<p>I was accepted into both the M&T Program and Princeton University.</p>
<p>Now I have to make a tough decision. I know that there is no wrong choice here and I am extremely grateful to have these options.</p>
<p>That being said, I am not sure which option to choose. </p>
<p>After searching through CC threads, it comes down to this.</p>
<p>I think M&T is better because it provides the networks of Wharton and individual attention since it is such a small program.
However, I am not sure if I 100% want to do business and believe that if going to Princeton, I will have more options and if I really wanted to, I could go to Wharton for an MBA afterwards. </p>
<p>I was wondering what you all thought? M&T or Princeton?</p>
<p>The networks of Wharton are less than those of Princeton. Go to Princeton, work a little then get your MBA.</p>
<p>No. If you go to Wharton as an undergrad, you wouldn’t even need to get a MBA. Plus business is an incredibly flexible degree when paired with another field of study, which UPenn allows.</p>
<p>Congratulations on these two great options! </p>
<p>Princeton alumni loyalty is famous; they have extraordinary networks through TigerTracks. According to the WSJ feeder survey, Princeton was third in America for feeding into the top Law, MBA, and Med programs (behind Harvard an barely behind Yale). Keep your options open. Going to M&T would not be better for business (in fact, it might be worse); going to Princeton preserves all of your options and is probably even better for MBA admissions. I also think you would have a more enjoyable and balanced overall experience at Princeton.</p>
<p>To OP: If you feel like business is one of your many options, I’d say Princeton has the edge. Otherwise, M&T hands down: it is hard to beat. Also remember that the posts here will be slightly more biased in favor of Princeton (well that’s rather obvious), so keep that in mind.</p>
<p>This is what someone has replied to me. </p>
<p>I would go for M&T in your case because it provides you a more guaranteed path for success in whatever field you want to pursue, as well as the invaluable opportunity to specialize in two areas. Of course Princeton’s great and provides you with a little more flexibility, but I think that Penn provides you a similar quality of education and an equally good if not better network of people. With Princeton you would have to forge your own path a little more. I would say that Penn, especially being in the city, has tremendous opportunities and a Wharton degree can get you very far. </p>
<p>What do you guys think?</p>
<p>I agree. Both Princeton and Penn are excellent schools, and I feel that the difference between Princeton and Penn is marginal at best, and M&T will provide you with incredible opportunities should you choose to pursue business.</p>
<p>Personally, if I were going to college, I would want to keep my options open and have the opportunity to explore different fields, knowing that in practically every subject I might choose, Princeton offers a top-ranked undergraduate program. And Princeton students do extremely well in the job market, so I don’t think you would be limiting your options in any way by choosing Princeton.</p>
<p>I have had one child at Princeton and one at Penn and I believe that the Princeton academic experience and the quality of the teaching is superior. However, I also love the vibrancy of the Penn campus, I really enjoy Philly and the Penn Career Services office is extremely well-run.</p>
<p>To be honest, if you choose business, I think that both schools will provide you with tremendous career opportunities.</p>
<p>Two degrees from Penn are worth more than one from Princeton, especially one from Wharton.</p>
<p>^^^^^texaspg, huh?</p>
<p>you can have 20 undergraduate degrees from Penn and they still would not be worth more than a Princeton degree</p>
<p>sorry, but that is just the way it is</p>
<p>for those new to these pages, youpika is a ■■■■■ who has shown up around this time of year for the past few years under different names, including german car and jomjom. Youpika seems to have no actual knowledge about Princeton and keeps citing statistics incorrectly in an apparent attempt to disparage Princeton. I have no idea why but I have always assumed he/she is a disgruntled college student who didn’t get into Princeton.</p>
<p>I think academically, the difference is negligible. Both have superb engineering schools, although Princeton’s may be higher ranked, and WWS, while not necessarily in the same niche as Wharton, is in some ways (public policy and international business) better than it. All that aside, the academics will be different, but of negligible difference.
Just throwing it out there, but the Daily Beast did their own surveying to find the happiest and most stressed college students.</p>
<p>Happiest: [The</a> 100 Happiest Colleges - The Daily Beast](<a href=“The 100 Happiest Colleges”>The 100 Happiest Colleges)</p>
<p>Stressful: [2011’s</a> Most Stressful Colleges - The Daily Beast](<a href=“2011's Most Stressful Colleges”>2011's Most Stressful Colleges)</p>
<p>For happiness, Princeton was 27th, whereas Penn was 67th.
For stress, Penn was 4th and Princeton was 12.</p>
<p>Take that for what it is, but you can’t make a bad decision.</p>
<p>^ I don’t really buy that happiness survey; it’s hard to measure that, and most people seem pretty happy at whatever school they end up. From HS friends and colleagues who headed to Wharton (including some M&T guys), I’ve always felt like the culture at Wharton was pretty different from HYP, and for most people, it’s quickly clear which they’d prefer.</p>
<p>Either Penn or Princeton will give you a great education. A ton of credit goes to Wharton for making it 50/50 business-liberal arts mix (and M&T infuses even more diversity). But 50% business is still a lot - more than most HYP econ majors would take on. And more importantly, I think Wharton’s matriculation pool ends up self-selecting for people who are more commercially-oriented or career-oriented, vs the far more undefined ambition you see at HYP (I do think the raw intellectual caliber is roughly the same). </p>
<p>I personally don’t think it makes a huge difference in terms of post-grad opportunities. Very few firms hire from Wharton but not Princeton (only SilverLake comes to mind); places like Blackstone, Bain, etc. hire from HPW (and increasingly other schools). And re. the network, every major firm will have at least a couple of Princeton alumni, and the difference between 2-3 alumni from your school at the firm vs 4-5 alumni is nil. Diminishing marginal returns set in pretty quickly.</p>
<p>I’ve met happy and unhappy alums at both schools. At the end, it comes down to you. I’ve met people who knew from the outset that they loved investing or entrepreneurship and couldn’t imagine being deprived of their Wharton educations. I’d always considered finance even early on in college and ultimately ended up in it, but I think I’d have been a fish out of water at Wharton, and I definitely enjoyed the crazy wide diversity of ambitions at Princeton.</p>
<p>It’s a fairly easy choice- M&T.</p>
<p>I worked on Wall Street for three years before grad school. M&T is the #1 most sought after degree by the global investment banks, even ahead of Harvard applied math.</p>
<p>Hedge funds which normally never take students straight from undergrad make an exception for Penn M&T (e.g. AQR).</p>
<p>All of Penn’s dual degree programs are gimmicks to get you to go to Penn without actually giving you anything extra for going (an extra bachelor’s degree is like having an extra left shoe, except you can’t lose a bachelor’s degree like you could lose a shoe).</p>
<p>No one at the investment banks that I’ve worked for gave a **** about M&T, not sure which banks cmburns14 has worked for but I was at two bulge brackets.</p>
<p>If you’re fairly certain that you would like to pursue business, go for M&T. If you would like some time to explore, go for Princeton. However, keep in mind that you can do both at either schools. Just as you could go into finance with a degree from Princeton, you could study another subject at Penn’s School of Art & Science (but it would be a pretty heavy load with M&T), and business is a pretty versatile field itself. </p>
<p>I’m slightly biased toward M&T just because I think in this job market business + engineering = double win. I highly doubt that an investment bank <em>wouldn’t</em> give a **** about a degree from the best undergrad business school in the world. But in the end it really comes down to the environmet of the school and your preferences; you’ve got great choices.</p>
<p>One very important factor to me is the opportunities/alumni relations that each program offers, the M&T program vs Princeton ORFE/ Finance. </p>
<p>On Wall Street, which degree is more sought after? M&T Degrees in Wharton and Engineering or A Princeton ORFE degree with finance concentration?</p>
<p>Also, I feel like M&T would guarantee a job since if no banks are hiring, I could always go engineering. </p>
<p>Since M&T is a special program it may also receive special attention?<br>
What do ya’ll think?</p>
<p>It’s not smart to think that knowing two skills superficially is better than knowing one skill twice as well. If you want an interdisciplinary education, you can do that at Princeton extremely easily. If you want two bachelor’s degrees because you think two is better than one, you are thinking fallaciously. </p>
<p>As Bruce Lee put it, “I fear not the man who has practiced ten thousand kicks once. But I fear the man who has practiced one kick ten thousand times.”</p>
<p>If you want to go into finance from either M&T or Princeton, you’ll have no problem doing so. Why not just go where you would prefer to live for the next four years?</p>