<p>With matriculation day a week away, I'm stuck between two final choices: Harvard and Penn M&T. For those of you who don't know, Penn M&T is a dual-degree program at Penn at the Wharton School and SEAS. </p>
<p>At Penn M&T, I'll double-concentrate in finance and management and entrepreneurship at Wharton and systems engineering or computer science at SEAS. At Harvard, I'll be studying either Economics or Applied Mathematics with an economics focus.</p>
<p>What I'm stuck between is the two completely different paths I can be taking. M&T is severely pre-professional and I do like learning for learning's sake, that sort of intellectualism that a pre-professional environment doesn't harbor. However, I do know that business is a field I will pursue, and that's something that will not likely change, which pushes me more toward M&T. I feel like Harvard would open up much more opportunities for me, while M&T will prepare me best for what I want to do.</p>
<p>What do you guys think?</p>
<p>By the way, I will be posting this same message in the Penn thread to ensure I have both opinion bases.</p>
<p>Speaking as someone who spends a fair bit of time recruiting (sales and trading), you do <em>not</em> need a business major to be hired out of school in our business. What you do need is passion and expertise for whatever you have studied, and an interest in our business. I’ve hired plenty of history and government majors. I’ve hired many more applied math majors than business majors. But, if you are going to major in business, Wharton is one of the few schools I would recommend, so basically, you can’t go wrong.</p>
<p>In addition to what the OP already mentioned, it comes down to this: do you want to learn the intricacies of business during college or are you content to wait and learn it on the job and/or in an MBA program in the distant future?</p>
<p>A Wharton business degree will provide you considerably more than what a Harvard Economics degree can offer. Recruiters for investment banks do give credit to Wharton for producing more experienced people. Harvard, however, offers more freedom if you wish to pursue anything else besides business, like psychology, law, or political science. Harvard’s intellectualism is a selling point.</p>
<p>Intellectualism is still present at Penn, since Wharton is part of the university. It is part of the Wharton curriculum to take classes not related to business. M&T is a great choice if you are interested in entrepreneurship like me. It does provide the resources and knowledge, in addition to its close community of financiers and entrepreneurs. If you wish to take another path with the liberal arts, Harvard’s the place to go. If you know you are going to do business, choose M&T, no question.</p>
<p>In my investment bank, Wharton/Penn, Harvard, Dartmouth, Yale, MIT, CMU, Brown, Cornell and a few others depending on which way the winds blow are all on equal footing. We hire approximately proportionately from each of them, just by accident - not due to any quotas or anything.</p>
<p>Idk that CMU is that reputable for Ibanks. Like, CMU is *** 22nd in business according to BWeek or something. But I’m a Pittsburgher and a Tartan-hopeful and this is no doubt encouraging news. </p>
<p>Even Brown never seemed like a big finance institution…</p>