University of Pennsylvania — Attraction in Philadelphia

Excellent college campus. The University of Pennsylvania, often abbreviated simply as Penn or UPenn, is a private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia. It was one of nine colonial colleges chartered prior to the U.S. Declaration of Independence when Benjamin Franklin, the university's founder and first president, advocated for an educational institution that trained leaders in academia, commerce, and public service. Penn identifies as the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, though this representation is challenged by other universities. Benjamin Franklin and other Philadelphians established the university in 1749, which would make it the fifth-oldest institution of higher education.

The university has four undergraduate schools and 12 graduate and professional schools. Schools enrolling undergraduates include the College of Arts and Sciences, the School of Engineering and Applied Science, the Wharton School, and the School of Nursing. Among its highly ranked graduate schools are its law school, whose first professor James Wilson participated in writing the first draft of the U.S. Constitution, its medical school, the first in North America, and Wharton, the nation's first collegiate business school. Penn's endowment is US$20.7 billion, making it the sixth-wealthiest private academic institution in the nation as of 2022. In 2020, the university was awarded $1.5 billion in research grants, the fourth-largest of any U.S. university.

The campus, located in the University City neighborhood of West Philadelphia, is centered around College Hall. Notable campus landmarks include Houston Hall, the first modern student union, and Franklin Field, the nation's first dual-level college football stadium and oldest NCAA Division I college football stadium in continuous operation. Penn also is the home of Morris Arboretum, the official arboretum of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, which is located 15 miles northwest of the campus in the Chestnut Hill section of Philadelphia. The university's athletics program, the Penn Quakers, fields varsity teams in 33 sports as a member of NCAA Division I's Ivy League conference.

Since its founding, Penn alumni, trustees, and faculty have included eight signers of the Declaration of Independence, seven signers of the U.S. Constitution, two Presidents of the United States, three U.S. Supreme Court justices, 32 U.S. senators, 163 members of the U.S. House of Representatives, 12 U.S. Cabinet Secretaries, 46 governors, 27 State Supreme Court justices, and nine foreign heads of state. Alumni and faculty include 36 Nobel laureates. Penn has graduated 24 Rhodes Scholars and 21 Marshall Scholars. Penn alumni have won at least 28 Tony Awards, 16 Grammy Awards, 11 Emmy Awards, and four Academy Awards, and include one of only 18 people who have earned all four awards, known as an EGOT. Penn has the largest number of alumni on the Forbes 400 list of the wealthiest Americans out of all colleges and has the greatest number of undergraduate billionaire alumni of all colleges, with 64 living billionaires, 28 of whom are alumni of Penn's undergraduate schools. Penn alumni have won 81 Olympic medals, including 26 gold medals. Two Penn alumni have been NASA astronauts and five have been awarded the...

The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a private Ivy League research university located in the University Citysection of West Philadelphia. Incorporated as The Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania, Penn is one of 14 founding members of the Association of American Universities and one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Benjamin Franklin, Penn's founder, advocated an educational program that focused as much on practical education for commerce and public service as on the classics and theology, though his proposed curriculum was never adopted. The university coat of arms features a dolphin on the red chief, adopted directly from the Franklin family's own coat of arms. Penn was one of the first academic institutions to follow a multidisciplinarymodel pioneered by several European universities, concentrating multiple "faculties" (e.g., theology, classics, medicine) into one institution.It was also home to many other educational innovations. The first school of medicine in North America (Perelman School of Medicine, 1765), the first collegiate business school (Wharton School, 1881) and the first "student union" building and organization (Houston Hall, 1896) were founded at Penn. With an endowment of $12.21 billion (2017), Penn had the seventh largest endowment of all colleges in the United States. All of Penn's schools exhibit very high research activity. In fiscal year 2015, Penn's academic research budget was $851 million, involving more than 4,300 faculty, 1,100 postdoctoral fellows and 5,500 support...

Dropped by during a recent trip to Philly. This is the least visitor-friendly of all the Ivy League schools I've visited so far. There is no Visitor Center and visitor resources on their website are hard to find and poorly organized. The most useful self-guided tour map does not even show up on online search results. You can find it on their Admissions website - click "Visit" on the main page and in the next page, scroll to the bottom of the page to find the "Self-guided Walking Tour" link.

As for the walking tour - I started at College Hall, a strikingly beautiful Gothic-style building with a green facade. This was easily the highlight of my visit. Next stop was the Quad, which is off-limits to non-residents so I only photographed it from the outside. Locust Walk was next, passing by the prestigious but plain-looking Wharton Business School building, some neat public art, and the Amazon Store before walking back to College Hall. Ended the trip at the University Book Store to check out the merch. From there, it was a 2-minute walk to the subway station at Sansom/36th for the trolley ride to downtown Philly. Two hours total.

The Penn Museum would have been a nice stop but after two exhaustive days at the Philly Art Museum and the Barnes, I was done staring at art pieces....