Thoughts on UPenn?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Penn alum from ~10 years ago here. It’s an intensely cutthroat, competitive place. Very pre-professional; little to no learning for the sake of learning. Studying and going to class was rarely for the sake of learning new material but instead to boost your GPA for corporate recruiting or med/law school. Socially very stratified, with a large emphasis on “work hard play hard.”

I was miserable and would’ve been much happier at Brown or a SLAC. For a competitive, intense, and pre-professional kid, it’s a great place.

Penn alum also - more like 20 yrs ago and the alum above says it best. It’s a great school for the right kid. But don’t target Penn for your kid if they’re not the right type simply bc it’s an Ivy; at best they’ll hate it, at worst it’ll cause mental health issues.

I was there for a span of time where suicides were a non stop problem. The school was hiring all kinds of counselors etc but from what I understand, the culture didn’t change. So when we say pressure cooker - we aren’t kidding.

Any kid who is suicidal or has depression/anxiety due to being at an Ivy is just lacking grit. People who are truly resilient and have perseverance and grit would NOT let something as superficial as “campus culture” affect their mental health. Mentally healthy people don’t automatically become depressed or anxious just by being in a pressure cooker environment — claiming that is just infantilizing young adults.

FYI, the most important factor to beating anxiety is exposure. An anxious kid in particular would benefit from Penn, because then they’d have exposure (and thus cure their anxiety) to anxiety and would learn to pick themselves back up after failure (which would be inevitable at a place like Penn). Going to a nurturing school like Brown or a SLAC would just intensify their anxiety. Anxious kids NEED repeated exposure to failure, and that’s best replicated through environments like Penn.

And suicide is never the school’s fault — it’s always the students’ fault. Saying anything else takes away agency from students.

You’re a psycho.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Penn alum from ~10 years ago here. It’s an intensely cutthroat, competitive place. Very pre-professional; little to no learning for the sake of learning. Studying and going to class was rarely for the sake of learning new material but instead to boost your GPA for corporate recruiting or med/law school. Socially very stratified, with a large emphasis on “work hard play hard.”

I was miserable and would’ve been much happier at Brown or a SLAC. For a competitive, intense, and pre-professional kid, it’s a great place.

Penn alum also - more like 20 yrs ago and the alum above says it best. It’s a great school for the right kid. But don’t target Penn for your kid if they’re not the right type simply bc it’s an Ivy; at best they’ll hate it, at worst it’ll cause mental health issues.

I was there for a span of time where suicides were a non stop problem. The school was hiring all kinds of counselors etc but from what I understand, the culture didn’t change. So when we say pressure cooker - we aren’t kidding.

Any kid who is suicidal or has depression/anxiety due to being at an Ivy is just lacking grit. People who are truly resilient and have perseverance and grit would NOT let something as superficial as “campus culture” affect their mental health. Mentally healthy people don’t automatically become depressed or anxious just by being in a pressure cooker environment — claiming that is just infantilizing young adults.

FYI, the most important factor to beating anxiety is exposure. An anxious kid in particular would benefit from Penn, because then they’d have exposure (and thus cure their anxiety) to anxiety and would learn to pick themselves back up after failure (which would be inevitable at a place like Penn). Going to a nurturing school like Brown or a SLAC would just intensify their anxiety. Anxious kids NEED repeated exposure to failure, and that’s best replicated through environments like Penn.

And suicide is never the school’s fault — it’s always the students’ fault. Saying anything else takes away agency from students.

You’re a psycho.

A psycho is someone who trusts peer-reviewed research? Sure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think Penn is pretty middling top school outside of its crown jewel Wharton

Academically, Penn is a great school, but the campus culture can, and does, have a severe, adverse impact on one's mental health.

Is it worth it ?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think Penn is pretty middling top school outside of its crown jewel Wharton

It’s not even worth it for Wharton

Wharton just launched a full time online mba and charges 200k for it

It’s an obvious cash grab that dilutes the brand

By doing this, Penn is signaling that the Wharton brand is becoming devalued and downscale!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think Penn is pretty middling top school outside of its crown jewel Wharton

Academically, Penn is a great school, but the campus culture can, and does, have a severe, adverse impact on one's mental health.

Is it worth it ?[/quote

For Wharton, yes. (Provided the child doesn't have a mental break or something but obviously no one can predict the future - so it becomes a know your kid situation).

For anything else, no.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think Penn is pretty middling top school outside of its crown jewel Wharton

Academically, Penn is a great school, but the campus culture can, and does, have a severe, adverse impact on one's mental health.

Is it worth it ?

Yes! Totally worth it. It’ll make your kid resilient.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think Penn is pretty middling top school outside of its crown jewel Wharton

It’s not even worth it for Wharton

Wharton just launched a full time online mba and charges 200k for it

It’s an obvious cash grab that dilutes the brand

By doing this, Penn is signaling that the Wharton brand is becoming devalued and downscale!

Wharton undergrad alum - and wow did not realize there was a full online MBA. That's ridiculous.

FWIW they've been diluting Wharton's brand for years, as they try to let other schools take advantage of/free ride on the Wharton brand. Some years ago the Law School created some Public Policy Certificate to be done at/alongside Wharton. It legit includes 0 finance, let alone any hard finance - it's a few easy breezy Wharton courses. I'd say over 50-75% of law students sign up for that certificate and then go represent it on their resumes and LinkedIn as if they have a legit Wharton degree. I wouldn't be surprised if there are similar certificate programs with the med school/other grad schools too.

That being said if your child wants to study finance at the undergrad level, I'd still recommend Wharton over any other school (they can WORK in finance with any degree from any ivy but I mean a kid that actually wants to primarily take finance classes at school rather than say English or sociology or whatever). Given the info re the online MBA, I may think twice re going to Wharton for an MBA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Penn alum from ~10 years ago here. It’s an intensely cutthroat, competitive place. Very pre-professional; little to no learning for the sake of learning. Studying and going to class was rarely for the sake of learning new material but instead to boost your GPA for corporate recruiting or med/law school. Socially very stratified, with a large emphasis on “work hard play hard.”

I was miserable and would’ve been much happier at Brown or a SLAC. For a competitive, intense, and pre-professional kid, it’s a great place.

Penn alum also - more like 20 yrs ago and the alum above says it best. It’s a great school for the right kid. But don’t target Penn for your kid if they’re not the right type simply bc it’s an Ivy; at best they’ll hate it, at worst it’ll cause mental health issues.

I was there for a span of time where suicides were a non stop problem. The school was hiring all kinds of counselors etc but from what I understand, the culture didn’t change. So when we say pressure cooker - we aren’t kidding.

Any kid who is suicidal or has depression/anxiety due to being at an Ivy is just lacking grit. People who are truly resilient and have perseverance and grit would NOT let something as superficial as “campus culture” affect their mental health. Mentally healthy people don’t automatically become depressed or anxious just by being in a pressure cooker environment — claiming that is just infantilizing young adults.

FYI, the most important factor to beating anxiety is exposure. An anxious kid in particular would benefit from Penn, because then they’d have exposure (and thus cure their anxiety) to anxiety and would learn to pick themselves back up after failure (which would be inevitable at a place like Penn). Going to a nurturing school like Brown or a SLAC would just intensify their anxiety. Anxious kids NEED repeated exposure to failure, and that’s best replicated through environments like Penn.

And suicide is never the school’s fault — it’s always the students’ fault. Saying anything else takes away agency from students.

You’re a psycho.

A psycho is someone who trusts peer-reviewed research? Sure.

PP here, wonder why my post got deleted. Either way, my original opinion still stands — it’s important to push your anxious kid into high-pressure situations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Penn alum from ~10 years ago here. It’s an intensely cutthroat, competitive place. Very pre-professional; little to no learning for the sake of learning. Studying and going to class was rarely for the sake of learning new material but instead to boost your GPA for corporate recruiting or med/law school. Socially very stratified, with a large emphasis on “work hard play hard.”

I was miserable and would’ve been much happier at Brown or a SLAC. For a competitive, intense, and pre-professional kid, it’s a great place.

Penn alum also - more like 20 yrs ago and the alum above says it best. It’s a great school for the right kid. But don’t target Penn for your kid if they’re not the right type simply bc it’s an Ivy; at best they’ll hate it, at worst it’ll cause mental health issues.

I was there for a span of time where suicides were a non stop problem. The school was hiring all kinds of counselors etc but from what I understand, the culture didn’t change. So when we say pressure cooker - we aren’t kidding.

Any kid who is suicidal or has depression/anxiety due to being at an Ivy is just lacking grit. People who are truly resilient and have perseverance and grit would NOT let something as superficial as “campus culture” affect their mental health. Mentally healthy people don’t automatically become depressed or anxious just by being in a pressure cooker environment — claiming that is just infantilizing young adults.

FYI, the most important factor to beating anxiety is exposure. An anxious kid in particular would benefit from Penn, because then they’d have exposure (and thus cure their anxiety) to anxiety and would learn to pick themselves back up after failure (which would be inevitable at a place like Penn). Going to a nurturing school like Brown or a SLAC would just intensify their anxiety. Anxious kids NEED repeated exposure to failure, and that’s best replicated through environments like Penn.

And suicide is never the school’s fault — it’s always the students’ fault. Saying anything else takes away agency from students.

What. The. F.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Penn alum from ~10 years ago here. It’s an intensely cutthroat, competitive place. Very pre-professional; little to no learning for the sake of learning. Studying and going to class was rarely for the sake of learning new material but instead to boost your GPA for corporate recruiting or med/law school. Socially very stratified, with a large emphasis on “work hard play hard.”

I was miserable and would’ve been much happier at Brown or a SLAC. For a competitive, intense, and pre-professional kid, it’s a great place.

Penn alum also - more like 20 yrs ago and the alum above says it best. It’s a great school for the right kid. But don’t target Penn for your kid if they’re not the right type simply bc it’s an Ivy; at best they’ll hate it, at worst it’ll cause mental health issues.

I was there for a span of time where suicides were a non stop problem. The school was hiring all kinds of counselors etc but from what I understand, the culture didn’t change. So when we say pressure cooker - we aren’t kidding.

Any kid who is suicidal or has depression/anxiety due to being at an Ivy is just lacking grit. People who are truly resilient and have perseverance and grit would NOT let something as superficial as “campus culture” affect their mental health. Mentally healthy people don’t automatically become depressed or anxious just by being in a pressure cooker environment — claiming that is just infantilizing young adults.

FYI, the most important factor to beating anxiety is exposure. An anxious kid in particular would benefit from Penn, because then they’d have exposure (and thus cure their anxiety) to anxiety and would learn to pick themselves back up after failure (which would be inevitable at a place like Penn). Going to a nurturing school like Brown or a SLAC would just intensify their anxiety. Anxious kids NEED repeated exposure to failure, and that’s best replicated through environments like Penn.

And suicide is never the school’s fault — it’s always the students’ fault. Saying anything else takes away agency from students.

You’re a psycho.

A psycho is someone who trusts peer-reviewed research? Sure.

PP here, wonder why my post got deleted. Either way, my original opinion still stands — it’s important to push your anxious kid into high-pressure situations.

Because you have 0 understanding of mental health issues.

[Anonymous]

Agree with the other alums who've posted - also an alum - only think I'll add is it is NOT a learning for learning sake kind of school. I only went to Penn so IDK how the other ivys are but it's my impression that at other ivys people take art history or sociology or whatever because they WANT TO. At Penn you really don't do that. I mean sure there are people who'll major in art history or sociology or whatever, but the majority of the school is very pre professional so you think a lot about what you're taking/how it looks on a transcript/how it advances your resume.

I took exactly 2 liberal arts classes my entire time there - art history and sociology - because I was required to; otherwise as a finance major coming in with AP credit, I used all the APs to get out of languages, science etc and for my other required liberal arts classes, I'd take economics (which falls in SAS not Wharton). But eventually there comes a time where not ALL your required arts classes can be from one department so I had to pick something else.

At the time I did not care - as pre professional as they come. Now at age 50 it's like WTF, when else but college can you take that arabic class just bc you want to try it for one semester!?

[Anonymous]

I don't know everyone from Penn but everyone I have known from Penn, once I got to know them a bit and they let their guard down, volunteered that they really wish they'd attended HYPS instead. Maybe that's changed with more kids applying early action and committing, but I heard that from Penn graduates in a way that I never did from graduates of other Ivies like Brown, Dartmouth, or Columbia. Kids from those schools seemed happier with where they landed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't know everyone from Penn but everyone I have known from Penn, once I got to know them a bit and they let their guard down, volunteered that they really wish they'd attended HYPS instead. Maybe that's changed with more kids applying early action and committing, but I heard that from Penn graduates in a way that I never did from graduates of other Ivies like Brown, Dartmouth, or Columbia. Kids from those schools seemed happier with where they landed.

Exactly this — Penn is known to be the “insecure Ivy”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Agree with the other alums who've posted - also an alum - only think I'll add is it is NOT a learning for learning sake kind of school. I only went to Penn so IDK how the other ivys are but it's my impression that at other ivys people take art history or sociology or whatever because they WANT TO. At Penn you really don't do that. I mean sure there are people who'll major in art history or sociology or whatever, but the majority of the school is very pre professional so you think a lot about what you're taking/how it looks on a transcript/how it advances your resume.

I took exactly 2 liberal arts classes my entire time there - art history and sociology - because I was required to; otherwise as a finance major coming in with AP credit, I used all the APs to get out of languages, science etc and for my other required liberal arts classes, I'd take economics (which falls in SAS not Wharton). But eventually there comes a time where not ALL your required arts classes can be from one department so I had to pick something else.

At the time I did not care - as pre professional as they come. Now at age 50 it's like WTF, when else but college can you take that arabic class just bc you want to try it for one semester!?

I don’t see what’s wrong with this. The purpose of college is upward mobility — not to take useless BS classes like Arabic or Art History.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Agree with the other alums who've posted - also an alum - only think I'll add is it is NOT a learning for learning sake kind of school. I only went to Penn so IDK how the other ivys are but it's my impression that at other ivys people take art history or sociology or whatever because they WANT TO. At Penn you really don't do that. I mean sure there are people who'll major in art history or sociology or whatever, but the majority of the school is very pre professional so you think a lot about what you're taking/how it looks on a transcript/how it advances your resume.

I took exactly 2 liberal arts classes my entire time there - art history and sociology - because I was required to; otherwise as a finance major coming in with AP credit, I used all the APs to get out of languages, science etc and for my other required liberal arts classes, I'd take economics (which falls in SAS not Wharton). But eventually there comes a time where not ALL your required arts classes can be from one department so I had to pick something else.

At the time I did not care - as pre professional as they come. Now at age 50 it's like WTF, when else but college can you take that arabic class just bc you want to try it for one semester!?

I don’t see what’s wrong with this. The purpose of college is upward mobility — not to take useless BS classes like Arabic or Art History.

PP you're quoting - I mean it 100% worked for me. I was 100% about upward mobility, resume, etc. so it was my place exactly. I'm just saying there ARE people who value learning for learning sake and if that's your kid, they won't find the same home at Penn that they may at Dartmouth or Brown.