<p>It may sound ridiculous but my dad deters me from applying for wharton bcoz he thinks that wharton kids have rich parents who are CEOs or something like that.
He says an average girl like me will be disadvantaged and depressed because they enjoy better opportunities and internships due to their parents power.
Is it true?</p>
<p>It would, of course, be a gross exaggeration to say that all Wharton students’ parents are high-level corporate executives.</p>
<p>There are certain times in life when you should not listen to your parents and this is one of them!!!</p>
<p>penn, in general, is a place where folks of different backgrounds mix to learn together and learn from each other -</p>
<p>in your classes you might be sat next to the son of the richest man in indonesia, or the son of the ceo of korean air, or the granddaughter of a supreme court justice…</p>
<p>or, you could be next to people from singapore, argentina, or nigeria…</p>
<p>or, you could be next to some who grew up in the philly or new york city public schools, who are on 100% need-based scholarship, even from west philly itself</p>
<p>and these aren’t fictional examples, all are folks who went to penn</p>
<p>but there is a large element of truth in the statement…</p>
<p>all your base are belong to us.</p>
<p>tenebrousfire described it pretty well…however, I would say that Penn, compared to other top universities does have a % percentage of students from wealthy backgrounds (likely due to 1. the high legacy preference Penn has compared to other schools and 2. Wharton generally attracts kids of wealthy business executives). Honestly when I first got to Penn I was shocked by how unintelligence a good % of the population was - then i realized they were all very very wealthy and got in b/c daddy donated a ton of money. </p>
<p>That said why would this deter make your dad want to deter you? This, in my opinion, was the best thing about Penn. I met a ton of fantastic people and made friends with some of the most well connected people and it has only helped me in my career thus far (plus, what can i say, it’s nice to have friends with private jets for those weekend trips to saint tropez 
)</p>
<p>I think, it is partly true! Most of the students, I came across are from the affluent section of the society. However, in terms of reflection of it in the campus life, in my opinion, is minimal.</p>