Junior Transfer - Apply to Econ or Wharton?

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Pennsylvania
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Current sophomore transferring fall 2016 with junior standing. Transferring from UMass Amherst (Isenberg School of Management, top 30 public undergrad B school)

Applying to either Wharton or Econ (Arts & Science) after I talk to admissions and find out if I am competitive enough for wharton.

College GPA: 3.691

Grades:
First semester freshman year: 3.9 (straight A’s)
Second semester freshman year: 3.3 (explain in essay it was b/c joined frat and focused on social life)
first semester sophomore year: 3.9 (straight A’s)

EC’s (this is where I shine)

-Founder and portfolio manager of Investment Banking student run fund (since school didn’t have it and it is my dream job)
-unpaid 60 hour/week private equity analyst internship during winter break under the guidance of harvard MBAs
-paid summer internship following freshman year at a prestigious financial firm
-1st place KPMG sponsored business case competition at school (was captain and recruiter)
-Member of Greek life Pi Kappa Alpha (Community service chairman, scholarship chairman)
-Comm service: convinced 7,000 umass student and faculty to donate bone barrow during DKMS bone marrow drive
-Finance Society - Secretary
-Campus representative for Wall Street Oasis during the school year - spread financial knowledge to undergrads
-Incoming intern at Liberty Mutual Insurance in their financial department (F100 company located in downtown Boston)
-Sleep

Letters of rec from accounting professor and business law professor. As good as I can hope they will be.

Essay statement: Starts with anecdote about working at the private equity firm and shows how it is necessary to have both quantitative skill and charisma in order to succeed in finance. Explains my academic story, briefly points out how despite a lackluster 2nd semester, I developed good interpersonal skills and did well in interviews. Explains long term goal of starting private equity firm in low income city to spread wealth. Explains the obvious “why transfer” reason without bashing current school.

Also Applying to:

Boston College (Carol)
Georgetown
NYU Stern
Notre Dame undergrad B school
UVA Mcintire
U Michigan Ross
Emory undergrad B school
Columbia
Cornell
Northwestern

Please chance me if you have a good idea of how the admissions process works. I am praying I get accepted into one of these schools, and I need to know if my low GPA is competitive enough due to my passion for finance and work ECs.

Thanks in advance,
Owen

2

Nobody can chance you in a meaningful sense for a school like Wharton. Just work hard on your application, and wish for the best.

3

the difference in difficulty is very small, especially for transfers, so i would say apply to the one you are most interested in. besides wharton kids can take any classes in CAS they want and CAS students can take any and as many wharton classes they want, and everyone has access to the same recruiting opportunities. it is not the same as applying to stern vs nyu econ for example where the difference is huge and nyu econ is sort of a non-target for recruiting and econ kids do not have access to stern recruiting resources.

both CAS or Wharton are better choices than all of the other schools on your list.

4

I don’t know where you got that information. NYU CAS Econ gets every bit the same recruiting abilities as Stern. In fact NYU CAS Economics department is better than Stern’s own economics department. Some smaller banks prefer Stern students for the technical expertise but all are open to hiring CAS, Gallatin, Tisch etc since everyone has OCR privelages

Several CAS kids actually get GS, MS IBD, Lev Fin offers ever year so they are every bit as competitive too. The only downside is they just need to put in for effort to meet people and network. At NYU CAS students can take business classes as well through a minor but there are some restrictions. Stern students can take any CAS class they want.

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