<p>"I know Penn students do not want to go to CalTech, Harvard, Yale, MIT, Stanford, Chicago, Berkeley, Princeton or Columbia. "</p>
<p>Yeah, rite. -_-</p>
<p>“I recognize, of course, the poster is from a culture where everyone is supposed to march in lockstep towards The Very Best Or Else.”</p>
<p>Am I being too sensitive or is this statement borderline racist???</p>
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</p>
<p>It is the latter, degenerated from a relatively civil discussion into personal insults. A lowest and easiest form of argumentation is to attack your opponent’s culture, race, gender, and other irrelevant characteristics instead of the matter under discussion. </p>
<p>Having said that however, I think the OP needs to stop putting a fine institution down because certain carefully-chosen statistics do not support a #4 ranking. It is still a U.S. top 15 (at worst) world-class research university.</p>
<p>I presume the culture referred to was the culture of the “top school” that Y7 attends, where they all feel they are “better” than Penn due to certain metrics which formed the sole basis of their college matricuation decision, and they are now none too pleased to see US News print something contrary to the world view that their carefully-nourished egos demand to see. After all, their perceived relative ranking, status and prestige is integral to who they are, as individuals.
They feel they are being wronged by a suggestion that mere Penn students now may have equal or higher claim to their all-important, and richly-deserved, prestige.</p>
<p>From postings on CC I can think of at least one school which would almost certainly produce a Y7, but I’d rather not say. I would not be at all surprised if he/she goes there though.</p>
<p>This would be not racist, rather “schoolist”.</p>
<p>Oh come on now monydad, that’s too enticing without divulging. What school do you think produces Y7?</p>
<p>I think he’s a double, personally. Probably has at least one other username on here.</p>
<p>
I think I can guess which school you’re insinuating, and I disagree. Penn has ranked at or above the level of that university since 1999, so it would hardly be a new surprise. </p>
<p>
A middle school?</p>
<p>
GASP. Lee Stetson, is that you?! :eek:</p>
<p>IB06 I just looked at those old rankings and you’re right, it is not the school I had in mind. </p>
<p>Y7 used the 2007 rankings in his college search , attends a school that was ranked higher than #7 then and lower than #4 now.</p>
<p>Given the title of this thread, Y7 could attend Cal Tech.</p>
<p>That would make sense.</p>
<p>I wonder if we’ll next see a thread, “Why Can’t Cal Tech…”</p>
<p>
Well, more than half of my friends want to go to professional school, so they would never apply to Caltech or Princeton. Harvard is the gold standard, and as you saw Penn placed many students into Harvard law. For the rest, Penn’s professional schools, on average, are about as good as the others, so it wouldn’t be losing out on prestige if Penn students stayed at Penn for professional school. In fact, most of the colleges listed have large numbers of their own undergrads attending their professional schools. I have met two students my year who are probably going to go on to graduate school for physics. They’re both really bright, so given that they came to Penn for undergrad, they’ll probably lean more towards an east coast urban school for graduate school over Caltech, even if it is ranked slightly bellow. Remember, for a PhD you have to live there for 6 years, so you might want to go on a bit more than a few ranking spots.</p>
<p>I’m pretty sure Y7 doesn’t attend Caltech because those students have too much work to care about a petty US News ranking. The kids I know there are also way too nice to go this far out of their way to bash Penn.</p>
<p>Based on his posts, I would guess that Y7 attends the University of Chicago. If so, he is pretty much the opposite of the Chicago kids I know, who are generally smart, confident and mature, and would not be found posting such silly things on a public forum.</p>
<p>^UChicago kids I know could care less about US News rankings except for the fact that they have just recently gained the recognition they deserve as a top 10 school.</p>
<p>I guessed he attended Chicago, too. Shame, really. Hope I’m wrong.</p>
<p>Well, working with my theory, it’s either Stanford, Cal Tech, MIT, who are now merely “equal”
or the ones just below in 2007, that maybe thought they should be overtaking it but aren’t: Duke, Dartmouth, Columbia, Chicago</p>
<p>Or a dark horse.</p>
<p>Should somebody start a pool?</p>
<p>Heh, Venkat again showing how much more pre-professional Penn is :D. Where’s ilovebagels to argue with me about it?</p>
<p>(Just counted in my brain, of the 20 people I’m closest with at Brown only 3 went to professional schools, whereas 4 are in PhD programs and 4 are in master’s programs).</p>
<p>I think we should start a pool. I’d put at least some of my money on CalTech, but I could see him being at some of the others listed.</p>
<p>Personally, I’d have to say Duke or Columbia. </p>
<p>Modest, what’s so wrong about Penn having a more preprofessional leaning student body? There is still a level of intellectualism and some students still go on to graduate school.</p>
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</p>
<p>The whole premise of the question is that Caltech physics is important. It’s really not of much interest or importance to anyone other than, well, people who are interested in physics. Sorry!</p>
<p>It’s about as irrelevant as asking why Caltech doesn’t place any students into Harvard’s divinity school.</p>
<p>Nothing wrong with it at all, Venkat. I just take glee in the fact that there are finally Penn posters on this board who admit to the difference in culture. When I moved over to this more general board and would make statements (that I have substantiated with 20 or so friends at Penn) about the way Penn is generally far more pre-professional that Brown and a few others, I found myself confronted with Penn graduates who would try and claim that pre-professional was not a prevailing part of Penn culture.</p>
<p>^Fair enough. Part of the anti preprofessional claims are so vast generalizations aren’t made about Penn. While it’s more preprofessional than Brown, there are also 10,000 undergrads so you’ll be able to find plenty who are looking to go to graduate school.</p>
<p>Maybe Y7 is a Penn grad. Y’all defended Penn for no reason.
Kinda like a starlet posts something nasty about herself and baits sympathy. </p>
<p>Scheming school produces scheming students. Just saying.</p>