Penn Graduate Program Exchange Study

[JennyFieldsOriginal]

I've been on the UPenn website for the English lit PhD program and I've noticed that they have a program where you can take classes and even go to other universities to study for a semester or a year. I looked at their recent dissertations as well and noticed that they've been advised by people at Harvard, UCLA, and Rutgers, and not just Penn faculty.

I think this is awesome and really exciting and is majorly enticing me to apply to Penn.

I'm just wondering if this is extraordinarily unusual, because I'm looking at other programs and I see nothing like this (even in the programs that participate in the exchange with Penn).

I'm delighted simply because I have a very specific research interest in common with a professor at a university near Penn, as well as overlapping interests with Penn faculty.

Basically, this appears to be a gift from heaven and I'm wondering if anybody around here knows about this/is aware of some kind of catch.