Hi everybody, I am currently a junior and will be applying to colleges next year. As of now, the University of Pennsylvania is near the top of my list of schools. I’ve heard that Wharton’s undergraduate programs are significantly harder to get accepted into than those of the College of Arts and Sciences. I am not 100% sure what I want to major in, but political science and business are two of the options I am strongly considering. However, hearing from people that Wharton is more difficult to get into is dissuading me from pursuing an undergraduate business major. I know there are no official statistics that make Wharton harder to get into, but I was wondering if anyone could clarify for me if it is evidently more challenging or not.
Yup, wharton admission rate is around Harvard/Yale level. Additionally, the competition of the applicants is higher for wharton, which makes it even harder
@icy1998
wharton is a little bit harder to get in than cas or engineering but i do not agree with the statement that it is significantly more difficult to get in. 2 or more decades ago sure but not nowadays. Also it is very unlikely that wharton admit rate is at harvard/yale level i.e 5-6%. It is much more probable that wharton admit rate is around 7-8%. I have done a very rough analysis based on bits of info here and there and it is more reasonable for wharton admit rate to be in that range. The dual degree programs, huntsman, m&t, lsm prob have admit rates at the level of stanford, harvard and also yields at these levels. Also wharton probably has yield rate higher than yale and princeton but lower than harvard and stanford ( i would bet around 75%). Also i think the there is not really a distinction between wharton and non wharton students in terms of wharton students being more accomplished or anything as a group. I think there is however a substantial difference between students ( as a total group) who are m&t, lsm, the other vagelos programs ( and to a lesser degree huntsman) and the rest of penn students as a group.
@penn95 I think you are exactly correct. SEAS is also in the 7-8% range. It is definitely true that the dual degree students are significantly about average, although there are many amazing students who are not dual degree. Penn also has some impressive special programs within schools, like the NETS program that admits about 20 students per year in SEAS.
Hi There-
As those above have mentioned, Wharton is definitely not “significantly harder” to get into than the College of Arts and Sciences. It is, however, safe to assume that Wharton’s acceptance rate is marginally lower than the overall Penn acceptance rate which is said to most closely mirror the College’s acceptance rate.
This topic has been debated time and time again(http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/14154638/#Comment_14154638), but the general consensus is that Wharton’s acceptance rate is usually a few percentage points lower than the overall acceptance rate.
Back in 2003, when they released numbers by school, that was the case: (http://www.thedp.com/index.php/article/2003/04/admission_rates_drop_at_penn_ivies) and it is likely still true today. Though Engineering’s acceptance rate has gone down dramatically in the interim which may mean that Wharton’s ever so slightly lower admissions rate may not be as comparatively low as it once was.
Additionally, acceptance rate doesn’t give you a full picture of how challenging it might be to gain admittance to a university. For example, the College of the Ozarks and Alice Lloyd college have both had lower acceptance rates than Penn’s ( http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/lowest-acceptance-rate ), though I’m not sure that there are too many people who would argue that the College of the Ozarks and Alice Lloyd College are more selective than Penn. It has a bit more to do with self selection and class size.
Wharton is an undergrad business school and thus attracts a more specific type of student with a more specific set of interests. It is a small program with a healthy dose of self selection that could potentially skew the statistics just a bit. Thus the competition of the applicants is not likely to be higher for Wharton as compared to the rest of the Penn applicant pool-- it is most probably just different than the profile of a student applying to the College.
Kids in the College, Wharton, Engineering and Nursing have all started their own businesses and won international and national competitions. They’ve excelled in all of their classes and extracurriculars and gotten great SAT scores. The school to which students matriculate at Penn is more a matter of where their interests lie rather than their ability to be a competitive applicant. You’ll realize that’s true when you meet people from all four schools on your freshman year hall and have no idea which school they’re in. You’ll realize that’s true when a nurse is the head of the debate team or a business-minded student in the College takes on a leadership role in Wharton Women (clubs aren’t restricted to just one school). You’ll realize that when [sadly?] graduates of all 4 undergrad schools take jobs in the financial sector en masse. The distinctions between the schools melt away the minute you arrive in West Philadelphia. It’s an incredible melting pot (or salad bowl, as the 8th graders learn today in social studies) that you will love. Good luck in the application process. 
According to Internet, admit rate was13.9%. It states it is typically close the overall admit rate. Harvard (5%), Columbia (6%), Yale (6.4%).
@ricck1 13.9% ??? Not sure where you get your research, but you are wrong. this was this years admittance rate for the University of Penn from the daily Pennsylvanian (Penn’s newspaper)
http://www.thedp.com/article/2016/03/regular-decision-release-class-of-2020
BREAKING: Penn acceptance rate drops to 9.4 percent, the lowest in university history
By SOPHIA LEPORTE ・ 03/31/16 3:57pm
It appears that 13.9% is a figure for Wharton (both undergrad and grad combined) that’s a few years old. 9.4% is the latest overall figure for the entire University of Pennsylvania.
@ricck1 “According to Internet, admit rate was13.9%.”
I have learned that occasionally, the Internet can be wrong.
As others have said, Penn’s overall average is 9.4%, and I agree that, based on multiple sources I think that Wharton and SEAS are both at 7.x%. I have the impression that Nursing is in the teens. CAS is the largest and maybe around 11%.
I would say that all of the schools are somewhat similarly difficult to be admitted to. Most students will usually have the best chance of admission by applying to the school they are the best fit for and not trying to game the minor differences in percentages. I think that is a mistake for most students.
The 13.9% figure is quite old. I would put wharton 7-8%, seas 8-9%( very similar to wharton these days) , CAS 9-10% and nursing higher (but nursing is so small that it doesnt affect the acceptance rate much, and people are still very competitive it is just that huge self-selection is going on). I think the best way to describe the relative selectivity of Wharton relative to the rest of Penn, is to compare it to the relative selectivity between Stanford/Harvard vs Princeton. The difference is there but it is rather small nowadays. And once you get at Penn the difference is not really there, Penn has done a good job of being well-integrated and making resources available across the undergrad body, and also it is not something students are super conscious of or sth that students differentiate themselves on.
The Wharton-non Wharton divide is usually perpetuated by insecure students of non-HYPSM top schools( who of course have no idea about Penn) as a way to bring Penn down and feel better about themselves,
I was answering the students question. According to Internet research, the last reported admit rate for Wharton undergrad was 13.9 in 2015, yes, probably based on 2014 admissions. They also stated most importantly the admit rate was similar to the overall admit rate of Penn, not higher, not lower, which was the students question. Penn does not generally differentiate its applicants, stats, or admit rates anymore.
@ricck1 The University of Pennsylvania DOES NOT break down admittance rates for its undergraduate schools… EVER. So to be clear again, there is NO last reported admit rate for Wharton undergrad… THE ONLY last reported admit rate for undergrad at the U of Penn is 9.4% and that is for the entire undergrad at U of Penn all 4 schools.
Most have deduced (unofficially) that wharton under grad admit is 7-8% SES 8% and CAS 9-10% with nursing being higher… but even those numbers are pure speculation as Penn does NOT break down its admit rates based upon schools. I don’t know where you are getting your info but it is not correct.
@runswimyoga Not online. But I found a Penn Engineering handbook in the Pennovation Center that did give some data.
Engineering is actually the most selective undergraduate school. For the class of 2019, I know there were 9227 engineering applicants, and I think 400-500 were admitted. It might have been 461, but I could be wrong. I remember it was around 5%.
@sphericalcow SEAS targets a class size of about 410. Assuming a 68% yield, that should put the number admitted at roughly 600 applicants. Perhaps the number was 641? The would make the admit rate 6.9% if the 9227 is correct. That would be reasonable for SEAS.
Wharton is around 7% also. SEAS may be slightly lower, but not by much. They have been similar for several years now.
I checked back. 421 attend out of 9227 applicants. I found online that the yield is 68.5%. That makes the acceptance rate 6.66%.
Perhaps wharton is not much higher, but I’m just saying a lot of people think that wharton is much more selective when that’s not actually the case.
@Sphericalcow You are right that Wharton is not much more selective that SEAS or CAS. They are relatively similar.
I am feeling pretty good that I estimated 6.9% and it was 6.66%. I am not sure whether they still target 410. They may have raised it to 420 or just had a few more enrollment than they estimated.
When Runswimyoga says they never break down the 4 schools s/he means they don’t publish it, which is true. It is also true that they have that data for internal use, and sometimes they discuss it. The school specific information I had was given to me directly by an assistant dean, but I don’t want to name him here.