I am an 18 year old student in England who has been accepted to study an undergraduate degree at Wharton, Harvard and Yale. I’d really appreciate if anyone could give me an idea of what it would be like to study at any of these places in terms of atmosphere/lifestyle/social scene. I would also be interested in hearing a generalized view of what students are like at yale vs harvard vs upenn as well as the differences in the student demographic between these places.
I am not too concerned about comparing them academically because i understand that all three are strong enough academically for me to concentrate my decision on other factors.
Hopefully by describing what i enjoy it will give you a gauge of what i am looking for in a university:
- I spend most of my time socialising/partying and often go clubbing etc. (but i am aware that the legal age is 21 in america).
- I also enjoy sports (namely rugby at which i currently represent england u19) and i am looking to play american football at university.
Harvard has a collegiate housing system (and I think Yale does too) which is similar to Oxbridge, and you might prefer it.
If you applied to be part of Class of 2019, I don’t see how you have been accepted to all three of those schools yet as UPenn uses an early decision admission plan while Harvard and Yale use single-choice early action plans. At most, you could have been admitted into one of these schools already if you applied early but not all three.
You could look at studentreviews . com to see what students at these schools have to say about it. However, don’t take these reviews too seriously as those kind of websites tend to attract people with strong negative or positive opinions of their school. Also, some of those reviews are written by some people who have never attended the school.
A good source to answer your questions are to look at the student blogs for the schools.
Yale: http://admissions.yale.edu/bulldogs-blogs
Harvard:https://college.harvard.edu/admissions/hear-our-students/student-blogs
UPenn: http://www.blog.admissions.upenn.edu/
Also, look in the past threads for these schools, I’m sure majority of your questions have already been answered (Click on Ivy League under top forums on the left). If all else fails, search google.
I actually applied last academic year to these schools on the basis of 2015 entry.
Hmmmm…it’s January and you say that you have places at Penn, Harvard & Yale. Hard to think how you could have done that honestly. You could have managed Harvard & Yale (theoretically anyway), but Penn is binding early decision. Moreover, the English U19 has been the U20 team since 2008. And you spend most of your time partying/clubbing (without impacting either your academic or sports performance) but aren’t bothered by the legal drinking age being 21.
And you are asking the CC community which of the three would be best for a hard-partying jock who apparently got into three competitive universities without knowing anything at all about them.
@CheshireUK for UPenn/Yale you have to know at least something about the atmosphere/lifestyle/social scene as both of those schools ask “Why X” on the common application either directly (Yale) or indirectly (UPenn). Otherwise, how would you be able to formulate a response to either of those important questions?
Either way, my first response still stands. Check out those resources I listed above for some insight.
@collegemom I find it fairly irritable that you have cast such doubt over my post. 1. i explained why i have been accepted at these schools already
2. although in competition rugby we are u20 rather than u19, as is the requirement by the IRB, there are regular u19 friendly matches which i have been a part of.
3.by most of my time i mean free time. i spend the sufficient amount of time studying but also have a life outside the classroom.
@tola2015 thank you for providing me with those links.
In response to your skepticism, at no point have i made the claim that i am clueless about the atmosphere/lifestyle/social scene at upenn/harvard/yale. However, the answers that I gave to these questions were of a generic nature and although i was to slightly specific to the advantages of each school, it would still help me to hear some of the opinions of the people on this forum. I did not want to state what i already knew about the school because i was conscious that this may skew some of the responses i would receive
I think UPenn has the best social scene out of all the IVYs
Thanks
@1whatsmyname1
@Woandering
It is Jan 4, 2015. The above can not be possible. It is completely make believe as of now.
@gravitas2 I applied to these schools in the last academic year on the basis of 2015 entry…
Once again. You cannot be holding 3 acceptances from last year. It is impossible! You can only hold onto one school for delayed entry. Your STORY is bogus. Sorry.
@gravitas2
It is not impossible. Unethical, but not impossible. How would Harvard know if he took a gap year there and at Penn and at Yale, and the same for the other schools?
@fallenchemist. I forgot there are plenty of unethical individuals in this world…should I be surprised? And usually these same individuals go on in this world being the “same”…
@CheshireUK
Giving you the benefit of the doubt that this is real, your question is still impossibly broad and cannot be reasonably answered. The links given to various blogs is useful on a limited basis, but all these schools have dozens of subcultures and nearly unlimited opportunities. Could you honestly describe to a complete stranger what it will be like to live in London, for them? Even knowing a couple of bullet points about their social preferences?
These schools are not so far apart that you couldn’t fly into Boston (or Philly) and spend a week checking them out by either driving up I-95 or taking the train to each place. Amtrak stops at each location, with easy taxi rides or subway rides to the campuses. I would suggest that is your best way to make such a decision.
I believe this poster gave enough personal information (not many from UK) about himself here on CC to warrant “certain” individuals from the three institutions mentioned to look into this “closer”…because, if it is “true” this individual did this…all three institutions can forfeit this person’s acceptances…he did sign an agreement with each individual institution about having to withdraw from all other institution(s)…
…and as a concerned parent of one of those institutions mentioned…I will send a note to the Dean Fitzsimmons. This is not right on so many levels and should not be happening.
Being an international applicant I was assured that my applications and acceptances were viable. Having heard otherwise from people in this forum, I will investigate the situation myself.
I will close this thread given the circumstances, but it will not be deleted. That is against CC policy, and in any case one cannot expect that just because they are called on the carpet for what they did that others will be complicit in furthering that unethical behavior. While I have never seen a gap year agreement personally, I am quite sure that between that and other documents/communications that were shared between the OP and the schools, it was made quite clear he was supposed to choose a single school. At the very least that he was promising to show up at each school come Fall 2015. It doesn’t have to be spelled out on paper that one cannot do that simultaneously at Harvard, Yale and Penn.