A few questions about M&T program and UPenn in general

Keasbey_Nights
Wed, 02 Sep 2015 06:36:48 +0000

I’m a recent M&T graduate.

1. I've never heard of someone not getting on-campus housing if they want it. A good percentage of sophomores and up will live in Greek housing or will get an apartment in West Philly with friends. M&Ts don't actually live in a different building as freshmen, but instead are guaranteed a spot in Ware College House, which is part of the Quad.

2. So honestly, most M&Ts can't 100% handle the combination of the overly intense academics, extracurriculars, and social life. Now, I don't mean that they literally can't handle it, but rather that they are forced to cut corners in one way or another—anything from not reading their textbooks to all-nighter cramming as the only form of studying to full-out cheating (unfortunately). Yes, most people at Penn do this because most people at Penn are super busy, but you see it more with M&Ts (even compared to other dual-degree programs at Penn).

One can argue that this immense pressure is a good thing because it encourages resourcefulness; you’ll quickly learn how to figure out what material you should focus on, and what material you should just glance at. But it sort of becomes a problem when you walk away from classes not having learned anything (and believe me, I’ve seen this a lot from some of my peers) due to the combination of fudging the problem sets and last-minute cramming.

I think a large part of this comes down to moral fiber and willpower. I don’t mean to make it sound like M&T is impossible or a bad idea, but that kind of high-pressure environment can facilitate not being true to one’s self with regards to academics.

It’s really, really unlikely that you’ll want to do a varsity sport plus M&T. I know of two M&T varsity athletes, and they were on “lower commitment” sports, fencing and crew. One of them I’m told is actually quite lazy with schoolwork; the other one is incredibly diligent, but he doesn’t socialize much to compensate.

To be clear, most M&Ts are heavily involved in the community. It would be insane to do M&T in four years, maintain a social life, partake in other extracurriculars (TAing, Wharton Investment and Trading Group, music / dance, etc.), and do a varsity sport. Not to sound like a dick, but I was completely tapped out between M&T, Greek life, TAing, a music group, and a couple other things. I was considering going to college for baseball, and I absolutely could not imagine what it would have been like to do M&T plus baseball, even with dropping a couple extracurriculars.

You’re welcome to go for it, but something will absolutely have to give. Some of the top academic performers in the world go to M&T, and they aren’t anywhere near capable of doing M&T with good grades, social life, extracurriculars, and varsity athletics. There just literally aren’t enough hours in the day.

EDIT: Judging from your posting history, you want to play varsity soccer? That’s probably a terrible idea. If this is something you really, really want to do, and you get into M&T and everything, you should considering taking five years to graduate at a minimum. That, or just playing club soccer. A good number of M&Ts play club sports.

1. Yes.

2. Super easy to walk. I was able to get from engineering classes to Wharton classes in under ten minutes, the length of our passing period. Campus is probably more logically laid out than any other university in the country due to Philadelphia's easy-to-understand grid system.