Penn is not a 'dream school,' says Princeton Review survey

Last fall, high-school senior Christine Li, of George Walton High School in Marietta, Ga., applied early action to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. When she was deferred and later rejected, she turned her attention to Penn.

And after Shams Ahmed, a senior at Cherry Hill High School East in Cherry Hill, N.J., was rejected from New York University's Stern Business School, he began considering the other schools on his list - including Penn.

Although both Li and Ahmed applied to Penn, it was neither student's first choice.

Penn did not make the list of the top-10 "dream" schools for either students or parents in last week's "College Hopes and Worries" 2008 survey published by The Princeton Review, though Interim Dean of Admissions Eric Kaplan expressed confidence in Penn's appeal to students.

"People who apply early to Penn consider this their dream school," he said, pointing to the statistic that 48 percent of the class of 2012 was accepted early decision.

Of the 8,776 high-school students applying to college who were polled, 50 percent were looking for the "best overall fit," in their choice, though students also listed academic reputation, affordability and career interests as factors affecting their decision, The Princeton Review's Web site reports. The results for how parents would choose schools for their students were similar.

But college admissions consultant Michele Hernandez said she does not think this survey provides an accurate representation of Penn's popularity with students.

Students who responded to this survey are not those that visited the schools, but were "just naming name brands," and "won't even qualify to get into many of these schools," she said.

College admissions consultant Steven Goodman said that the two members of the Ivy League not on students' top-10 list - Dartmouth and Penn - are "the two schools that don't roll off the tongue."

But The Princeton Review editor Robert Franek said he thinks Penn, like the rest of the Ivy League, is a "brand-name" school.

He also disputed the idea that the survey did not provide an accurate representation of students' opinions of Penn. He said the "qualitative survey" was completed by a "self-selecting pool."

Franek pointed out that both students' and parents' biggest fear is that students will be admitted to one of their top-choice schools and not be able to afford to attend. As a result, he thinks that financial aid will continue to be a "hot-button" issue that affects schools' popularity in coming years.

Although Kaplan said he thinks Penn's new financial aid program will make Penn more desirable, he said he does not believe it will have any effect on surveys like the one the Princeton Review conducted.

Still, Goodman explained that Penn is not going to satisfy everyone. He described Penn as both an "elite" and a "niche" school.

"Penn is not Penn State. Penn is not Ohio State," he said. "It never has been, never will be."

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