Columbia or UPENN ?

confidentialcoll
Fri, 04 Apr 2008 14:37:05 +0000

so my brother is a penn grad, and he considers the 4 years, by far, the best years of his life, not only in terms of fun but in terms making something out of himself. Penn and columbia are on equal footing in terms of academic quality overall and in terms of poli sci and law school placement they’re more or less even. Here are some similarities:

1) both don’t hold your hand but give you ample opportunity

2)smallish urban campuses, with a big city in the backyard, and all that that implies: convenience, distractions from campus, more things to do

3)both very Internationally oriented, although columbia maybe slightly more so.

4) among the oldest institutions in the US, both very well established, with rich histories.

5) comparable facilities and endowments.

Here are a few key differences:

1) Penn is a very practical and pre-professional school, very few people like the useless academic side of academics. Columbia in this respect is more balanced, with people enjoying theoretical and philosophical discussions more, but still having it’s die hard practical, pre-professional section.

2) Penn has better sports teams, and even if they don’t, penn students are much prouder of their athletics.

3) NYC trumps philly any day of the week for anything, but penn has better on campus parties.

4)penn is 2.5 times the size, it’s has a bigger better frat scene, less intimacy of a smaller campus.

5)penn i’d say is marginally more interdisciplinary with marginally weirder classes. columbia is more research oriented, more research opportunities for undergrads (in both science and non science fields).