why do so many kids like Penn?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No idea. I think it’s on trend right now

Thanks to person occupying white house?

?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No idea. I think it’s on trend right now

That stupid finance bro song…

[Anonymous]

Penn is very strong in business and engineering. So that immediately gets the attention of a lot of 18 year old boys today. Who are also smart and disciplined. And there aren't a lot of them these days. As the parent of two boys, Penn was definitely on the list. But after visiting, eh. The Wharton culture is not for everyone. Wharton is probably the most New Jersey thing I've ever seen. Wharton is contemporary New Jersey. Stressful, unkind, hyper-competitive. And that drips into engineering too.

If there are better alternatives, why bother with four years of that noise? So Penn quickly dropped off the list. But I get why Penn attracts a lot of interest - Wharton, engineering, old 90s rep for being a social, fun school. It's a very appealing school on paper.

[Anonymous]

Penn attracts both male and female. The number of female applicants is about the same as the number of male applicants. The acceptance rate for female applicants is about the same as the acceptance rate for male applicants.

It’s not a school only for tech bro and fin bro. There are plenty of female students at Wharton and SEAS. I like the balance.

[Anonymous]

Penn is a blend of a few different types of schools that are popular: Ivy prestige and top scholars, NYU-style urban setting and preprofessionalism, and flagship-style party/sports culture. Plus, it’s great at marketing itself and Philly is appealing these days.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Penn attracts both male and female. The number of female applicants is about the same as the number of male applicants. The acceptance rate for female applicants is about the same as the acceptance rate for male applicants.

It’s not a school only for tech bro and fin bro. There are plenty of female students at Wharton and SEAS. I like the balance.

Yes infact almost 70% of BIoenging is female, over 50% of materialsE and chem and even Comp is close to 50%, applicants and enrolled. Engineering is very popular at mid-size schools that offer non-stem opportunities such as arts and double major/minor in humanities. All thanks to women in stem and girls who code initiatives that started 10 yrs or more ago. Which are great but made it much more competitive for women. Premeds have been far more than 50% for many years, so of course most are college of arts and sciences.
Penn with a hospital on campus attracts a lot of premeds. The museum on campus and kelly writers house make it great for humanities too.
Among people who actually attend, wharton is seen as the easy undergrad school—ave gpa is 3.9, though in reality that is no more inflated than H or Brown. It remains the most inflated Penn undergrad course of study. Many have second majors or minors in the college though—Penn is quite interdisciplinary

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It tends to have a reputation as a school for professionals - finance, engineering, pre-med etc. And that's very appealing to a lot of students. It's an old school. It's prestigious. It has the Ivy brand. For most of the past twenty years, Philadelphia and the neighborhood around Penn have been fine places to live. It has a very good alumni network. And it's a school where applying ED does make a difference.

However, it is really, really difficult to get into Penn from the DMV. Penn is just up the road. And anyone from here is also competing with the NY kids for spots. And New York City rolls very differently than Bethesda, Arlington, and upper NW.

Is this true?

It is hard from anywhere! 70k applications and growing; seas has the lowest acceptance rate with RD and ED combined less than 3% this cycle, between 3 and 3.5 for a few cycles before that.

[Anonymous]

My DS loved Penn: Location, size, reputation for fun, strong econ program. I worried about the competitive aspect being miserable, but he knows a lot of kids there who are very happy (I will say that the boys he knows headed to Wharton, are very much "bro" types). In retrospect, he should have tried for Penn ED, but he decided to ED something safer.

[Anonymous]

We had a fantastic tour and loved the idea of it. Pipe dream in the end for my high stats girl applying to engineering. But it seems amazing!

[Anonymous]

I don’t know. They forever have to tell people “No- not Penn State”, Penn.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Penn is a blend of a few different types of schools that are popular: Ivy prestige and top scholars, NYU-style urban setting and preprofessionalism, and flagship-style party/sports culture. Plus, it’s great at marketing itself and Philly is appealing these days.

Let’s not get carried away…it doesn’t have anything close to a flagship sports culture. It never did, but it’s much less now.

Easily 80% less student sports attendance now vs the 90s when I attended. It’s the same across all the Ivy schools.

[Anonymous]

amazing school - checks all of the boxes for many in our DCUM private. It’s the Vanderbilt of the north - hot, hot, hot!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It tends to have a reputation as a school for professionals - finance, engineering, pre-med etc. And that's very appealing to a lot of students. It's an old school. It's prestigious. It has the Ivy brand. For most of the past twenty years, Philadelphia and the neighborhood around Penn have been fine places to live. It has a very good alumni network. And it's a school where applying ED does make a difference.

However, it is really, really difficult to get into Penn from the DMV. Penn is just up the road. And anyone from here is also competing with the NY kids for spots. And New York City rolls very differently than Bethesda, Arlington, and upper NW.

Is this true?

It is hard from anywhere! 70k applications and growing; seas has the lowest acceptance rate with RD and ED combined less than 3% this cycle, between 3 and 3.5 for a few cycles before that.

Could you provide the source link for 3% seas acceptance rate?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know. They forever have to tell people “No- not Penn State”, Penn.

That actually is real.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Penn is a blend of a few different types of schools that are popular: Ivy prestige and top scholars, NYU-style urban setting and preprofessionalism, and flagship-style party/sports culture. Plus, it’s great at marketing itself and Philly is appealing these days.

Penn is not at ALL the same setting as NYU. NYU is within center Manhattan with no circumscribed campus. Penn is west of the the Schuykill river, ie west and separate from center city. It has a real campus much of which cannot be seen unless you park and walk through it. Some areas are only open to students (the freshman Quad). Biopond is completely hidden from roads and is a wonderful nature escape. Penn is less urban than Columbia, which is far less urban than NYU.

Philly is wonderful but it is a 2+ mile walk to get from Penn into Philly for food, arts, shopping etc. Many Penn kids go into Philly less than once a semester. Others go every weekend. NYU is right in a busy part of Manhattan and Columbia is in a quieter part but still a closer walk to real city life: you cannot avoid NYC at these schools. Penn is urban-adjacent more like Harvard's campus or maybe Brown if Providence were a real city with full arts, culture, professional sports.

Penn has zero flagship-style sports culture!? Are you kidding? No one picks ivies for sports. There is more sports culture at LACs due to 40% of the undergrads being recruited. Ivies have relatively low percentages recruits and students do not attend sports much, at any ivy, compared to UVA, Tech, Duke, Northwestern. Penn does have more parties than some ivies but less than others.

Both of mine are/were Penn students, CAS and SEAS. It is amazing, but it is not at all what most of DCUM thinks it is.