<p>I had a long response typed and then it logged me out…</p>
<p>I graduated from Wharton in May. My experience differs significantly from OP. Everyone has their own list of complaints about Penn and I would describe my time there as love-hate, but I do want to address the specific points in the original post.</p>
<p>Making Friends</p>
<p>This is too personal to generalize. Some of my best friends lived on my freshman hall and I lived with three of them for the rest of college. In junior year we moved off-campus into a house of 10 guys. That’s a pretty big “core” group, plus other close friends from classes and clubs, plus the extended network from living in a big house - things were always interesting. I guess I lucked out. You have to be proactive about meeting new people, but I wouldn’t say that you’re SOL or anything as a sophomore. I think people naturally gravitate to an ideal friend group, but it takes time to settle into things and JHS hit the nail on the head.</p>
<p>Wharton Dichotomy</p>
<p>This is the part I don’t really understand. NSO events, Cohorts, and MGMT100 are so trivial in the grand scheme of things. Of course your campus experience is going to be shaped as a function of your school, but that goes for any of the schools or even different majors. This is literally the first time I’ve heard someone say that it’s hard to meet people outside of Wharton. Everyone I know had friends of all majors and schools. There are too many random ways to meet people at Penn for there to be some huge divide between schools. </p>
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<p>I don’t want to say you’re doing something wrong or anything, but c’mon…campus is a 10 minute walk end-to-end and almost everyone lives on campus or within a few blocks. It reads as though Wharton is a huge part of your college identity. There’s logically no reason why being in a different school should be some barrier to meeting someone new. It’s not like your interaction would take place in Huntsman anyway. I can understand this frustration for engineers because of the workload, but Wharton isn’t even that bad. What kind of clubs are you involved with? Almost anything that’s not related to business should have a wide range of people. </p>
<p>Frat Life</p>
<p>True, but only for freshman year. Halfway through sophomore year you won’t even want to go to frat parties. By junior and senior year, people are mostly over the whole Greek scene. A lot of other options open up - bars both on and off-campus once you’re 21 or get a good fake 
as well as smaller house parties as people move off campus. Ultimately, your friends are your friends regardless of Greek affiliation. I didn’t join a frat and had friends spanning the Greek spectrum. Partying also becomes less sloppy…still sloppy, but not quite freshmen in the basement with jungle juice sloppy. </p>
<p>Sidenote: Everyone becomes more chill as a senior. It’s hard to describe, but I’ve had this conversation with a lot of people - everyone sort of lets their guard down. I met a lot of really cool people senior year who for whatever reason I wouldn’t have clicked with earlier. I guess there’s so little at stake, and no social ladder left to climb, that people can just hang out and appreciate each other for their company. </p>
<p>The City</p>
<p>Haters gonna hate. I love Philadelphia. The city has HUGE problems, no doubt, but those don’t really affect the student experience. I think Penn is the perfect blend of having a defined campus and access to an exciting city. Philadelphia has tons of cool neighborhoods, events, great bars, great restaurants, and there’s just so much to explore. I only started going out in Northern Liberties and Fishtown senior year and I always had a blast.</p>
<p>I also don’t think safety is a huge issue in terms of the places a student might hang out. There are incidents here and there on campus, but I’ve never felt unsafe on campus, or even in other parts of the city…and I’ve been out at all hours of the night in various neighborhoods. Even Westbound, the area around Baltimore all the way down to 50th is safe. The ONE time I felt sketched out was walking back from the Mann Center through deep West Philly at night with two friends. That was just dumb on our part.</p>