After reading all the pro-Brown messages, I feel compelled to defend Penn a bit here. Side note, if you go, you will need to drop the “u” in “uPenn”
First, the proximity to the medical school should not be discounted. Undergraduates at Penn have the opportunity to be exposed to world-class, Nobel prize winning medical researchers. It is very common for a pre-med student to have one of their letters of recommendation come from Penn Med faculty. Aside from this obvious advantage, there is also the shadowing and clinical research opportunities. Most of the pre-med students sign up for volunteer opportunities in the ER or OR.
Brown vs. Penn for overall academics is a more even match. I think that there may be more a of a “love of learning” atmosphere at Brown vs. a pre-professional vibe at Penn. However, there are definite enclaves of intellectuals at Penn, it’s just that Wharton and Engineering have an influence on campus.
I don’t think that Penn is exceptionally competitive. Friends collaborate and study together. There are no instances of sabotage or grade grubbing that I saw.
Brown wins for the campus. And Providence is better than Philadelphia in my opinion. I have lived in both places.
But after accounting for everything, including the $32K, the fact that you are pre-med seals the deal for Penn in my opinion. It would be a mistake to consider Brown equivalent to Penn in Medicine. It just is not and there will be more opportunities at Penn for someone interested in Medicine.