Eastern Pennsylvania College Road Trip: University of Pennsylvania
Upon founding what would become the University of Pennsylvania, Benjamin Franklin stressed the importance of students learning all that is "most useful and most ornamental." Today, cultivating "Renaissance students" remains a major part of Penn's DNA, says Chicago native and recent communication grad Ernest Owens.
More than 9,000 undergraduates attend the Ivy League university, situated on about 300 acres in the heart of Philadelphia, just west of downtown and the Schuylkill River.
One of the oldest and most selective institutions in the country, Penn accepted around 12 percent of its 31,200-plus applicants for fall 2013; 94 percent of those admitted came from the top 10 percent of their high school classes.
"People are competitive," notes Yadavan Mahendraraj, a spring grad in management and marketing from Allendale, New Jersey, but "it's not cutthroat."
Undergrads can select from 91 different majors -- or create their own -- at the schools of arts and sciences, engineering, nursing and the storied Wharton business school. The 11,000 graduate students can enroll at eight additional schools.
[See the hot majors that help grads get jobs.]
Students often marvel at "how much individual attention you can get at such a large school," says sophomore nursing major Maci McCravy, from Tulsa, Oklahoma. A low 6-to-1 student-faculty ratio helps, as do opportunities like Wharton's Lunch & Learn program, through which the university pays for undergrads to take faculty members out for meals.
The small-school-within-a-large-university feel owes much to the system of College Houses. All freshmen reside in these 11 living-learning communities, along with a number of faculty members (and sometimes their families) and have access to in-house advising and tutoring, house-based social and educational events and research opportunities, as well as more than 40 themed programs focused on music and social change, for instance, or international studies and business.
Over half of undergrads live on campus, which spans about eight blocks and includes several museums and galleries, La Casa Latina and five other cultural resource centers and no shortage of green spaces.
Students can keep busy with more than 400 activities, and about a third join fraternities and sororities. The Netter Center for Community Partnerships coordinates volunteer and civic engagement programs, as well as a range of service-learning courses that, for example, examine urban education in underserved West Philadelphia schools.
[Check out the top National Universities in photos.]
Penn also boasts 11 undergraduate research journals and more than 100 research centers through which student scholars can earn grants for their own projects or join faculty efforts. And at least 4 out of 5 undergrads participate in internships.
"I can barely wrap my head around how there's so much to do," notes senior Jacob Meiner, of New Rochelle, New York, who is studying Near Eastern languages and civilizations and marketing and operations management.
Some undergrads say the university can feel decentralized and that school spirit can be lacking at Quaker athletic events. But Penn pride shows at gatherings like Spring Fling, billed as one of the biggest college festivals on the East Coast, and Hey Day, when juniors don straw hats and red shirts and march around campus with canes to celebrate their soon-to-be seniority.
More from the Eastern Pennsylvania College Road Trip:
Searching for a college? Get our complete rankings of Best Colleges.
