<p>I’m thinking about internally transferring to Wharton but my law school aspirations make me hesitate a bit since I know that law schools weigh the GPAs heavily and I’ve read numerous times on this board that Wharton is not the best place to get a high GPA. Would I be better off in the College?</p>
<p>I know Penn promotes its “One University” policy. Is it common for students to take a class outside of their undergraduate school during their first semester? I am a future CAS student interested in taking a class like CIS 110 within my first year at Penn.</p>
<p>It’s not actually that hard at all to get a good GPA in Wharton. I think the average is something like a 3.3, and if you actually study, it’s really easy to get good grades, as long as you’re actually smart. (Seriously. I feel like everyone who actually studies does well. For me, studying one semester vs. not studying another was the different between a 3.0 and a 4.0). If you can get good enough grades to internally transfer to Wharton (aka 3.75+) then you shouldn’t have trouble getting good grades in Wharton either. I would say many college classes are actually harder than many Wharton classes and require more work. And having compiled a resume book, I can say that I have seen tons of ridiculous GPAs.</p>
<p>Instead of worrying about GPA before you even apply, decide what you want to study. There are many classes in Wharton you are required to take, where you would have a lot more freedom in the college. If you want to take two accounting, two finance, two stat classes, and OPIM, marketing, and management, try for Wharton. If some of those sound not so fun, pick a major in the college that has classes you think you’ll enjoy.</p>
<p>@meh111, yes, students take classes outside of their school all the time. It’s impossible not to, especially if you’re not in CAS (writing requirement, math requirement, etc.) But yes, many CAS students do take compsci, and I know freshmen who did their first semester. However, if you have any programming background (or want to learn a little this summer–it’s not that difficult), I recommend 120 (I think that’s right…?) instead. I’ve heard the teacher for 110 is pretty terrible (unless they’ve changed) and 120, if that number is right, is really great.</p>
<p>Thanks for taking the time to answer questions! For the seniors at Wharton this year, do you know what percent of them have landed a job? Type of job (consulting vs wall street vs other)? Approx starting salary? Is there a distinct advantage either finding a job or getting paid higher for the M&T students over Wharton graduates?</p>
<p>This is great whartonite thanks so much.</p>
<p>Do you think you can speak a little bit about the experience of your CAS friends? I’m an incoming CAS econ major and want to know about the difficulty of getting a job/internship from being in CAS. I am determined to go down the banking/consulting/finance route, but I’m just a little intimidated by the what 500 Wharton students per class.</p>
<p>How feasible would it be for me get an internship during freshman summer? I’m not expecting any huge/prestigious IB gig. Just good decent finance-related experience</p>
<p>Ah, my specialty, CAS and getting jobs!</p>
<p>It is VERY difficult to get an internship during freshman and sophomore summers (though of course not unheard of). It is rare that you will get a paid internship as a freshman or sophomore in the College since big companies are looking for juniors, whose internship will serve as their training for the full time position which is often offered at the conclusion of the internship. That said, it isn’t necessary to have industry experience when applying for your junior internships, since companies recognize the prior fact that it is very difficult to get internships earlier!</p>
<p>When it comes to finance jobs, you need a good GPA to get your foot in the door, be it for internships or for full time jobs. Having a 3.6 or better is when you will start getting interviews for the better firms your junior/senior year during OCR. That said, other factors certainly come into play, so GPA can be ignored if you meet and make a good impression on a recruiter at a career fair or networking event. Once you get your foot in the door, the rest of the process lets you just showcase your best aspects, so you are set.</p>
<p>When it comes to OCR, recognize that you may be top 1% of the United States, but you may still be bottom 50% of Penn (and, of course, you need to be aware that one in two people at Penn are below average!), so competition for interviews is fierce.</p>
<p>The best part about the job hunt at Penn is definitely Career Services. Wharton attracts the big name banks, and as long as you can show a bank you can do the job, they don’t really care whether you actually went to Wharton. I have friends going into banking who were majors in math, physics, economics, political science, philosophy and even foreign languages.</p>
<p>Recruiting for me was very difficult – it consumed almost all of last semester – but even with a 3.1 cumulative GPA, I found a job that I recently started, and it is just awesome! So as long as you are tenacious in your job search, you will be able to find something. No worries, and don’t let Wharton scare you!</p>
<p>So being in the College doesn’t hurt? Your post sort of indicated both…</p>
<p>And what major/minor would you recommend? I’m thinking Econ/math, but also I’m thinking an interschool minor with Wharton would be best? Econ/actuarial mathematics, Econ/consumer psych,etc…</p>
<p>Is there ANYTHING I can do before junior year to improve my chances of landing an internship? Any sort of experience or anything?..I want this so badly. I will join clubs, but are those excessively dominated by Wharton students?</p>
<p>Wow OP, thanks for being so helpful! Here’s one I don’t think anyone has touched on (and I know it’s been asked many times before but…) What do you think is the best meal plan to get? I hear that most people suggest the Liberty Plan (800 Dining $ and 250 meal visits / year). I am tempted to believe them but I’m worried that 800 dining dollars and 250 visits isn’t enough to get through the year. Thoughts? Do people usually end up running out and then just spending regular $ on food carts/restaurants?</p>
<p>How many students do you know that got in through the waitlist? Is it really that improbable or are there any statistics?</p>
<p>What is the best meal plan to get?</p>
<p>lz: M&E kids have a higher avg salary but not significantly higher. as for jobs, i know the job market is much hotter this year than last. check this link and then maybe assume a slightly higher percent of people with jobs this year <a href=“http://www.vpul.upenn.edu/careerservices/undergrad/reports/Class2010CareerPlans.pdf[/url]”>http://www.vpul.upenn.edu/careerservices/undergrad/reports/Class2010CareerPlans.pdf</a> </p>
<p>488140: CAS students do really well with those jobs if they want them. in fact consulting firms sometimes may even prefer a non-business kid. they can train the biz stuff but they love the diversity of various majors. as for a freshman internship in finance, that may be possible on the industry side of things but is very unlikely for IB. unless you do the work yourself and find a small boutique where you live, i’d suggest doing something more management/industry related frosh year. but no, don’t be intimidated by wharton kids. employers love them some diversity!
as for your other question, college will not hurt you at all. if you really want a business background, do an econ major (or really anything) and just take as many wharton electives as possible. wharton kids get preference for finance classes but you can definitely sneak into a bunch. as for what to do, just join a few clubs that you can get very active in (the same as high school- do stuff you’re passionate about and employers will be able to tell). if you’re interested in finance, though, definitely have at least one finance-related club position (VP Finance for any club, which is usually easy since few people want to do that). also, i’d recommend doing something not club-related such as having a small portfolio of stocks you can discuss. employers LOVE when students have some proven success in the past.</p>
<p>itsinreach: the best dining plan is the one with the most dining dollars. not only are the campus restaurants that accept dining dollars better than the dining halls, but also your friends with a crazy number of meals will be more than happy to swipe you in when they realize they have more meals than they can possibly use. i forget the names, but i think i did liberty. you can also use BURSR at most campus restaurants. since you likely wont have a kitchen, youll eat at food carts a lot, which are super cheap. per meal, i think the dining halls are something like $18 as opposed to $5 for food carts.</p>
<p>Tenzan: i don’t know anyone who was on the waitlist/got in. i did hear they were having a smaller waitlist this year though. sorry! just one kid from my high school who was waitlisted and didn’t get it.</p>
<p>collegedude: see my answer to itsinreach</p>
<p>summary of the above questions: being in CAS does NOT hurt you in the least. in fact, most employers like it (except potentially bulge bracket banks, which like you to have proven modeling/valuation knowledge). And for food, get max dining dollars and min meals. you will NOT use all of your meals but you will burn through dining dollars like they’re nadda. also, chrisw’s answer is good.</p>
<p>Hi Whartonite11-</p>
<p>Very kind of you to give back to CC. You mentioned you got a job in San Francisco. Congratulations! Did you want to go to the West Coast? Is there much opportunity to get something in the West vs. the East? How about for summer internships? Thanks!</p>
<p>Do Penn undergrads have a better shot at getting into Penn med school? Is there an ED option for Penn med school (I’m pretty sure Penn med school would be my #1 choice)</p>
<p>Thanks Whartonite11!</p>
<p>Would you say putting hill as number one choice over the quad is stupid? Are the better rooms truly worth the chance of living in an antisocial quad hall with less community?</p>
<p>how is the quad rooms antisocial? In one thread, it says one of the houses in the quad (Riepe) is the #2 party dorm in the nation. Ware is also known as one of the biggest party dorm buildings in Penn. If you wanna see antisocial, go to stouffer.</p>
<p>Sorry, antisocial might have been the wrong word. I just recently talked to a Penn student who said she barely knew anyone on her hall (she lived in Ware), and she said while her case was the exception, she knows a few other people who got stuck on quiet halls in the quad.</p>
<p>@488140, I am not the best source for information about internships before junior year. I looked, but not all that intensely and not in big business. My experience was that firms generally weren’t looking for freshman or sophomore interns, but I have heard stories of people getting internships those years, regardless of their school. The best thing you could probably do is utilize your network of friends and family; if you know a partner at a firm, you’re more likely to get your foot in the door than if you don’t, especially as an underclassman.</p>
<p>As for what you should major in, for now, I would go in with a solid idea of what major you want to do, but listen to your adviser with regard to courses to take. I would NOT take more than one course in any particular discipline your first semester… when you diversify your course selection, you may catch a subject that piques your interest, which you didn’t suspect. If I were you, I would look to take ECON001 and a calculus course first semester… both courses satisfy requirements, so they can’t possibly be wasted courses, even if you decide to do a completely different major, and then I would take a writing seminar and a foreign language course. If you test out of the foreign language requirement, then either take a language course anyway (if you want to study abroad, many programs have language requirements which far exceed the College language requirement) or take a completely random course. The College is flexible enough that you can afford to take a number of really random electives and be on track to graduate in four years while taking four courses per semester!</p>
<p>As for minors, what I have found is that people tend to declare minors after they have already take the majority of courses needed to complete the minor. Minors don’t have anywhere near the weight of majors with regard to job prospects, so if you have one, great! If not, join the club!</p>
<p>As for what I said in my original response to you, I was intentionally indicating both. It is difficult to get jobs, but you have a wealth of resources at your disposal as a College student. I agree with whartonite11 that consulting firms often want to hire non-business students, since critical thinking is far more crucial to consulting than raw business knowledge – business stuff can be taught pretty readily if someone knows how to think critically; the reverse is not so easy. Just don’t expect that you will be able to apply to two internships your junior year, get two offers, leverage one against the other and then get a sick offer after your junior internship. It works that way for a few people, but the other 1,600 people coming out of Penn undergrad every year and looking for job (well, that’s my guess, since I’d imagine 900 or so look to do further education) need to work pretty hard. I didn’t get an internship last summer, and I did a very long recruiting season this fall, eventually getting two offers after applying to more than fifty jobs. The point is that as long as you are persistent, you have an excellent chance to get a job. Just don’t expect it to be a breeze simply because you go to Penn!</p>
<p>wrldtravlr: Yes, there are a ton of opportunities everywhere. While I’d say most people go to New York or Philadelphia (if you’re doing finance, i’d say close to 90% of people go to nyc), I’d say San Francisco would be close to 3rd in terms of cities with jobs for Penn kids. Consulting firms are everywhere and you’ll be traveling a lot in that industry, so home location means less. If you want tech, however, you will most definitely be on the west coast. every firm that posts on PennLink lists jobs by city, so you can search for jobs only in west coast cities if you want. while nyc jobs are more likely (there are definitely a few large west coast-based firms that don’t hire actively on penn’s campus), west coast is incredibly possible. after all, Wharton West is in SF!</p>
<p>As for the dorming situation, yeah I’d say Stouffer is pretty antisocial. In Hell, I mean Hill, the rooms are so small that you have to socialize with people outside. The quad is, from my experience (I lived in English House), very social if you love partying all the time. If you would prefer a quieter experience, quad can still work well- just apply for one of the specialty halls (I applied for the Film one, and there are a ton more), so that you have stuff in common with your hall mates apart from partaying.</p>
<p>Hey all,</p>
<p>I’ve been all over these forums for the last few months because of grad school apps (I’m a Penn senior going to grad school in the fall for biochemistry/biophysics). I’m a senior in the College so feel free to PM me with any questions. With regard to Penn Med, it is the number two med school in the country and applications are very competitive. The general school of thought is that it is better to go somewhere else for post-undergraduate study (avoids inbreeding) so most schools are relatively resistant to accepting their undergrads for grad/med/law/business school (MIT and Berkeley are particularly opposed to it, while Harvard seems to be most accepting of their own undergrads). I do have three friends who got into Penn Med this year, but I have at least a half dozen who were waitlisted. So I would say that going to Penn undegrad will neither help nor hurt your chances at getting into Penn Med from a numbers game perspective. But it will give you access to great professors, outstanding community service opportunities, a ton of biomedical research labs, etc. From that perspective, it will boost your chances of getting into a very good med school.</p>