Current Penn Freshman Taking Questions

ProudPenn
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 19:55:00 +0000

29

a) Social life- your social life is whatever you make it. Besides events on campus you’re privileged with being in a city, and a great one at that. Penn is in University City or West Philly but Center City/Downtown is about a 10 minute train ride away. and yes, there are definitely concerts, plays, performances, art exhibits, etc etc etc going on. There’s also a movie theater basically on campus. Now the party scene is separate from social life to me and from my experience yes, a lot of the parties are organized by frats or other groups such as sports teams. Frats throw “downtowns” from time to time which is basically a party at a club downtown. There are also a lot of clubs in the city if you want a change of pace and schools like Drexel and especially Temple have parties almost every weekend worth checking out.

b) People go to NYC all the time, a couple of my friends just went last weekend. It is both easy and relatively cheap if you take a bus. Most of my friends take Megabus and it’s ~$20 roundtrip for a day if I’m not mistaken.

c)The Quad houses the most freshman so you have a good chance of getting in, you may not get the exact house you wanted but I wouldn’t worry about it too much. Most people who apply get in.

d) Gripes with Penn differ with different people. Certain people may have specific ones pertaining to advising, teaching, classes, campus life, etc. Are there general dislikes? probably, but the ones I’m familiar with aren’t that serious to me. I mean a lot of students aren’t too fond of the food or certain classes/teachers/buildings. My advice to you would be to ask around about things you’re interested in at Penn, whether it be certain departments, dorms, clubs, etc. and see what the general consensus is to better form a decision about which school is best for you.