I’m currently a junior in high school and it’s almost February now so I’m beginning to look at programs to take part in during the summer. For a little bit now I’ve been interested in business and last year I went to Ireland on a (paid) program to study it a little bit more and liked it and this year I even started my own informal business club at school. Penn’s my dream school and this would seem like I’m setting up my ECs to apply to Wharton but in actuality I think I’m going to apply to CAS just because of the fact that I’m not absolutely married to business being my future as I’m still interested in a lot of other stuff such as philosophy, film, architecture - CAS type things. Also my GPAs is pretty low (around a 3.6) and this seems like it’d be an automatic rejection from Wharton (not saying that it’s not the same for CAS but I’m an URM, applying ED, yadda yaadda - better chances). So my question becomes, predicting my rejection from TASP, if I applied to (and got in) to Penn/Wharton’s LEAD program - another business EC - would my application to CAS throw the admissions off and not want me there considering they have an actual business undergrad school. I hope this makes sense. Thanks in advance!
@bweebler No business ECs will not be viewed negatively by admissions. There are many people with business ECs and interested in business applying to CAS. Also many CAS kids end up getting top business jobs after graduation.
Yeah with your GPA applying ED is your best (only) chance really.
Business ECs would not be a problem in an application to the College at all. As Penn95 said, the College attracts a lot of students who are interested in business (or, students like me, who find their interest in business/finance after majoring in the humanities) and who go on to really wonderful careers in business.
Lest we forget that Steve Wynn, Tory Burch, Elon Musk, and many other successful business persons all have degrees from the College-- Penn is just generally a breeding ground for entrepreneurial minded individuals, no matter which specific school within Penn they attend. And with the new Pennovation Center, Penn’s undergrad schools are all likely to see an even greater influx of business minded entrepreneurs.
That being said, if your GPA is too low for Wharton, It’s also too low for Penn’s other undergrad schools. The difference in acceptance rate between Wharton and the College is probably about the same as the difference between Stanford’s and Princeton’s, which is to say: negligible. And there is likely no statistical difference in terms of the quality of student accepted into either program. But, yes, applying early is definitely your best bet for either Wharton or the College.