On my flights home to Georgia, I can’t help but notice my peers clad in Penn blue and red, whether it be a hat, sweater, sweatpants, or a combination of all three.
At first, I was puzzled by this transformation. On campus, Penn merch is almost invisible, reserved for sporadic homecoming enthusiasm or the occasional lazy day. Yet at the Philadelphia International Airport, Penn students wear their school identity like a badge of honor, a not-so-subtle flex aimed at fellow travelers.
Merch, anywhere, is a status symbol. For alumni who are years out of college, a Penn crewneck becomes a proud symbol of their lifetime achievements, a marker of an elite network that they carry into boardrooms and business events.
For Penn students, it’s a bit different. When Penn students don University-branded gear at the airport, they’re making a statement that goes beyond casual wear. It’s like flashing an acceptance letter to the world — a reminder of the 5.8% acceptance rate, a testament to the years of perseverance and ambition it took to make it here.
But once we step onto Locust Walk, the Penn paraphernalia fades into the background. Suddenly, that block-letter sweatshirt or baseball cap doesn’t carry quite the same weight. Here, everyone around you has the same affiliation. To reclaim their prestige, students turn to a different kind of status symbol.
Wearing a quarter-zip from an exclusive consulting club or a T-shirt from a performing arts group is more than just a casual fashion choice, it’s a signal. It’s a way to distinguish yourself in a community already filtered through one of the toughest admissions processes in the world.
Club merch says, “Yes, I’m at Penn, but I’m also part of this group,” an invitation for others to recognize the additional exclusivity, competition, or skill that certain organizations represent. A simple Penn hoodie may assert an Ivy League affiliation, but a club sweatshirt or sorority tee takes that one step further, reflecting a specific identity or achievement within Penn’s elite circle.
But not all signals carry the same weight. Pre-professional club apparel often signifies access to networks and opportunities that directly shape one’s future, aligning the wearer with Penn’s ethos of ambition and achievement. In contrast, merch from hobby-based or creative groups may reflect passion or talent, but without the same connotations of upward mobility or professional clout. It highlights the implicit ranking of clubs where the organizations tied to career advancement are favored over those that prioritize personal interest or cultural expression.
There’s a calculated irony in this shift from general Penn pride to hyper-specific club swag. It’s not enough just to belong — you have to belong better.
At Penn, belonging isn’t the endgame — it’s just the starting point for a new hierarchy of distinctions. There’s an ongoing need to differentiate yourself within the Ivy League fold, and students join clubs, secure roles, and wear their achievements on their chests to make that distinction known. In many ways, these club logos and society tees become a visual resume that speaks louder than the Ivy League branding alone.
Beyond just club merch, many students opt to represent their individual schools within Penn, whether that be the Wharton School, the School of Engineering and Applied Science, the School of Nursing, or the College of Arts and Sciences. Wearing a Wharton crewneck is not only about showing pride in their academic journey but also a way of signaling a specialized path within the University. It’s another layer of identification: a way of communicating the unique value that being affiliated with a specific school brings.
The selective rules we impose about when and where we wear Penn merch reflect a broader lack of unified school spirit. There’s no single sense of belonging to the Penn community that prevails for everyone; instead, our pride is layered, fragmented by the status we attach to our associations and the environments in which we display them. In public spaces like the airport, we wear the logo to stand out and assert our Penn identity in the world. But on campus, surrounded by the Penn community, we turn inward, using club logos to differentiate ourselves yet again, reshaping the elite association into ever finer distinctions.
When our pride in Penn becomes fragmented, we overlook the shared experience that brought us here in the first place. The Penn identity we wear so proudly at the airport should also have a place on Locust Walk — not just as a reminder of what we’ve achieved, but as a way to connect with each other across the silos we so often create.
ANANYA SHAH is a College first year studying philosophy, politics, and economics from Bonaire, Ga. Her email is aoshah@sas.upenn.edu.
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