Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Penn is not universally loved

+1. My kids have a strong dislike for Penn. They think it has a toxic culture with cutthroat kids.

Who TF cares what someone with no current students thinks? I have one there now and one graduated, and another is at Princeton. All ivies are hard. All have a portion of over competitive people. Mine have all loved their schools and thrived in the intellectual environment: the competitive people are a small minority and it is typically people who are not quite academically up to par who act that way. I went to a non-ivy top10 and spouse was at a different ivy than kids: they called it “effortless perfection” in the 90s: the same idea as penn face, the “tradition” of acting fine on the outside while juggling a lot and gunning in classes. Mental health is far more validated and in the open than it was then.
Penn and Princeton now have much more compassion and collaboration among peers than our schools did. The grades are also easier: Cs are rare and As are more common than Bs except for intros maybe.
Lots of schools get hated on DCUM. Everytime it is “toxic” or “cutthroat” it is usually stated by folks whose kids did not get in. In middle and high school 2 of my 3 had serious issues with bullies and also some very dramatic cutthroat issues among the top 10%. Their ivies have been a breeze in comparison. People are actually nice to each other and real.

Anonymous wrote:Penn and Michigan are far from universally loved. "Penn face" is real and plenty of people hate huge schools/football culture/cold weather/the state of Michigan itself.

No school is universally loved. Not even Hogwarts.

Very true.

And that's as it should be. There is no one size fits all. We're all different, and thrive in different environments.

Stanford and Brown.

People at UNC hate Duke but otherwise Duke.

Noone hates MIT except sometimes MIT students, same with Caltech.

Anonymous wrote:Penn is not universally loved

Definitely not on DCUM, anyway. But sure I’ve ever seen a fully positive post about it on this board.

Wisconsin doesn’t seem to get much hate here.

NU

ND is loved by their alum

Anonymous wrote:Many people love Pitt.

Pitt and JMU are the schools I feel like people almost universally seem happy with as students. No school is truly universally beloved but that’s my sense from talking to people.

Anonymous wrote:Many people love Pitt.

Yes! I graduated from Pitt, and I appreciate the (deserved) love!

Pitt was a great academic experience for me and my husband.

I was in-state when I attended. However, I lived in MoCo before and after college. I feel Pitt is a particularly good fit for MoCo types who want a city school away from home. I met numerous students like that when I was an undergrad.

You should instead ask which schools are loved and appreciated by alumni (and not for sports).

None

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Penn is not universally loved

What's bad about Penn? Besides Wharton, everyone hates Wharton kids.

Wharton is the gem in their crown, and nobody likes those students. Their nursing program is really tops, and everyone thinks, why .. you went to Penn .. for nursing? The Arts and Sciences is Penn - "oh, but not Wharton?" The campus isn't pretty, the location is .. okay.

Because who pays $90K+ per year for a nursing degree. You can get that from any school with a decent program, plenty of in-state programs and less costly private schools that you can get for $30K/year. All you are looking for is a school with a good pass rate for the standardized nursing test, and ideally in a state where you want to start after college.

Are you asking about what kids like or what parents like? Most kids love JMU but plenty of parents don’t think it’s prestigious enough. Same can be said for VT.

Many people love Pitt.

Anonymous wrote:Schools like Johns Hopkins are respected, but that’s different from being “loved,” which is more of a warm fuzzy feeling.

For warm and fuzzy it is Brown.