I know–I saw that. That’s why I added the correction in the later post (the editing time had expired on the earlier post) pointing out that I’d found that one shirt.
Look, I think some folks are misunderstanding this. And to the poster right before you (CaliCash), it’s not about being pretentious (at least not for me). We’re just trying to convey that overwhelmingly, when Penn refers to itself–through its administrators, web site, publications, etc., etc.–it calls itself “Penn,” and not “UPenn.” If you spend any amount of time on campus, or on the Penn web site, or reading Penn publications, or listening to President Amy Gutmann or any number of other administrators talk about the school, you’ll hear and see it called “Penn” and not “UPenn.” And that’s always been my experience with alumni, students, and administrators when they’re talking to other Penn folks.
I and others here are not trying to censor anyone, or judge anyone based on whether they say “Penn” or “UPenn.” We’re just trying to convey to anyone who may care that among the Penn community of students, alums, administrators, etc., it’s usually referred to as “Penn,” and not “UPenn.” But if you really want to call it “UPenn” in your application or in an interview, or on campus if you end up going to school there, then please do! That, alone, certainly won’t get you rejected, or kicked out of school once you get there.
@Calicash Thank God you did not apply. It is a shame that you could not deduce that this thread is simply a discussion on how Penn students and alums refer to themselves. No one is being pretentious.
Now, see, this is where I have a problem; Penn created this particular problem themselves. I’m old enough to remember that for some period during the 70s or 80s, Penn’s logo, especially on their athletic teams, was a UPENN in blocky letters, capitalized and slanting forward. It was a cheesy modern branding effort that went nowhere. The fact that people still capitalize it shows how hard it is to eradicate your logos, especially for a generation of consumers who were subjected to it.
spayurpets, I know you didn’t attend an Ivy from your posts. Show me the UPENN blocky letter shirts. I don’t remember seeing UPENN logo on anything. And yes I am as old as you are.
Though I now live in the midwest, I grew up in western PA and most of us knew the difference between Pitt, Penn State and Penn. No one who went to PSU would ever introduce themselves by saying, “Hello, I went to Penn.” Nor would they say “I went to the Pennsylvania State University.” (I never understood the name, BTW, since Pennsylvania is actually a commonwealth.)
They would say simply “I went to Penn State.” (And if they were from western PA they might add, “where’d yinz go?”)
But with the shorthand of texting and the internet, there might now be some confusion for those outside of Pennsylvania.
I don’t remember ever seeing “UPENN” on team uniforms, either. I remember “PENNSYLVANIA” being on the uniforms, which it was for many decades, including during my time at Penn in the 1970s:
And of course the “PENN” that has been on the uniforms for at least the last couple of decades. But I don’t remember ever seeing “UPENN.” Not that it may not have happened for a brief time period–I just don’t remember ever having seen it.
Above are 2 links from the University of Pennsylvania, easily found with a google search, that currently use the moniker “upenn.”
I find the attitude of certain alumni here, especially those who interview, highly judgmental and out of touch. Things change and Penn is certainly a progressive institution that strives to stay current and relevant. Those who refuse to accept change and current accepted colloquialisms probably should no longer be interviewing. I’m certainly glad my daughter did not have this experience!
@picktails, can you redo your links? Nothing came up using your links.
I don’t understand your premise, that the school’s name somehow has changed because people other than the students name the school incorrectly?
And because we are correcting other’s mistake, we are somehow not progressive?
I hope your daughter will realize that she attended Penn and not Upenn after receiving an outstanding education.
I"ll redo the links, on a work computer right now.
My daughter does refer to the school as Penn, that’s not the issue. It’s the attitude that comes through here regarding change. You can continue to refer to the use of “UPenn” as a mistake, but I don’t think the younger generation really cares.
Okay. I am a Penn parent. Over the last two years, I learned a lot about the school here on cc:. When I first started visiting this site, poster’s were kind enough to explain to all of us who were new that everyone affiliated with the university calls it Penn. I appreciate that. When we went on our initial visit and then to admitted student days, it was nice to know things about the school in advance. I appreciated the information. It never occurred to me to argue about what they call their university or to accuse them of being petty. Like if someone says that they prefer to be called Liz instead of Elizabeth. Why would I argue?
With regard to alumni interviews, if you what to be convincing that you are actually very interested in Penn and that it is not just another random school on your list of 20 that you are taking a shotgun approach to, then it would be good to sound informed, and a great start would be to know what people associated with the school call it. Not knowing that is be like interviewing for Princeton and not knowing what city it is in.
I also do not understand the view that this is opposing change. To me, opposing change would be the case where current Penn students all call it one thing and the Alumni are mad about that new name. That is not the case here. In this case, high school students are understandably confused by the UPenn.edu websites. People in the Penn community are trying to educate the applicants and help them put there best foot forward.
This is a free country and everyone is free to call it whatever they want to. However, what I do not understand is why is pointing this out is so offensive?
We’re not saying that using “UPenn” is a mistake, or that it’s some old, musty tradition that must be maintained in the face of an onslaught of tech-sayvy young millennials who threaten to forever change our cherished ways. All I, and I think several of the others here, are trying to say is that if you want to present yourself as familiar with the school when speaking to those affiliated with it (e.g., alumni, current students, etc.), you call it “Penn,” and not “UPenn.” And it’s not just some old-fart alums here who do that–take a look at the web site of The Daily Pennsylvanian, which is written and published by current students for current students:
Any place the school is mentioned there, it’s “Penn” and not “UPenn.” And you’d find similar results throughout the university’s web site, other university publications, and alumni publications. And I’m sure your daughter would corroborate this: any time current Penn students refer to the school among themselves (e.g.: “When are you coming back to Penn?” “Will you be at Penn this summer?” “Did you know he went to Penn?” “How far is that from Penn?”), they almost always call it “Penn,” and not “UPenn.”
It’s roughly analogous to a nickname being used for an individual by his friends and family. Everyone who knows him calls him “Charlie,” so when someone else calls him “Charles” or “Chuck,” that person and everyone familiar with him knows that the person calling him “Charles” or “Chuck” isn’t familiar with him. That’s kind of what we’re saying here: if someone refers to the school as “UPenn,” we who are familiar with it know that the person who calls it that isn’t very familiar with it. He or she hasn’t spent much time on campus, or looking through the web site, or reading Penn-related publications such as “The Daily Pennsylvanian,” or talking to Penn people about Penn. That’s all we’re (or at least I’m) saying.
EDIT: I now see that my good CC friend Much2learn had also posted while I was preparing this post. He’s expressed quite well exactly what I was trying to say.
The above link if from the department of campus safety, released in 2013. You’ll see that they refer to themselves as both “Penn” and “UPenn” quite a few times. The program it describes is officially called “UPenn Alert.”
All I am pointing out is that the name “UPenn” is being used more often, not that the school is not still officially “Penn.”
^ Not to get too technical, but they never refer to the school, itself, as “UPenn” in that news release. Just the alert system. And that could be related to the general Penn web site domain (“upenn”), as well as the fact that it’s intended for both Penn folks AND campus visitors:
The big picture, however, is that if you go through literally hundreds of recent Penn news releases, you’ll virtually always find the school referred to as “Penn,” and not “UPenn”:
Penn is NOT referring to itself these days as “UPenn” more often than it used to. Again, just skim through the Penn news releases, the Penn web site, The Daily Pennsylvanian, etc., too see that.
@45 Percenter, I agree with you. But I also see this and future generations as occasionally saying UPenn, as they see it more often (compared with years prior to internet and texting abbreviations.)
I really don’t mean to be argumentative; I think it’s the tone of the OP that got to me.
^ Understood. And I didn’t think you were being argumentative.
But we’ve had the internet (and the “upenn” domain name) for about twenty years now, and we still see current Penn students mostly referring to the school as “Penn” once they’ve been on campus for even a brief amount of time. For example, take a quick look through these Daily Pennsylvanian (again, the main public voice of Penn students directed at Penn students) articles from yesterday:
Honestly speaking, reading this thread has made me begin to regret applying. If - on the slight chance - I do get accepted to Penn, and I’m weighing the pros and cons for me to decide where to go, this will be the first on the list of cons. I thought I was pretentious, but this is ridiculous. I’m so happy that you’re an alumnus, I’m so happy you think you now own the school. But you don’t. This thread is disgusting, to put it simply.
I grew up in Cambridge, and attended a lot of Harvard sports events so that’s why I think it was in that time period. I don’t know, maybe my recollection is faulty but I have a very clear picture in my mind of a really ugly contemporary logo like that for Penn. And coincident with that, I do know that for people of a certain age, UPENN all caps is the way to refer to Penn. Someone made a concerted effort to coin that, maybe it was Penn. I really don’t care; my observation to the person I was responding to was that it might not be so wise to criticize people as ignorant or stupid for using a particular brand name when it might turn out that the brand confusion may have originated from the school itself. Marketers will tell you that you never criticize the consumers for getting your name wrong, you blame your marketing department and brand strategy for causing the confusion.
@jamesjunkers, please don’t be discouraged. Penn is absolutely the LEAST pretentious ivy, a major reason my daughter loves it so. It’s also why I continue to pipe up on this thread, because I believe it’s important to point out that not everyone is in agreement on this issue!
So I tried googling Penn’s logos over time, and ended up with not very helpful search results, but I did realize that one of the ways the university brands itself—with the university coat of arms immediately followed by “Penn”—could totally reinforce the idea of “UPenn” in the mind of someone who already thought that was the way to refer to the school, since the coat of arms looks rather U-like (or V-like, but that wouldn’t tie into any preexisting ideas, I don’t think). So maybe that’s one of the routes (though not the only one, given the item of clothing discussed a bit upthread) by which people are thinking of “UPenn” as being part of the school’s branding?
That’s why I added the correction in the later post (the editing time had expired on the earlier post) pointing out that I’d found that one shirt.
