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Yeah, but there’s been a huge resurgence of cities in the United States since that time. Penn was probably hurt by the fact that it was in a major industrial city in the 70s/80s (I don’t know when you went). Same with Columbia being stuck in the middle of a Manhattan criminal and drug war zone. </p>
<p>Now, most young people want to live in cities (big reason for both Penn’s and Columbia’s jumps in applications and prestige) so it’s the smaller city schools that are met with skepticism. Also why Cornell’s pumping so much money into increasing its presence in NYC.</p>