<p>Hey guys, </p>
<p>A quick look at my postcount and you will see that I was once like you - fretting over college admissions. It’s a period every good student most go through, I suppose. Anyway, I got accepted to Penn early last year, and then proceeded to take the next 9 months off intellectually. I kinda regret that now, because it took a good two months to get back into the academic swing of things.</p>
<p>Anyway, some observations and thoughts after my first semester. I hope some of these ramblings may aid you in choosing Penn, especially for those students like me out there - who worried about everything and anything.</p>
<p>1.) F— the Quad. Just kidding. But student life, more specifically freshman student life, does not revolve around the Quad, as I and many others thought. After spending a semester in Kings Court, I wouldn’t have want to live anywhere else. Most everyone seems happy where they are, save for a few people in Hill that I’ve talked to. So, if you get in and you get your housing and its not the Quad, don’t fret - your social life is not over.</p>
<p>2.) New Student Orientation is really fun. Try to participate in the events, especially if they have a party at the Art Museum like we had.</p>
<p>3.) Penn is so diverse. Well, I would like to have met more EYE-talian girls, but what can I do. But, there really is something for everyone out there, as cliched as that sounds.</p>
<p>4.) Okay, Penn has a lot of rich kids, but for you middle class or lower class kids like me, that doesn’t mean you can’t find people you can’t identify with. I found several people I could become great friends with, and I suppose in these few months we have become great friends. Actually, one of them was a regular poster on CC - small world.</p>
<p>5.) If you’re undecided, fear not. Penn is filled with kids who know exactly what they’re going to do - Whartonites, Huntsman kids, etc and while they seem like the majority, they’re just more vocal. Coming into Penn I thought I wanted to major in Anthropology - and now I know what I want to major in – NOT ANTHROPOLOGY. Actually, I’m kinda putting myself on track to be a religious studies major. And if you’re not like me and don’t know what you don’t want to do after your first semester, there’s still tons of time, and people who will help you.</p>
<p>6.) I didn’t give two thoughts about it while applying, but now that I think of it the college at Penn’s core is really good. It’s not too rigid like Columbia or Chicago, but its not non-existent like Brown or Vassar. It’s so flexible, and I find you can do a lot of things that overlap with the core and your major.</p>
<p>7.) A lot of the students I met are really down to earth, and its surprising to find out that they were valedictorian, or something like that. While it may not seem too fair to take lower stats people over higher stats people, there really is a good mix of personalities and backgrounds here that you might not get if you just took all the high stats.</p>
<p>8.) It may be easy for me to say, but I think the whole what undergrad college you went to thing is overrated. College is college, and grad school is really starting to be what matters. </p>
<p>Anyway, this may just be rambling, but I hope it helps. I guess if you have any questions I could try to help you guys out.</p>