<p>Hi guys, I just wanted to ask you guys if I should even bother applying to UPenn's Jerome Fisher program if I am not ranked in the top 10% of my class? I am in the top 20%. Do you know anyone who go into Jerome Fisher without a top 10% rank at the very least?</p>
<p>just apply - if it's your first choice go for ED!</p>
<p>of course the higher the rank the better the chances, but rank is not everything.
you never know, just apply and give your best (especially on the essays).</p>
<p>As of now, my college list consists of MIT EA, CalTech EA, UMich, UIUC, Purdue (Safety), and UPenn M&T ED / Cornell ED. </p>
<p>I would like to do engineering for undergrad, and eventually get an MBA and go work in either i-Banking or Management Consulting. My parents would prefer me to get to a school with a top engineering program such as the ones listed above, so how do you think the computer engineering program at Penn compares to other top engineering schools?</p>
<p>^^ I heard that it is worthless to get a MBA if you are in Jerome Fisher since you already get that business degree.</p>
<p>first ask your guidance counselor to withold your rank (if it's available at your school). otherwise, just remember that rank is not the only factor in admissions.</p>
<p>here's a thesis that i wrote to a girl who was trying to decide between M&T and stanford after decisions came out. she was worried about the low rank of penn computer engineering in comparison to stanford:</p>
<hr>
<p>I think engineering rankings are pretty useless, so long as the school is acredited by ABET. basically the level/content/depth at all ABET-accreditted schools is the same, meaning you get the same education everywhere. even rutgers mechanical engineering undergrads, when compared to MIT (which is somethin like 60 rank spots) have starting salaries that are only $3000 lower (which isn't that much, because both have the same level of training). rankings suck!</p>
<p>but even still, Penn computer science grads have the same salary as those from MIT. i know for a fact that penn CS people are doin a lot of research on the field of computer science (one prof just won a guggenheim fellowship... wow), so they are def on the top of their field. i dunno if you checked out their new CS building (its this very cool building thats about 5 years old called Levine Hall). basically, the facilities, technology and faculty are the same. what's awesome about penn CS is that there are only 30 people in your major for the class of 11. that means more specialized attention than a place at stanford, which focuses mostly on its graduate students. stanford also churns out many more undergrads per year, so there is less of a chance for you to develop a personal relationship with your professors. i think the undergrad education, especially in CS, would be comparable or even (dare i say it) better than at Stanford. no lies tho, stanford is probably better for grad school.</p>
<p>in terms of options, i think m&t computer science majors fare BETTER than stanford majors. i know when you think CS, chances are you will probably think of Stanford before Penn (even tho people at penn invented ENIAC, the world's first computer :). arguably the most "coveted" and probably the most prestigious job in CS is to become a software engineer at Google. last year, two m&ts got jobs there, compared to four at stanford. it seems like stanford has the edge. however, think about how many computer science majors there are at stanford. 50, 100? so thats like four spots out of 50-100. in m&t, the number of people majorin in computer science on their engineering side may be somethin like 10. so basically, its 10 m&Ts competing for two spots vs. 50-100 CS people at stanford competing for four spots. and thats just computer science, which most people would consider stanford's strong point. even tho stanford is in silicon valley, it can't place as many people into Google as M&T can. another thing to think about is those stanford kids were prob at the top of their class, and wanted to get technical jobs at Google. out of those 10 M&T computer science majors, most probably went to wall street and didn't even bother applyin to google. so even if you are a middle-of-the-pack or even a "laggard" in M&T, you can still get a better job (a job comparable, to say, the very best computer engineers at stanford)</p>
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<p>hope that helps. there are some current students on this forum who may be able to help you out too. but i'd def go for M&T ED</p>
<p>yeah i def agree with sristi... another awesome thing about M&T is that, if you always wanted to get an MBA, now you may not have to! a four year wharton degree will teach you everything that an 2-year MBA degree teaches you, plus two years of whatever else you want to study (in our case, its engineering). you have the professors who teach MBAs, and in upper level courses you will be taking classes with MBAs. an MBA is really 80% for the networking and career advancement, 20% for the actual education. As a wharton undergraduate, you will already have very solid network of classmates/alumni. another point is that something like 30% of wharton grads will actually get an MBA, and most of them get one because they want to switch careers or something (in fact, those who get MBAs have a lower salary in 15 years than those who dont). before i learned about m&t, my option was really engineering-->work experience required for an MBA-->MBA (takes almost a decade). now with M&T, i may not get a grad degree, and i can finish all my education in 4 years. very hot.</p>
<p>Thanks for the input sristi and abhim89!</p>
<p>Yeah, I know ranks are pretty much superficial but my parents don't understand it. We can't withhold ranks at my school but hopefully my extracurriculars, standardized test scores, essay, and recommendations will help me.</p>
<p>one thing i never get about wharton undergraduates is most dont go get MBA</p>
<p>but their salaries are lower than MBAs though. </p>
<p>they say differences between MBA and wharton undergrads are minor...but in the end, ppl who dont get into wharton undergrad but get MBAs have higher salaries. </p>
<p>how does that work out?</p>
<p>abhim's right.</p>
<p>looking at the data, it seems that the differences in salary are negligible; but if you want to be technical, the students who have a terminal bachellor's degree actually make the most money.</p>
<p>Since you're looking into banking / consulting:</p>
<p>MIT, CalTech, and Penn M&T are all heavily recruited for investment banking and IT consulting. Cornell is less heavily recruited, but it's still prestigious.</p>
<p>Hey capnjazz,</p>
<p>I'm Penn M&T Class of 2011, and even though I went to a fairly selective boarding school, I was a bit below 10%. You should give it a try! In fact, junior year I only took one honors and one AP course cuz I screwed up on course sign-ups, but I still had enough academic & extracurricular awards to help me get in (and a much tougher course load senior year). </p>
<p>Btw, it says specifically on the app that many applicants applying early to Penn's joint-degree programs will be deferred anyways, because they want to make sure that they can get the most competitive class possible. This is one of the reasons why I didn't apply early. But it helps to let Penn know that M&T is your first choice, so apply early if you want. Just put the expectation aside in December though.</p>
<p>Regarding the engineering program ranks, it's a mixed answer. I went to an M&T Summer Institute last summer, and the difference in the quality of professors/facilities between Wharton (No.1 business) and Penn Engineering (like No. 30 engineering) was definitely visible. But like abhim89 said, when it comes to salaries after graduation, it just doesnt make that big of a difference. In fact- I read on another CC site that Penn Engineers end up getting comparatively higher salaries than Cornell Engineering grads -- not because of the quality of the engineering school, but because Penn Engineers take interdisciplinary courses from Wharton and therefore understand some of the business disciplines as well. Now think about Penn M&T as opposed to Penn Engineering only...</p>
<p>Like you, I wanted to get a strong degree in engineering, and then go into MBA and investment banking and blah blah blah. The deciding point among Columbia, Penn M&T, and MIT for me was that since there are buttload of ppl pursuing engineering and then MBA, I wanted to separate myself from these majority when it came to job recruitment. So I chose Penn M&T. </p>
<p>Hope this helped. But apply wherever you want, and really, go to the school that will satisfy your needs and not anyone else's. Good luck!</p>
<p>isuzuki, great post! Thanks for the insight. Just a quick question, but what colleges did you apply early to since you applied RD to Penn M&T?</p>
<p>I actually didn't apply early anywhere, mostly because </p>
<ol>
<li><p>my cross country season didnt end until very late in November and I won awards after the November 1st deadline</p></li>
<li><p>I definitely wasn't ready to take the SAT Chem in November...haha</p></li>
</ol>
<p>But really, in retrospect, I think if I had to do it all over again I would have applied early (maybe Princeton), because even if you don't get in ED/EA, you still have a small advantage during RD/RA in letting the school know that it is your first choice. So I think your MIT+ Caltech EA is a pretty good idea. Just send them new test scores and possibly new awards/letters if you get any after November 1st.</p>
<p>I went to M&TSI with Mr. isuzuki last summer and ended up applying to M&T early ... so I guess I'll provide some sense of the "other" perspective.</p>
<p>First off, my school doesn't even rank. I'm pretty sure, though, that even if it were to rank, I wouldn't be wayyy up there... I'm somewhere in the top (a little more than 30) kids out of a class size of (a little less than 300), so I'm probably just above or below 10%, just like Mr. isuzuki. But the point is that my school doesn't even rank and never sent a ranking, so it really doesn't seem to matter all that much.</p>
<p>Secondly, I applied to M&T early and checked the option that says "Please consider me for Wharton only if deferred, but NOT early" -- which means that had I been deferred I would've gotten another shot at M&T in the spring, and then if denied from that, then considered for Wharton only. I didn't have to worry about that because I ended up getting in early, but it seems to me that if you're set on Penn and M&T/Wharton, that'd be a good route to go.</p>
<p>I'll be honest -- I applied to M&T because I was attracted to the business and not so much the engineering. At M&T day, though, it seemed like more kids were more heavily engineering-oriented than business-oriented (and it sounds like you are too?) -- although Dr. Hamilton mentioned that about 60% of kids come in slightly more engineering oriented, but by graduation, it flips to about 60% of kids being more business oriented. </p>
<p>It's too bad that it's too late to apply to M&TSI for this summer, because it really gives you a good perspective on the "idea" of the whole program. It really is an integration/combination of business and engineering (and they repeat the word "innovation" a lot hahah), not just a degree in business and a degree in engineering. Think Microsoft, Sony, Apple, etc. ... technological businesses / innovators blah. That's what the program shoots for in general.</p>
<p>Hope that was useful. I'm never writing this much again.</p>
<p>Hey Pommy</p>
<pre><code>If you remember and don’t mind telling, how were your SATs and SAT2’s for your application. Thanks
</code></pre>