<p>I’m a junior at Penn. My little brother is waiting for his Princeton letter just as many of you are. Needless to say, he is freaking out, and, unless you are a Buddhist or heavily medicated, you probably are freaking out about your own admissions prospects too. I wrote him a letter, but it more or less can apply to all of you as well…I’ve changed the names from Princeton to Penn</p>
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<p>If you were accepted, you have my most sincere congratulations. I need not restate the virtues of the University of Pennsylvania; its institutional excellence cannot be denied, and I look forward to sharing this great university with you</p>
<p>If you were deferred or rejected (debatable which one is actually worse), don’t sweat it, because elite admissions at this level is at best a witches’ brew of nepotism, college ranking/admissions game theory run amok, and random luck. </p>
<p>As [unimpressive Penn alumni you’ve surely met] have made painfully clear, association with Penn does not automatically equate intelligence, success, or attractive offspring. In fact, it probably makes it worse because you can just sit around thinking how great you were for getting into Penn which doesn’t exactly motivate you to go out there and work like your life (and even more importantly, your ego) depends on it. It may very well be a blessing in disguise.</p>
<p>It is without a doubt true that a Penn undergraduate education has more elitist cachet than, say, a Cornell or Georgetown undergraduate education. However, it is also undeniably true that the actual quality of the education is identical (the real discrepancies come into play at the grad school level). At academic conferences I attended in Korea (the mother of all prestige-whore countries) the scholars and students of the top universities were treated no better than the scholars at <em>gasp</em> state schools! At the HPAIR conference in Tokyo I have seen Ivy League professors speak; I have read their written work inside and outside of the classroom and they are all no more brilliant than a UVA professor. Logically, unless among 6 billion people humanity cannot produce a few dozen excellent scholars of a subject, there will be enough excellent professors among ALL the top American schools. A Penn diploma mounted on your wall may draw a few more 'ooh’s and 'aah’s than an NYU diploma, but the quality of the education that much-heralded piece of paper represents is going to be identical…</p>
<p>Here’s a lovely story: A Penn Glee Club alum who went to Harvard for undergrad and Penn for grad school was ultimately denied a job and belittled by a Drexel (shudder) alum. There are thousands of alumni of crappy schools all over the world who happened to be successful in spite of their non-prestigious educations, and are just itching to get some revenge on those damn snooty Ivy League brats they’ve held a grudge against for years.</p>
<p>So relax, take a deep breath, and remember that the very fact that you were smart enough, talented enough, and brave enough to apply to Penn in the first place is already a sign of your greatness and your ample capacity to succeed in this world, regardless of whether you cheer the Red & Blue.</p>
<p>Best of luck to all of you</p>