UPenn I can!

A little side note guys, if you decide to do this program you're not going to get any sleep for the first week of yours.on a note positive note we went to visit the University of Pennsylvania yay! We flew to Philadelphia from Boston today and we are planning on staying here for two days at the Sheraton hotel. The hotel is very nice and the rooms are very spacy. As usual we went to the information session and then the campus tour and we were very fortunate to have dinner with the admissions officers.

One thing that was different about UPenn was the amount of community service they offer. One of their main goals as stated in the pamphlet was for students to use their knowledge for "public service." I really enjoyed that so much and to make it even better, they have a whole major on Urban Studies which is just analyzing communities and ways to help them. That really caught my attention even more because looking into this information session I talked to the UPenn representative beforehand when she was at the Oakland Marriott giving her speal. At that moment I noticed that everyone at UPenn were persuasive in their own way. 

 

Josh and I

In any case I was on a mission to try to dig deep and really see what these people were about. We went to Bistro Romano to have dinner with the admission officer of the bay area and the admission officer of the Rocky mountains. Joining us were two rising seniors of which one coincidentally led our tour. I sat next to the other student named Josh. He was very nice and easy going. I have to say he's the only one who was able to tell me the good and the bad about UPenn. He was humble though to say that he thinks he's extremely lucky to be there and that maybe the admissions officers made a mistake accepting him. I laughed at his modesty and thought the complete opposite because his character really blossomed when he talked. He talked to us very casually and set the tone on basically how the dinner conversation was going to go. I really appreciated his honesty and passion for explaining UPenn to the best of his ablilities. He wanted to be as helpful as possible and I thought he definitely made an impact. From reading the Fiske guide about UPenn and then listening to him, I come to the conclusion that the college students there must have very similar characteristics to Josh and that I really liked that.

I asked the admission officer if she thought a kid was more likely to get in if he had a passion for the popular major at the school, or a kid with an intellectual curiosity. She told me that about 60% of the kids that compete for the liberal arts college get accepted while only 40% of the ones that want the most popular college get accepted. She was also the one that presented at my school and who I remembered sparked my interest. She told me about the Academically Based Community Service Courses that is really hard to explain right now but is really awesome. In all entirety I like UPenn I want to apply there because it has a direction for me in community service.

Alex my admissions office I'm going to win over.