<li><p>housing is generally sucky</p></li>
<li><p>too many grad students / focus off undergrad</p></li>
</ol>
<p>can anyone help me reconcile these? theyre what are discouraging me from ED</p>
<p>housing is fine; it’s not going to be luxury but it’s clean enough and you share in the experience with your hallmates</p>
<p>besides, quad is gorgeous</p>
<p>and the latter depends on your department, but is generally something i’ve never noticed</p>
<p>what do you think of so many people moving off campus after frosh year</p>
<p>I’d worry more about the daily air raid sirens</p>
<p>So many people move off campus because they can either get (a) much more, if not nicer, space for a lot less money within easy walking distance to campus, or (b) much more, much nicer space next door to campus for the same money as the dorms. Either way, it’s a good deal. Having your own kitchen is cheaper and better than Penn food – a lot cheaper and a lot better (although maybe the quality will get better with the new contractor). Having your own bedroom, and a real living room, that’s nice, too. Not having to get permission to have a party, etc.</p>
<p>If it destroyed people’s sense of community, or made them desperately lonely, they wouldn’t do it. There is tons of student housing right near campus, so it’s nothing like a commuter situation. You are no farther from your classrooms (probably closer) than North Campus students at Cornell or Quad house residents at Harvard are from theirs. Penn students live together, and they live next door to other Penn students, and there are Penn students upstairs, downstairs, and across the street. Just like the dorms, but no RAs or security. Campus is still the center of everyone’s social and intellectual life.</p>
<p>It’s really fine.</p>
<p>Don’t people move off campus because Penn can’t actually house everyone? Anyways, off campus housing doesn’t seem to be that expensive or hard to find and it’s still pretty convenient from what I’ve heard.</p>
<p>there’s only room enough for what, 55% of students on campus</p>
<p>simply can’t fit everyone, indeed</p>
<p>that’s ridiculous. there are lots of different housing options, and you’re lucky that off-campus housing is an option because at a lot of colleges it’s too expensive. also, most college dorms are inherently “sucky.”
and “too many grads”- there are 12 graduate schools and there are graduate students but it’s to your benefit so that you can take courses at the grad schools. you don’t want to be coddled.</p>
<ol>
<li>Dorms at Penn are better than dorms at several schools I visited. People move off campus for many reasons. The main reason a person moves off campus for sophomore year is to be in the frat house, most of which are within 5-10 minutes of College Hall or Huntsman (if not the Locust Walk frats which are much closer to classes than dorms). With the Radian, people also started moving off campus to live in a really nice apartment which is right across the street from the High Rises. After junior year people start to live off campus just because college dorm life gets old. I don’t know many people at other schools who jump up and down with joy by the prospect of being in a dorm at the age of 21 or 22. Most of the off campus housing is within a few minutes of the on campus housing anyway. Off campus housing is actually closer to classes than on campus housing at other universities.</li>
</ol>
<p>Grad students can affect you in different ways. I’ve never seen a professor who ignored undergrads to be with his grad students. All professors have to teach an undergrad course. Gutman (our prez) even teaches an undergrad course every few years. Some even like teaching an intro course to get students interested. Most grad students are TAs. You only really have to interact with them in large lecture classes where they are a TA. Some grad students teach small intro courses too (writing seminar, music 50) and tend to be older grad students (a year or two off from being a normal professor anyway) and have been some of the best professors I’ve had at Penn.</p>
<p>Penn could build another 2,000 dorm rooms like the ones it has now, but they would mostly be empty unless it reduced its room prices a lot, or changed its rules to force people to live in them. Students move off campus because they want to, not because they have to.</p>
<p>The University of Chicago is in a similar position – it only has dorm rooms for about 55% of its undergraduates. I think it even guarantees housing to anyone who wants it. But except for one dorm that has a kind of unique four-year culture, almost all the third- and fourth-years still living in dorms are being paid to do it, either through RA positions or scholarships that cover dorm rooming but not off-campus housing.</p>
<p>I think I remember reading somewhere that Penn is building a new dorm, then tearing down an old one when construction is done. If students actually wanted to live on campus in large numbers they would and Penn wouldn’t be getting rid of a marginally fine dorm.</p>
<p>thanks everyone!</p>
<p>
Penn IS planning to build a new undergraduate college house (on Hill Square):</p>
<p>[PennConnects</a> : <em></em>Hill Square Overview](<a href=“Penn Connects : A Vision for the Future.”>Penn Connects : A Vision for the Future.)</p>
<p>I haven’t heard anything about plans to tear down another dorm when the new one is completed. The new college house will add another 300-400 beds to Penn’s on-campus undergraduate residential capacity, so that about 65-66% of undergrads will live on campus when it’s occupied (assuming no other dorm is torn down). Currently, about 62% of undergrads (and 100% of freshmen) live in campus housing ( [College</a> Search - University of Pennsylvania - Penn - Housing & Campus Life](<a href=“College Search - BigFuture | College Board”>College Search - BigFuture | College Board) ), and virtually all of the rest live within a few short blocks of–including right across the street from–campus.</p>
<p>As a prospective applicant, then applicant, and then future student (!) I’ve heard a lot of things about Penn over the past year. Common worries: the housing isn’t super luxurious, some of the intro classes can be somewhat large (as with any university), there is a lack in name recognition and mix-ups with Penn State are common, and the campus isn’t a traditional grassy quad (but still gorgeous in my mind, just a somewhat different type of campus… Locust Walk is quite unique). I’ve never heard concerns that Penn doesn’t focus on its undergraduates. I’ve heard that a lot about Harvard, but not Penn. Undergrads, in fact, are entitled to take advantage of the graduate schools, and Penn is one of those schools where research as an undergraduate is not out of the question at all. Also, I will vouch for the strength of the advising system, as I’ve just been introduced to my pre-major advisor and peer advisor and the support is amazing.</p>
<p>In terms of dorms, after touring tons of schools like George Washington University and the University of Richmond, where the rooms are seriously huge and guidebooks give them A+'s for housing… I’ve concluded that it would be cool at first to have this awesome room but it would wear off. You’d get used to it. Just like you’d get used to a smaller room. I actually did a summer program at Penn where I stayed in the Quad and the room was a pretty standard college dorm. I got used to it quickly. A lot of it has to do with how clean you keep your room, how you decorate, how you make use of the space. As long as everything such as electricity etc. is fully functional (which should not be more of a concern at Penn than at any other school), it’s up to you whether or not you settle into your housing and make it feel like home. I guarantee you that if you go to Penn, housing will not ruin your experience or hamper it in any significant way unless you don’t do your research on different options (there is a very varied selection) and end up somewhere that doesn’t fit your needs and you let it drive you crazy… which is a very preventable situation. It’s not a Five Seasons but it’s completely livable, and some of the rooms are actually pretty impressive (try to find housing at another school that rivals the amazing views from huge full-wall windows like in the high rises!).</p>
<p>Also keep in mind that many upperclassmen do move off campus, and that you can scout out some pretty nice apartments if you for whatever reason aren’t in love with your Penn housing.</p>
<p>Let me know if you have other concerns… I had things that I was hesitant about too but ended up applying early and now I couldn’t be happier that Penn is where I’m going next year.</p>
<p>Complaints about housing is because there are too many kids here with high net worth parents</p>
<p>Apply to an LAC if the number of grad students is a concern for you</p>
<p>
WHAT??? They’ve added another season to the year??? :eek:</p>
<p>Why am I always the last one to hear about these things??? :mad:</p>
<p>Alright, I give up, I’m embarrassing. FOUR Seasons.</p>
<p>Sorry–I couldn’t resist. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>Another random point that just occurred to me: a lot of Penn’s prestige comes from undergraduate programs, not just its high-ranking graduate ones… for instance, the Wharton undergraduate experience is considered the hands-down best in the country whereas its MBA program kind of ties with Stanford/Harvard, and Penn is also well-known for its prestigious dual-degree programs such as Huntsman and Vagelos, which are for undergraduates. Prestige does not tell the whole story whatsoever, but these programs would never have blossomed into such international renown if Penn didn’t invest a lot of its resources into undergraduate programs.</p>
<p>@ SugarMagnolia</p>
<p>Thanks so much!!! i’m always thinking about ED and you’re very reassuring</p>