UPenn M&T Vs. Harvard, Stanford, Berkeley?

@mlunghi Depends which other ivies you are comparing it to and also what your intended audience is (i.e. to whom it is well known). To top employers and top grad school programs around the world Penn is very well known and highly regarded. In fact Penn grads have the second highest salaries in the ivy league after Harvard and top employment outcomes, Penn is very heavily targeted by all the top firms, more so than some other ivies.

Now when you are talking about lay recognition, prestige, it depends which ivy you are comparing Penn to. Harvard is obviously the most famous university in the world. Every random person on the street knows what Harvard is and will be impressed. Also Yale and Princeton have more name recognition than Penn by the average person on the street, but of course less than Harvard. But after HYP, Penn has just as good or better name recognition by the lay public as the rest of the ivies.

Specifically the Penn M&T program is extremely prestigious in sophisticated business/tech circles and people routinely turn down even Harvard, Stanford and MIT to attend.

Amongst the ivies, only HYP have need-blind financial aid for internationals because their endowments are much bigger than the rest of the ivies. All the other ivies are need-aware for international students. This means that applying for aid as an international will affect your chances of getting in since they have more limited funds for internationals. Still there are many top international students who get great financial aid awards from Penn and other non-HYP ivies.