<p>I didn’t understand the “chaotic” thing either. I am thoroughly familiar with both campuses, and “chaos” isn’t something I would associate with either, but Penn has a lot more traffic, noise, and extraneous people running around (see below). It’s not safer than Chicago, either, although safety really isn’t a concern either place.</p>
<p>But . . . Cue7: There are three hospitals effectively on the Penn campus (HUP, CHOP, and Presbyterian), two of which are world class, and if you really care (which you shouldn’t) four more within a couple miles of campus and accessible in 15 minutes or less on public transportation (Jefferson, Hahneman, Pennsylvania, Wills Eye). All of them are university-affiliated research institutions; three are part of Penn itself and a fourth might just as well be. There is one (great) hospital on the University of Chicago campus, and maybe there’s one other (non-teaching) within convenient travelling distance. So, yeah, if you want to count hospitals, Penn has a big advantage. I doubt having so many hospitals makes any kind of practical difference to undergraduate pre-meds, so it’s a little silly to focus on it, but that doesn’t mean that the two universities are the same in this respect. (More relevant, perhaps, is that Penn also has, effectively on campus, a major independent cancer research facility and a big commercial research incubator with numerous biotech and other health industry start-ups, so Penn students who want to be involved in research have options other than those provided by Penn faculty.)</p>
<p>Anyone who reads this board regularly knows I am a huge fan of the University of Chicago. There are dozens of reasons to choose Chicago over Penn, even if you are a pre-med, but by and large they relate to things other than pre-med courses and research opportunities. Penn is also a great university, and it has some real strengths in this area.</p>