You should be prouder, UPenn is one of the best state schools in the country!

By what measure which we can trust?

It's an Ivy jab. UPenn is a private institution, hence the joke. The lore is that UPenn students are offended when people refer to their alma mater as Penn State, which is a state-funded institution.

Edit: I have no affiliation with either institution and think it's all irrelevant, other than from a cultural awareness perspective.

Once you actually study at multiple universities in these rankings you realize what a joke it is. I can't believe Penn is ranked so highly, outside of Wharton. I was recently there for CS coming from a UK top 5 in CS and Penn CIS was a joke. Also, Oxford > Cambridge for CS? Wat. When you get to about the top 50 universities, it becomes so specific to the strengths of the particular department that these universities really can't be ranked in a single field.

Oh whoops totally missed the state school phrase! (and I know the joke too!)

(imo Penn State is a fine - as in very good - engineering school)

RIP JoePa.

People who don't care about rankings don't usually go to the trouble of distinguishing Wharton from Penn (i.e. "Penn wasn't the highest ranked school I got into.") /light hearted jab