Why is Penn so staggeringly bad at marketing itself to applicants?

Poeme
Thu, 12 May 2011 08:47:30 +0000

Well that’s exactly the problem with your mentality. You expect things to be handed to you after doing minimal work. You want to go to Princeton because you think it will be that much less work to get a “good job”. If that’s your sole way of thinking about things, you will not have a good experience at college. I’m sure people at Princeton and Stanford get quite sick of these personalities given their great intellectual environments. College is about broadening your mind. Thinking about a career is good in the way that your career will be a way to apply your interests in the future.

I also think the differences you are describing are incredibly exaggerated. I have a hard time believing someone wouldn’t have many opportunities graduating out of Cornell if they excelled and contributed to the school. I mean it’s Cornell and top 20 or so schools we’re talking about, not average places. I have heard nothing but good things about jobs and graduate schools from Penn students. Just based on people I have randomly met, one went on to UChicago law, another chose between NYU and Columbia Law, people have chosen between schools like Harvard, Stanford, and MIT for phDs.
One of my relatives didn’t go to an ivy league college (went to another good school) but graduated from HBS and worked for a former top five investment. Quit though because he hated it.