<p>So, i'm a prospective UPenn applicant. I've been looking at the school for a while, and it genuinly seems like a great place to study. </p>
<p>However, the fact of the matter is, i'm not going to be a business major, so i won't be applying to wharton <em>GASP</em></p>
<p>From what i've heard, the school seems to revolve around wharton and the business majors as kinda the core of the school, and it seems to disregard all of the other academic majors. Because my intrest is in physics, i feel like i'm going to fall into the group of people who are disregarded. is this REALLY the atmosphere at Penn?</p>
<p>Also, what's the most fun memory that you can think of from your days at Penn? I not only want to be enriched intellectually, but there's gotta be some fun stuff....right....</p>
<p>Although Wharton is an outstanding business school, I definitely do not think it is the center of the university. There are so many other top ranked programs (medicine and English for example) that it would be very close-minded to say that Wharton is the center of or only worthwhile component of Penn. In the college and especially in the sciences there is a ton of emphasis on research which is a key part of the university. The physics department is also outstanding. The professors are all very accomplished, Professor Charles Kane made the theoretical discovery of topological insulators a couple years go which was verified by experiment. There is muchwork being done in this area now, and he will probably win the Nobel prize along with Professor Mele (they can only choose three of five people) in the next few years.</p>
<p>The school does not revolve around business majors, contrary to what they would want to believe…jk! But really, it’s a great place and I have literally never encountered rivalry between CAS/Nursing/Wharton/SEAS. </p>
<p>Prospective students seem to project their Wharton bias on Penn and think all of us are much more school-conscious than we are. No one cares - the ones that do are usually the gunners with no friends.</p>
<p>Couldn’t have said it better. The Wharton bias is very present on these forums but in reality it does not exist at Penn. People are a lot nicer and more open than it would appear from this forum and they are easily turned off by people who are “cutthroat”. When you ask someone what school they are in when you are in a group, being in Wharton is given the same response as everything else. Many people in Wharton seem to downplay it more than anything else. For example one girl called the math in one of her classes “watered down”.
I usually get along well with people from Wharton even though from my studies I appear to be the opposite. Wharton students tend to be very driven and also creative with a variety of interests (at least the people I hang out with). A lot of my friends in Wharton seem think it’s pretty cool that I’m a physics major.</p>
<p>Thank you both for your responses! Penn seems like a much better place when actual students talk about it, as opposed to reading about how it revolves around one school on CC. In that case, I’m definitly going to apply…it seems like a fantastic school! :)</p>
<p>@Poeme: That bit about Professor Kane is really cool! I find it enthralling that I could possibly attend a school that is associated with so much innovation and discovery.</p>
<p>Yes, Wharton is important. No, the University doesn’t focus on it. No particular major gets preferential treatment. Plus, I’d have an extremely hard time believing you’d be taking a physics class with a professor who cares for Wharton over the College.</p>