Penn not included in Princeton Review 'dream schools' | Interactive feature

Despite receiving almost 23,000 applications and attracting students from all around the world, Penn is still not a "dream school" - at least according to The Princeton Review.

Although Penn did not make the company's "Dream Colleges" list from its "Colleges Hopes and Worries Survey," administrators and college consultants say the rankings will not affect Penn's reputation.

Dean of Admissions Eric Furda conceded that "of course we want to be on this list and lists like these," but noted that ranking is not everything.

"Ultimately, a dream school is whatever school suits the student best," he said. "We want to communicate to the students we've accepted that we're the school for them, and I don't think this list is going to affect their decision."

He noted that making a list such as this one is often about more than just name recognition - in this case, Furda said he thinks location played a key role.

"Schools like Stanford, NYU and Columbia are known for their location as much as their school. We need to fight hard to let people know that Philadelphia is a great place as well," he said, pointing out that Dartmouth College - an Ivy in a more rural area - did not make the list either.

College consultants agree that being left off of a dream schools list is unlikely to damage Penn's reputation.

Jeffrey Durso-Finley, director of college counseling at the Lawrenceville School, wrote in an e-mail that he considers these rankings "useless."

In fact, "they say more about population density (see: the California schools) and past reputation (there are schools on the list which have lousy undergraduate educations) versus institutional quality," he wrote.

Michael Chimes, director of college guidance at the Gill St. Bernard's School in New Jersey, made a similar assessment, calling the list "not especially important."

He considered it "quite odd for a university to aspire to be on the list" because the ranking could come from any number of different factors - anything from reputation to athletic prowess.

"What really matters," said Chimes, "is each individual's college hopes, not a generic list that reflects the impressions of thousands of people."

Both agreed with Furda's statement that this particular Princeton Review survey is unlikely to affect where students choose to go to school.

As Durso-Finley pointed out, lists "do not play a role in student-matriculation patterns or institutional recruitment and do not come up in conversation in any normal counseling relationship."

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