UPENN

[Anonymous]

Best non academic thing about or at Penn?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Best non academic thing about or at Penn?

Arts are celebrated on campus( a capella, symphony, dance groups, theater), peers support each other, campus has a lot of green space not obvious if you do not go there (penn museum gardens, biopond, quads).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Best non academic thing about or at Penn?

Arts are celebrated on campus( a capella, symphony, dance groups, theater), peers support each other, campus has a lot of green space not obvious if you do not go there (penn museum gardens, biopond, quads).

I would agree with this. Their arts groups are excellent, plus they bring in many cool acts, plus you have Philly's cultural offerings as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Best non academic thing about or at Penn?

Arts are celebrated on campus( a capella, symphony, dance groups, theater), peers support each other, campus has a lot of green space not obvious if you do not go there (penn museum gardens, biopond, quads).

I would agree with this. Their arts groups are excellent, plus they bring in many cool acts, plus you have Philly's cultural offerings as well.

Toured yesterday. Our Guide was from Jordan. He also loves the access to all of the professional sports in Philly.

Not sure this counts as Non academic - but he has loved getting to know so many people from different countries. He's a Franklin Scholar and said on his hall or dorm there are over 25 different countries represented.

[Anonymous]

DC is in the School of Engineering. Says that the competitive reputation comes almost exclusively from Wharton where it is prevalent with recruiting and clubs. Loves their program though: very collaborative environment in classes, room to explore outside of academics (Greek Life, Performing Arts Groups, Cool Engineering Clubs like Electric Racing)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DC is in the School of Engineering. Says that the competitive reputation comes almost exclusively from Wharton where it is prevalent with recruiting and clubs. Loves their program though: very collaborative environment in classes, room to explore outside of academics (Greek Life, Performing Arts Groups, Cool Engineering Clubs like Electric Racing)

LOVE

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Penn is Penn State. Same thing.

No. Penn is Univ of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

Penn State is Pennsylvania State University in State College Pennsylvania.

Most people don’t know that and shouldn’t be expected to know that

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Penn is Penn State. Same thing.

No. Penn is Univ of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

Penn State is Pennsylvania State University in State College Pennsylvania.

Most people don’t know that and shouldn’t be expected to know that

Yah. Most people love to attach other's last name on their resume.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DC is in the School of Engineering. Says that the competitive reputation comes almost exclusively from Wharton where it is prevalent with recruiting and clubs. Loves their program though: very collaborative environment in classes, room to explore outside of academics (Greek Life, Performing Arts Groups, Cool Engineering Clubs like Electric Racing)

Are the classes fairly small in the engineering school?
What year and major is your DC?
Mine is looking to do CS, maybe computer engineering and he was accepted to Penn Engineering. Thanks

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My high stats DC applied to Penn on a lark. I don't have high hopes, but you never know.

Anyhow, if you're applying to Wharton, my impression is that you need HYPSM-level credentials--i.e., immaculate stats, national awards, major hooks, and great fortune. For the other Penn programs, students may be admitted with marginally lower credentials, but it's still a crap shoot.

As mentioned above, Penn has a reputation for (a) "work hard play hard" culture, (b) competitive students, and (c) preprofessional focus, although this will vary from student to student and program to program. Two or three decades ago, Penn had a reputation for being extremely graduate-focused to the neglect of its undergraduate programs. But I think Penn has largely corrected that perception.

For my kid, I'm wondering if Penn's competitive reputation extends to Penn's humanities and art programs. I went to a T20 school with a reputation for competitive intensity, but whatever the premeds, engineers, and CS students experienced at my school, I never felt any competition as an English major.

Incidentally, the University of Pennsylvania itself prefers "Penn" instead of "UPenn." I know because I looked it up to make sure that DC's supplemental essay used the preferred term. That said, enough people use the term "UPenn" that I couldn't say it's wrong. See https://thepenngazette.com/penn-v-upenn/.

Penn grad with dc there now and agree with everything here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wondering if anyone has current info on Penn for humanities majors. Is it fun? Is it too competitive?

It is competitive but any top school is. My dc is having a ton of fun - legacy in CAS with maybe a 3.7 as an econ major.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DC is in the School of Engineering. Says that the competitive reputation comes almost exclusively from Wharton where it is prevalent with recruiting and clubs. Loves their program though: very collaborative environment in classes, room to explore outside of academics (Greek Life, Performing Arts Groups, Cool Engineering Clubs like Electric Racing)

Are the classes fairly small in the engineering school?
What year and major is your DC?
Mine is looking to do CS, maybe computer engineering and he was accepted to Penn Engineering. Thanks

Congrats on the acceptance!
DC is in CS. CS has over 50% of the undergrad engineering students and a lot of the higher level classes are cross-listed with the graduate classes so they can get pretty large. For CS, the classes are pretty much all 100+ students to a lecture though the first few classes have smaller TA led recitation sections of ~15 and professors all host office hours. In Computer Engineering and the other engineering disciplines the courses will be much smaller maxing out at around 60 person lectures. Would say that despite the large class sizes it seems the CS program does a good job encouraging interaction with a ton of group projects and collaboration on homeworks.

[Anonymous]

Thanks!
Does it seem like the CS kids do well with getting internships and research opportunities?
Comparing options which include a “tech” school in the south to Penn…

[Anonymous]

Penn (that means upenn in Philly) is awesome.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thanks!
Does it seem like the CS kids do well with getting internships and research opportunities?
Comparing options which include a “tech” school in the south to Penn…

My freshman CS major and all my kid's friends have great internships. Some came with networking with companies that came on-campus for various events (though, none were formal internship/recruiting events), others networking with sponsors at Hackathons and other similar events, others alumni outreach, and then some applying to established FAANG programs.

I assume there must be some alumni love as there seem to be more kids than one might expect getting internships at Tesla and SpaceX (though, I have really no idea how the number of Penn kids compares to any other school...just seems like a lot to me).

My kid is not a research kid (at least not now), but seems to think research opportunities are plentiful and kind of a "safety" summer plan for some kids.