A Million Bagillion Questions...

JHS
Fri, 06 Feb 2009 10:19:16 +0000

It’s silly to suggest that Philly > NYC, but not silly to suggest that Philly is a better town than NYC for college students, especially if they are on a budget. It’s a much smaller scale, but there’s lots to do, and students are a lot more important here than they are in NY, and also a much larger portion of the population. It’s also meaningfully cheaper.

As for legacy, as many people have told you: Yes, legacy counts, but only if you apply ED. Yes, grad school legacy counts (especially the professional schools, including Wharton of course, which are very important to Penn, its endowment, its status, and its politics). No, it’s nothing like a free pass. For years, a feature of Christmas parties around here is people complaining about their high-stats legacy kids not getting in to Penn. And the kids wind up at comparable schools. At Penn, as elsewhere, legacy means a lot less than people think it does.