Penn vs Georgetown Social Experience

Cue7
Tue, 28 Nov 2017 14:48:37 +0000

@PennCAS2014 yes, I think it’s helpful to blur silly distinctions between schools, BUT, I think there are a couple issues with your approach:

1.) A college decision is a bit of a gamble, and HYPMS continue to be the best bets out there over the long term. Remember that schools can shift a bit over time, but HYMPS status has been remarkably constant. M and S are relative newcomers, but by that I mean, since pretty much the late 70s, they’ve been fairly eminent. If you look at USNWR, in 1983, I believe all these schools were in the top 5 (meanwhile, Columbia was barely in the top 20, and UPenn was unranked).

Outside of these schools, prestige can shift a little - Dartmouth and Brown certainly did better in the 90s, as did Duke. Penn has risen here, but who’s to say what things will look like 20 years from now?

Put another way, I’m most confident about HYMPS maintaining their standing well into the future. Yale is still a better “bet” over the long term than UPenn or Columbia, in my eyes. After all, past history dictates that some churn (below the top 5) could occur.

And lest you doubt the flux over time - don’t forget in the 1960s, UChicago had the third highest endowment in the country - behind only Harvard and Yale. Now, it’s endowment standing is barely in the top dozen.

Schools can rise and fall. HYMPS seem the most immune to this.

2.) In your presentation of school strengths, you rarely present the strengths of other schools in the top 1%. So, I don’t doubt that UPenn has superb business placement, benefits from the One University policy, has access to great research, etc. BUT, other top 1% schools have strengths in areas Penn may not. I’m sure Georgetown, with it’s School of Foreign Service and ready access to DC, has governmental employers/int’l options that simply aren’t as readily available to Penn students. Brown, with it’s connection to RISD, probably sees options in the creative arts that Penn may not have. All the 1% schools have varied strengths - and you’d do well to acknowledge that more readily in your posts, rather than to jump into endowment performance, student preferences, etc.