<p>why would you pick Penn over other great schools such as Berkeley, UCLA, HYP, Stanford, Cornell, Columbia, etc. ?</p>
<p>Bumped and upgraded!!!</p>
<p>1) Why, if at all, would you recommend NOT GOING TO Penn? </p>
<p>2) From past threads, I have molded my own perception of Penn as following: a large student body while excellent individual attention; flexibility in scheduling and dual-degree, excellent professors, bright peers, and fair grading, etc. Any first-experiences of disillusionment? </p>
<p>3) Since a couple of past threads died out,, how is Premed at Penn?</p>
<p>I am focusing on negative aspects of Penn just because I want to make absolutely sure I will not regret choosing Penn, which I am inclined towards at the moment, over other free-ride options that I have..</p>
<p>Well Berkeley, UCLA, and Cornell are not what we consider "competitive threats" for undergraduate education (for grad school, Cal is another story entirely).</p>
<p>As for the other ones, I'm sure everyone has their reasons.</p>
<p>I just didn't like Stanford, even though I'm double-legacy. I'm very much east coast and that whole "let's pretend to be chill" thing just didn't appeal to me, especially when it's all a farce.</p>
<p>Columbia was in NYC and the appeal of the city siphons energy away from campus life. Also I might get vaporized in a nuclear terrorist attack</p>
<p>Harvard hates its undergrads and its faculty all have a god complex.</p>
<p>Yale is nice, but New Haven sucks. And I doubt I could get in anyway.</p>
<p>People at Princeton suck, as do eating clubs, the suburbs, and the entire state of New Jersey.</p>
<p>And none of these schools have anything like Wharton. I'm not in Wharton (nor do I want to be) but they have some really interesting and fun classes that you can't get elsewhere, like management courses and negotiations. They certainly spice up your liberal arts education.</p>
<p>Penn also has Philadelphia which is a great college city (in the northeast it is second only to Boston for number of colleges/students). It is big and interesting, but not SO big and interesting as to overwhelm the campus life and sense of campus community that I wanted from my undergraduate education.</p>
<p>The only circumstance under which I would NOT recommend Penn is if you are a wuss. Penn is a very intense place and if you are expecting the university to hold your hand, you are in the wrong place. You must be aggressive.</p>
<p>That's not to say you can't get great individual attention. You can. I know a lot of my professors on a first-name basis, and I've even been out drinking with them, both on campus and over the summer in other countries. But they didn't approach me, I had to approach them.</p>
<p>Come to think of it, that's just a good life skill to develop regardless!</p>
<p>How is the premed, and its requirement classes in terms of number of students, lecture quality, and difficulty?</p>
<p>ooh keep this going please, it's very helpful!</p>
<p>also, I second the premed question</p>
<p>From what I hear, premed at Penn is great. The advisers are good, the research opportunities are good, it's not cutthroat like Hopkins or Berkeley, and there are many opportunities offered by the hospital. Premed classes are usually hard everywhere (as are most intro science classes), so don't think that going somewhere else will make getting into med school easier. While some schools are known to be cutthroat (Hopkins, Berkeley, Cornell) I really don't think Penn is, but a current premed can probably give a better answer.</p>
<p>Also, the Health Care and Management courses offered by Wharton add another dimension to your premed experience (apparently HCMG 211 is malpractice law).</p>
<p>^ Woah that's awesome! That would add a very cool dimension to the premed experience.</p>