Penn vs Georgetown Social Experience

Cue7
Thu, 23 Nov 2017 05:14:28 +0000

@PennCAS2014 - yes, I agree, UPenn now is better (in many ways) than it was in the 90s, and the Rodin + Gutmann presidencies have brought the school forward. Most other top schools are better now than then too, though. (Dartmouth has many problems now, but it was a different place 20 years ago, especially in terms of student culture - some would say, a lesser place.) Your exegesis over-exaggerates the weaknesses though, and leaves out some context (for instance, Penn’s really dark years were in the 70s/80s, and Rodin moved quickly - by the late 90s/early 00s, the undergrad was very much in the midst of a renaissance. U. of Penn Medicine was a different story, and also separate from the undergrad story. Penn Medicine also lucked out with some great hires - like Ralph Mueller, who turned that ship around for myriad reasons. Also, crime in a city is a bit of a red herring - look at UChicago and Hopkins, they’re both enjoying great success now in terms of admissions, but crime is a mess not far from both those schools. The truth is, UPenn, like other urban schools, enjoyed a pendulum swing in student preference - away from rural colleges to urban ones. Yes Penn has made strides forward, but so have most of the other top urban unis. In contrast, places like Williams and Amherst - schools that have great leadership over many years - now struggle in comparison.)

BACK to my main thesis: my whole point is that student preferences are whimsical - they can shift over time, sometimes quickly, You see that in the change from 2006 to 2016. Who is to say what they’ll look like in 2026 or 2036?

A college decision sticks with you a long time - and the preferences in 10 years could look quite different than they do now. Why consider this when the numbers could look very different not long from now?

There have been significant pendulum swings in student preference over the past 20 years, but, again, ESPECIALLY over the past 10 years, the standing of schools have been pretty consistent. Yes, maybe Dartmouth’s leadership and fundraising have been lackluster, but it’s still in an eminent position - UPenn and Dartmouth are still peers, in ways that Penn winning 69% of the cross admit battle does not suggest - just as, in the 90s AND in 2006, Penn and Dartmouth were still peers, no matter what the cross admit data says.

@PennCAS2014 - I implore you, don’t forget how whimsical student preferences can be. Please don’t confuse what students chose (which can shift radically) as indication of a school’s strength. If US News decides to preference smaller/rural colleges, and the mis-characterization of Penn as a “pressure cooker” amplifies, the picture could look very different - even though these changes might not be meshed in reality. It wouldn’t be a stretch to see students choosing Brown or Dartmouth again over UPenn - for the same flimsy reasons that they did in 1996 or 2006.

Finally, re Yale - I’m not talking about who recruits during OCR - by exit options and resources, I mean that mix of what a school can provide for its undergrads, and the network that can enliven one’s exit options (immediately after graduation and beyond). Yale generally is more undergrad-focused than Columbia, and showers resources (be it through their residential college system, the linkages to power, brand both nationally and internationally, etc.) on its students. There are many perfectly good reasons to pick Columbia over Yale, but there are some fairly compelling points in Yale’s favor, especially when looked at thru the lens of a college decision carrying forward for some time. As I said before, there are only 5 schools (HYPMS) where these factors should be considered vis a vis the next dozen top places. After that, when dealing with the next dozen (of which UPenn and Georgetown are certainly part), go on fit, and so on down the line.