Current Penn Senior answering ANY questions!

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Pennsylvania
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<p>I'm a current senior in Wharton and wanted to answer any questions that incoming students/interested high schoolers have about Penn. I used CC heavily during high school and it was an amazing resource, so I wanted to pay it forward a bit so that future students can get some completely uncensored/candid point of view from someone who's been here for 4 years. Just for the sake of full disclosure, I am moving to San Francisco this summer to start my career in the consulting industry. I can answer questions about jobs/classes/student life/dorms/whatever.</p>

<p>So ask away...</p>

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<p>How was it for you to adjust to the college life? How did you keep yourself organized for the first year?</p>

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<p>how often do you, being a Wharton student, actually pull all-nighters? Is it as bad as everyone makes it out to be? I won’t be scared off by it, I just want to know what I am getting myself into. How much free time did you have over the last four years?</p>

<p>and how much money per week would an average freshman spend. I need to convince my parents to send me money, but I have no clue as to how much…</p>

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<p>Thanks! How does Penn calculate GPA? Do they include electives? Do they include freshman year?</p>

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<p>I think that, while an individual class in college is more work than an individual class in high school, the fact that you’re only taking 4-5 classes per semester and that you have SO MUCH free time makes the courses pretty manageable.
things may seem overwhelming once midterms come around, but if you have decent time management skills, you should be fine. one suggestions is to definitely take advantage of free tutoring even if you feel you have a solid grasp of the class. it’s amazing how quickly thursday becomes sunday (and you realize you’ve done no work the past 4 days). signing up for tutoring at [Tutoring</a> Center](<a href=“Tutoring – Weingarten Center”>Tutoring – Weingarten Center) is an awesome idea. not only will it force you to keep up to date with work, but it’s also a great way to force yourself to study a few hours per week. </p>

<p>as for extracurriculars, definitely sign up for as many mailing lists as possible during the activity fair at NSO. you can quickly figure out which are appealing based on the event invites you get. try to sign up for a committee/board position 2nd semester freshman year. this will not only look great on your resume but will also be good interview prep for internships, etc. that occur sophomore-senior year. </p>

<p>here’s the big study tip: do work DURING THE DAY. most people will be at class and you’ll probably have a few hours during the morning/afternoon to do work without being distracted. you will probably not be able to get much done at night during the first few months, mainly because you’ll want to hang out with hallmates, which is fine. just budget time well.</p>

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<p>radco- don’t worry. the absurdness of wharton is over-exaggerated to extreme proportions. I have literally had ONE all-nighter during 4 years at wharton. you’ll never have to pull an all-nighter for individual assignments. the only time you may need to is if you have a group presentation/project the next day and your teammates haven’t wanted to spread the project out over a few weeks (please do this- it makes things so much more pleasant). this will most likely happen only with upper level finance classes and a few management courses. don’t worry- you have plenty of free time in wharton. i think i have more free time than my college/engineering friends (especially since, after freshman year, you’ll never have friday classes). </p>

<p>as for money, you’ll be on a meal plan but if you want to get food truck food a few times a week and then have leftover cash for entertainment/etc. I’d say that $80 a week should be plenty (you could get by on 30-40 easily). also, BURSR (using PennCard) works at the bookstore and many oncampus food locations- it goes directly to your student bill and is AMAZING.</p>

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<p>liv4physicz- yeah, GPA includes every class you take at penn, including electives and freshman year courses. all classes are equally weighted to my knowledge.</p>

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<p>What about HS GPA (as in, what Penn adcoms consider to be your GPA)?</p>

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<p>what kind of extracurriculars do you do there, as well as clubs sports? whats a good amount to have while balancing your life/school work?</p>

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<p>Hi you wonderfully nice person you ^^</p>

<p>Which is better for a quiet nerd: KC English, Stouffer Mayer or Gregory? </p>

<p>How are the communal bathrooms? (They sound scary)</p>

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<p>Doing work during the day is great advice, especially if your naturally an early riser (like me). I personally find that it’s just much easier to focus and get things done when you’re well rested. I’m a freshman and I know many people who pull all nighters, but I really question how effective this method actually is. The people who do this seem to be a lot more stressed than they should be and I don’t think it’s very healthy. Also, I tend to notice that people who tend to procrastinate and pull all nighters seem to play up the amount of work they really have to do. If you write down all of the things you have to do on paper, it really tends to look less daunting than you initially thought. This semester I am taking two science classes (one which has the reputation of being one of the most difficult at Penn), math, and two heavy reading classes, and I find that I have enough time to get things done while still being able to hang out with friends and pursue extracurriculars. The only thing different about me is that I tend not to procrastinate, and when I do, I will become very stressed and quickly catch up.
The important thing is to start your work when it is assigned. While this may not seem necessary, it will leave you less stressed and with more free time in the long run.</p>

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<p>Hey, do you know any people pursuing uncoordinated dual degrees between Wharton and SEAS, do they work all the time, or do they also have “free time”. Also that is pretty sweet that we have no classes on fridays, is there any reason for that.</p>

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<p>liv4: are you talking about applying to Penn? In that case, then they just use your normal hs gpa i think. if you’re asking whether you hs gpa impacts your college gpa, the answer is no (for example, ap credit does not carry thru to gpa). if i’m not answering your question, let me know.</p>

<p>collegedude: I joined the board of the Consulting Club 2nd semester freshman year and stayed on that til last semester. I also became president of the Media & Entertainment club 2nd semester freshman year (that’s more uncommon- I only got that because the club was falling apart and i volunteered to take over). Then I pledged Alpha Phi Omega, which is a co-ed service fraternity, 2nd semester sophomore year. those three things definitely took up enough time that adding more activities was unnecessary. for your resume, employers MUCH prefer you have 2-3 things that you are very active in rather than 10 things that you just list yourself as a Member of. not sure as much about sports- i never did any, but i have friends who did club/intramurals and had a great time with that. so to answer your q: 2-4 very active activities works for most people (less if you have a job while at school)</p>

<p>blueee: I lived in KCECH!! it was awesome. for quiet nerd, I’d stay Stouffer but I never spent much time there or in Gregory. I can say that KCECH is much less crazy than the quad and it is very easy to find a nice quiet study spot nearby. Stouffer is a bit less community-based from what i could tell, so if that’s your scene, then go for it. As for the bathrooms, I never had any bad experiences. ours, at least, were single sex, so the only awkward thing was walking through the common room in a towel to take a shower at night when it was packed haha.</p>

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<p>WikiMan: by uncoordinated, do you mean not M&T? I don’t know anyone doing that, but M&T people have a ton of work but are also geniuses so they can handle it. they also tend to party harder than other people i know because i guess they need to unwind after insane weeks of work. the reason for no classes friday is that most upper level wharton classes are just twice a week, either tues/thurs or mon/wed and don’t have recitations. only the early classes (bpub, econ, mgmt100) have recitations, most of which are friday. you will, however, have recitations in a bunch of college classes after freshman year (however, usually they also have thursday recitations available- just grab those quick cause they fill up fast).</p>

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<p>Thanks whartonite11!!! <em>hugs</em> :D</p>

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<p>whartonite: I’ve heard a lot of schools like take out electives when considering high school GPA like when you apply there for undergrad and they assess your application (and no, I’m not asking if high school GPA impacts college GPA, haha). by the way, thanks so much! :)</p>

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<p>Did you find it difficult to get good internships over the course of your four years? And also, if you don’t mind, would you be able to describe roughly the process you took in terms of getting your consulting job?</p>

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<p>liv4: I’m pretty sure the just take your GPA as is. It’s too much work for them to figure out what your gpa would be without electives (and how would they know what counts as “electives” for each high school in the us). So yeah, pretty sure the just use the gpa you give them.</p>

<p>msyed2: oh man, the job process. let me start by saying that the NUMBER ONE benefit of going to penn/wharton is the job recruitment process (known as OCR, or On Campus Recruiting). at the same time, it’s a miserable/grueling process that will suck your soul out for about 3-7 weeks. i’ll split it into internships vs full-time…</p>

<p>internships: employers start coming to campus in january (sometimes, big banks will actually recruit in the fall, but this is rare). you basically spend an entire week going to dozens of information sessions for whatever firms seem interesting to you. the next few weeks, you use penn’s online job application website, PennLink, to submit resumes/cover letters that automatically get sent to employers. this system is AMAZING because you basically just upload a single resume which makes it so easy to apply to jobs. while cover letters should be customized for each firm, this system makes the application process SO much more efficient. so after applying, you wait a few weeks and hear back about which firms gave you interviews. interviews take place in a single on-campus building over the course of 2-3 weeks. After that, if you get 2nd rounds, those take place off campus (usually nyc). if you are a sophomore, some companies still offer internships, but most banks/consulting firms only recruit juniors. however, there are tons of internships in other industries for sophomores/freshmen. I worked at Sony Music in the Finance dept and it was an awesome experience (I did that on my own, not through Penn). most kids have internships by mid-march.</p>

<p>for full-time, the process is similar but starts the first week of September your senior year. for me, I applied to a ton of positions, got a moderate amount of interviews, a smaller amount of second rounds, and then finally a few offers. My 2nd and 3rd rounds for my future employer were off campus (2nd round in downtown philly, 3rd round in dc). </p>

<p>just know that if you go to penn, you will be taken care of and given opportunities that other schools just don’t have. if i had to guess, i’d say that penn is the best school in the country/world in terms of diversity/number of employers recruiting on campus. if you want a job, you can get one. you may, however, have to settle for an internship that isn’t your top choice for an internship.</p>

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<p>yay!!!</p>

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<p>Thanks a bunch, that really helped a lot! I’ll definitely keep all that in mind</p>