Last week, it was announced that Penn ranked fourth in U.S. News and World Report's list of top colleges.
And the accolades keep rolling in.
According to an article in the October issue of Seventeen magazine, Penn is the sixth coolest college.
Based on categories such as academics, "cool stuff" -- including boy-to-girl ratio, nearby shopping and co-educational dormitories -- "dull stuff" and "freedom," a pair of college admissions consultants came up with this list of estrogen-friendly campuses.
Rice University topped the list,with Penn's Ivy League rival Yale University taking second place.
Brown University was the only Ivy not to make the top 50, while Cornell University snuck into the very last spot.
"We wanted academics to have the most weight, but we wanted to distinguish the list in two ways," said David Thomas of EssaySolutions, the college application consulting firm that prepared the report. "We wanted to slant it toward the interest of girls, as opposed to all students, and we wanted to give a significant amount of weight to issues that most listings do not consider, from how good is the [shopping] strip next to campus to how are the on-campus events and the freedom for girls to make their own choices."
Calling Penn the "Greek Ivy," the magazine hailed Penn's vivacious social events, its proximity to clubs in Center City and its 52:48 "boy-to-girl" ratio.
And Penn students seem to concur that the University is a cool place to spend their undergraduate years.
"It's a bunch of smart kids who have a life," College junior Deva Sharma said. "There's so much going on at once -- it's bustling with activity. This place is alive every minute."
While the information about academics, value and security came from books published by companies such as Princeton Review and Kaplan, Seventeen's "411" on Penn's social life and female-oriented features came from interviews with five female students.
"We asked about dorm rooms, about dorm freedom, if you need an escort," Thomas said. "We also asked about dry campuses. We asked about boys. We asked about fashion. Do you need a car? Is there a campus escort service?
"The women we spoke to were very happy at Penn," he continued. "It got great reviews.... For Penn, what really made the difference was it scored toward the very very top of the cool stuff."
And despite the University's city-based locale, Thomas said it was the local scene that helped Penn make the grade.
"One thing was that everybody said that the on-campus events at Penn were really great," he said. "If you don't have a car, if you don't like to drink or you just don't want to go off campus, there's a lot of other things to do on campus."
The report also suggested that Penn students may stay on campus for the "great" events because they feel uncomfortable in West Philadelphia.
"Penn is smack in the middle of one of Philly's worst nabes," the report said.
Some students said that this might cloud prospective students' opinions of Penn.
"That would deter a lot of people from coming here, if a national magazine says it's in a bad neighborhood," College freshman Mindy Figures said. "If you actually come visit, you would probably disagree with that."
Though some students said they did not agree with the criteria used in the report, many said that Penn is an especially appropriate school to be lauded by a magazine with mostly female teenage readers.
"I would define cool as more that you have a lot to offer students, especially women," College junior Nikita Shrimanker said. "I think Penn has a lot of resources for women of all backgrounds, ethnicities and faiths and I don't necessarily believe that a boy-to-girl ratio should be a criteria for a school to be considered cool."
Other students said that they thought important parts about Penn had been left out of the report.
"I think another thing that's cool about Penn is that is has one of the highest percentages of international students across the nation," College senior Jay Wang said. "They definitely missed out on that. That brings a lot of different ideas to campus."
And, much like with the U.S. News rankings, the Seventeen rankings have been met with some who question their validity.
"I think it's just a title, not an award," Shrimanker said.
