in mind that this is a generalization — that this doubt of Penn’s academic rigor often comes from European students who just love to dabble in the theory of everything. These are the ones who complain that computer science courses don’t focus enough on theory and proof. These are the ones who think that one of the top American universities has “below average” academics. What incredible pretension!</p>
<p>Seriously, feel free to attend a school that will satisfy your academic desires, but how dare you question the motives of other students! Students that attend Penn wish to get things out of their college experience besides the most rigorous and theoretical academic environment possible. People choose Penn because of its balance of theory and practice, because of its incredible social opportunities, because of its unique location and opportunities.</p>
<p>All your post accomplishes is how naive you are. You don’t go to Ivy league schools for the best teachers or the best academics. You go to them for something else, something else that exchange students just can’t pick up in a semester or two.</p>
<p>While I certainly don’t agree with MartinMorrison on all that he said, I think that he does at least bring up a valid point: Penn isn’t the end-all, be-all in undergraduate education. The Ivy League as a whole isn’t necessarily the smartest group of schools. What I think is important in MM’s post is that he didn’t really see a difference in the educational quality of Penn versus other schools… There’s probably some truth to that. I would be willing to argue that undergraduate education, on the whole, is fairly homogenous across schools in terms of straight content, HOWEVER, the real difference between the Ivy League and other top schools versus maybe community colleges and other schools (not to devalue anyone) is the access to resources. </p>
<p>You’d probably get a similar undergrad education anywhere, as long as you put in the work and took the right courses, but what Penn offers past that is resources, resources, resources, many of which may not even be available or useful to an exchange student.</p>
<p>I definitely agree with jreeder. Penn provides one with an opportunity to receive a great education and have access to many wonderful professors, resources, and facilities. However, that being said, you could have a similar experience at other schools.
The college admissions process isn’t perfect, so many people who don’t get admitted to Penn would do great things there. The opposite is also true, although I have met many people here who are incredibly brilliant, I also have met people who frankly probably looked better on paper and do not take advantage of the opportunities given to them.</p>
<p>There is a wide diversity of colleges. I think there are schools that may be academically at parity in rigor and depth but not enough schools to make a generalizations.</p>
<p>Most colleges spend the first year getting kids up to college level writing and reading.</p>
<p>For truly gifted kids, that kind of environment is a huge drag on their education.</p>