My son got into both Yale and Penn, he wants to do computer and electrical engineering. Which school is better fit for him?
A better âfitâ require additional information. If you just want to know which school is better for his major check The US News rankings.
Well, that is very little info to work with.
He should read up on the following to figure out which school he would prefer:
- Housing/Dining
- Available majors and courses within those majors
- Distribution requirements
- New Haven and Philadelphia (which city would he prefer?
- The campus layouts
Both schools are really outstanding. Here are a few of the things I like about them:
Yale
- Residential colleges (Yale students seem to love them)
- Class âshopping periodâ â kids get to try out classes before committing to them for the semester.
- Campus beauty â the little courtyards and cloisters, the architecture, etc.
Penn
- Work hard/play hard mentality â Penn is known as the Social Ivy
- The One University policy â students can take classes in any of Pennâs schools
- The Locust Walk
This is a wonderful dilemma with which to be faced.
Which school most students would have choose?
I know someone who picked Yale over several âbetterâ engineering schools because of the liberal arts focus and the opportunities outside of the major. The question the student should ask is whether they want a school where they can get super specialized within their own major, or have better opportunities to explore outside of their major. Even so, I donât think Penn is that much better than Yale in its offerings for engineering, but thatâs your call on how much that little advantage matters to you
Hi there! I chose Penn over Yale to study history and english and I genuinely believe it was a great choice. You should check out my other posts in which I compare Penn to Yale for more details but for a little insight into my decision:
- I liked Penn's campus atmosphere better than Yale's. Penn felt vibrant, excited, energetic and full of life. The campus revolved around one central pathway (Locust Walk) that provided a level of social interaction I wasn't seeing at Yale. I also loved the centrality of student organizations to the Penn experience. In contrast, I felt like Yale's student experiences were built around the residential college system. It also lacked a proper student union because the residential college system served as the hub of student life which I felt to be too limiting for me.
- Housing was important to me. I liked Yale's residential colleges but i found them too limiting. I wanted a variety of housing options and a greater sense of independence. Penn has the College House system in which its dorms are organized similarly to Yale's in terms of their community-oriented focus but you are not limited to one specific dorm for the majority of your college education and it isn't peculiar or socially isolating to move off campus if you want. I loved that you could kind of 'choose your own adventure' within Penn housing and thus you could have the very traditional college experience of the Quad or the more urbane lifestyle of suite-style apartments in Rodin. And if none of that worked for you, the edge of campus is lined with tons of beautiful, converted victorian homes in which students and professors live.
- Philadelphia and University City (the neighborhood in which Penn is located) is MUCH nicer than New Haven. It has way more restaurants, art, culture, beautiful parks, etc. etc. etc. Living in America's 5th largest city but still having a beautiful, green, contiguous urban campus that spanned 300 acres and had literally thousands of trees was the ideal way to spend four years of undergraduate education. I loved that philly never overshadowed Penn but that it still had more than enough exciting opportunities for internships, cultural experiences, restaurants, etc. etc. etc.
- Penn's one university policy allows for unprecedented undergraduate access to all of the resources the University has to offer. As an undergrad in any of Penn's undergrad schools, students can take classes, do research, and more at the other undergrad, graduate and professional schools. I was able to take classes and do research in Penn Law, Wharton, the school of government, and more all while pursuing my undergraduate degree in the College. And opportunities for undergraduate research were abundant and easily accessible because of the strong connections Penn's schools build with one another.
- Social Life- I liked that Penn was known as the Social Ivy. It was the right balance of studious and playful. People were genuinely committed to building relationships outside of the classroom and they were super dedicated to their extracurricular activities as well.
- At the undergraduate level in the Humanities, there isn't a huge difference between the quality of the education one would receive at Yale or Penn. The professors are all outstanding, the work will be very similar, class sizes are small and students are friendly. I have heard that Penn engineering is stronger than Yale's engineering program but at the end of the day it's not like Yale's engineers are floundering. Though that might be something to keep in mind.
- Penn is more practically focused. I loved the fact that that even though i was immersing myself in the liberal arts, the institution as a whole had a mind towards the practical import of the work we were doing. Some call it 'pre-professional' but that's an imperfect characterization. It has less to do with wanting to be part of the 'professional' world and more to do with the school's founding principle that the 'ornamental' must be balanced with the 'practical' in order to create a well rounded education.
When choosing between Yale and Penn, the school thatâs a better fit for your son will be the one at which he sees himself being happiest. They are genuinely more similar than they are different and they each provide incredible undergraduate experiences.
Definitely take a look at my other posts in which I offer other perspectives on the differences between these two schools. I am also happy to answer any questions you might have about how I ended up choosing Penn over Yale and my general experience there as well! Good luck to your son- and congrats to him on two amazing options.
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There are some concerns associated with Yale relating your major
1.Yale does not offer a major in Computer Engineering.
- Yale does not have a good reputation for Engineering within the industry due to a seeming lack of interest and investment. Its EE program was so weak that it lost its ABET accreditation from 1965-1973 (right when the computer hardware industry was ramping up).
http://seas.yale.edu/i-am/alumnus/yale-history-blog/post-world-war-ii-era
- Yale does not have a good reputation for Computer Science within the industry due to a seeming lack of interest and investment. Its CS program was stagnant for the 30 years that the Internet was ramping up.
4.Yaleâs less than good reputation for engineering dates back almost 200 years. Four years after Americaâs first Engineering School (RPI) was created, at a time when the country was trying to ramp up the work force to support the Industrial Revolution, Yale issued the influential âYale Report of 1928â. It recommended that colleges implement a âClassical Curriculumâ centered around the âdead languagesâ and that Engineering related courses be excluded from the undergraduate curriculum.
.http://collegiateway.org/reading/yale-report-1828/
Thirty four years after the Yale Report (1862) the Morrill Act was passed to support the establishment of âland grantâ institutions in each state for teaching the agircultural and mechanic arts (i.e.Engineering). Yale was appointed Connecticutâs land grant instutution in 1863 and awarded the land grant funds. Thirty years later Yaleâs land grant status was revoked due to unsatisfactory performance and awarded to Storrs Agricultural College (now UConn). Yale sued for breach of contract and won an additional $155,000.
http://advance.uconn.edu/1997/971124/112497hs.htm
If you were looking for a classical liberal arts education (which does not include computers or engineering) then Yale would be a viable choice.
But, for a major in Computer Engineering, or if you are looking for a more liberal liberal arts education, I would suggest that your best choice is Penn.
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@J3172722126 For engineering Penn is better. Also I am pretty sure Yale does not offer a computer engineering major (only computer science I think) and in general its engineering offerings are more limited. On the other hand Yale has an overall more prestigious name, but that doesnât translate to any practical differences in opportunities, especially given that for your area of interest Penn has an edge and Penn is pretty prestigious itself. Also Yale has the more traditional ivy league hogwats-like campus.
Here is an article about Yale computer science you might want to read: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-06/want-a-job-in-silicon-valley-after-yale-good-luck-with-that
I also faced this same dilemma a few years back. I ended up choosing Penn for two reasons. First I felt i fit in there much better and secondly I thought that the engineering offerings were better and I was also interested in business.
If I had gotten into Harvard, Stanford or Princeton I would have probably chosen one of them based on how i thought at that time (was quite prestige-driven at the time as many high schoolers are ), but I felt Yaleâs engineering offerings were not what I wanted, and also Yale didnât have any business offerings and so the extra prestige was not worth it in that case since Penn was also a prestigious school and I felt I fit in at Penn much better.
In terms of what applicants choose most, overall the edge goes to Yale, but it is not a big difference, and it largely varies what ones intended major is. It is not uncommon for Engineering and Wharton kids to turn down Yale for Penn, for liberal arts/sciences majors it is a bit more rare but it still happens some times.
Here is an estimate of how cross-admits choose (this is not 100% accurate but gives you good idea). As you can see the difference is not statistically significant and not that big and is primarily driven by liberal arts majors. You will notice that the split is much less pronounced than that of Penn vs Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Princeton and it is probably for the reasons mentioned above (Penn in general has better pre-professional offerings than Yale and also some equally strong lib arts majors).
All of that said, however, I still believe you should go where you fit in best. Both schools are excellent and it is much more important for your personal happiness and also for you to thrive as a student, to go where you like the community and vibe/atmosphere best.
Did you visit both/either?
Thank you!
Since people are talking about relative strengths, hereâs how I think of them:
- Yale has probably the best Humanities of any university, Ivy or otherwise. Yale's social sciences and most other sciences (including math) are also very good; some are world class. Engineering and CS are probably reputably Yale's weakest areas, but it's still Yale, so they're decent, and the Yale network will help with jobs.
- Penn has the top undergraduate business school in the country (Wharton) and is very good everywhere else.
So Yale is a 10 for Humanities, a 9 for social sciences and some sciences, and a 8 for engineering and CS.
Penn is a 10 for business and probably a 8-9 everywhere else.
Theyâre both good at everything they offer.
For comparison, no school is a 10 at everything.
Thanks.
Relative differences in CS and Engineering strengths between Yale and Penn are very small - weâre not exactly comparing Yale and MIT here for instance. Both schools tend to have smaller, but very high quality departments, and a range of career opportunities to choose from.
Yaleâs culture veers towards the liberal arts and sciences, while Penn veers towards business, entrepreneurship and pre-professional pursuits, though youâll still find people of all stripes. Perhaps your son prefers interacting with one sort of student body over another. Furthermore, a lot more Penn students tend to be involved in frats/sororities (about 25-30%) compared to ~10% for Yale. Iâd also recommend looking at the campuses and residential scene at both.
Lastly, if he is unsure about a choice of major or wants to double major in an engineering and non-engineering field, it is logistically much easier at Yale, since there is no separate College of Engineering to switch into/out of if his interests change.
Honestly if your son is good enough for yale and penn, he shouldnât have applied to neither because they arent really engineering/STEM focused schools. Should have applied to maybe Stanford/MIT/CalTech/Princeton. However if I had to make a choice, I would go to yale.
I wouldnât go so far as to suggest that - a lot of people value an environment filled with people that have diverse academic interests. Anyway, both schools have top-notch science departments that are in the top-10 or top-15 for virtually all fields, and better than Princeton/Caltech etc. in several of them. Engineering departments might be lower ranked but thatâs because they are smaller and focus on a few areas of excellence. Iâd be hard pressed to find any difference in the careers of CS majors between those who go to Penn and those who go to Caltech for instance.
@finolex1 The point about double majoring being easier at Yale is not true at all. Penn has a very flexible curriculum and all the majors in the engineering school (SEAS) and the school of arts and sciences (CAS) are open to each other and there arenât any restrictions really, so there is no difficulty at all. Also transferring from one to the other is very easy and quick.
@finolex1 thatâs a good point about greek life but keep in mind that part of the reason greek life is less popular at Yale is because of the prevalence of secret societies. They largely fill the role of greek life, albeit, in a different way. If you count the members of the societies and the fraternities, the proportion of affiliated students at Yale probably rises dramatically.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collegiate_secret_societies_in_North_America#Yale_University
A lot of the posters have some very good points.
Although Yale and Penn are both great schools, they have significantly different vibes on campus. Academically and socially, there are real differences in the schools that can be picked up on during an admit weekend.
Which did your son like better? Because the answer should be pretty clear to him.
And secret societies really donât play a huge role in campus social life. Almost all are seniors-only, and thereâs not a huge divide between people in a society and people not in one. My best friend was in a society, so sheâd be busy Sunday night and Thursday night, but it didnât make a huge difference (and only in senior year), nor did non-society members (vast majority of senior class) feel socially ostracized because they werenât in one.
interesting- that actually sounds quite a bit like Penn to be honest- though as identified in my earlier post, not identical. While fraternities and sororities are technically organizations you can join for 3.5 years, they are only really relevant during 2nd semester freshman year and sophomore year (so, about, 1.5 years). Theyâre also only relevant to about 25% of Penn students in a meaningful way. After Sophomore year, even those who are affiliated with fraternities and sororities tend not to engage with them in a particularly serious way (They go to chapter meetings on Sunday nights occasionally⊠though more often upperclass students skip). Also, those who never joined greek life or who disaffiliated after joining (70%-80% of penn undergrads) donât feel socially ostracized for not being in a fraternity or sorority because the vast majority of social interactions come from the college houses and extracurricular activities. There also isnât a huge divide between students in Greek Life and those who are unaffiliated at Penn, especially since fraternity parties tend to be open to all students, all of Pennâs clubs from the literary club to the debate team, to the football team throw their own Greek-style parties, and Philadelphia offers more in the way of social activity for those uninterested in the Greek Life experience and uninterested in the extracurricular parties. Penn sort of has Greek-Life-lite; it exists and itâs clearly different from not having Greek Life as a substantial presence, but itâs not like the real Greek Life experience one might find at schools where the fraternities and sororities are the main vehicles for social interaction for a huge proportion of students. Greek life is kind of a nice bonus for those who join, a non-entity for those who want to avoid it, and something in between for those who sit somewhere in between on the Greek Life Interest Spectrum⊠So definitely not identical to Yale, but strikingly similar in some meaningful ways, I think.
@arwen1 âAnd secret societies really donât play a huge role in campus social life. Almost all are seniors-only, and thereâs not a huge divide between people in a society and people not in one.â
Penn does not have any âsecret societiesâ but it does have âsenior societiesâ like Friars, Sphinx, Bell etc. From what you are saying they do not sound very different from Yale. They are only for seniors and do not take a huge amount of time.