<p>I can’t help but read “pretentious” when I see “prestigious.” Seriously. Nobody believes it when people tell them, but PRESTIGE DOES NOT MATTER FOR UNDERGRADUATES. Drive that point home NOW!</p>
<p>Case in point: People at Penn often make a big deal about how Penn is often confused with Penn State, and they are, for some reason, offended. Why? Because Penn is “more prestigious” than PSU. Then there’s my buddy who goes to PSU. This summer, as a rising junior, he will be working in California for an oil company; he was given a $6,500 signing bonus to complement a $20,000 summer stipend.</p>
<p>I know of NO rising juniors with that kind of internship. Even the Goldman or JPM internships are comparable to that, but they’re for rising SENIORS! </p>
<p>And he goes to the “lowly” Penn State.</p>
<p>The fact of the matter is that it does not MATTER where you go for your undergraduate unless you take advantage of the opportunities you get at certain places. Sure, Wharton is well known and has a huge presence on campus, but it’s generally accepted that Wharton students are the least academically proficient on campus. A Wharton education focuses on practical business management and finance, which is usually saved for a graduate or professional degree.</p>
<p>If you are interested in getting a job, then it is more important that you attend a school which you ENJOY and study courses which INTEREST you. If you are interested in, say, English literature and a lot of personal attention from professors, but decide to attend Wharton, you’re an idiot. You would do better at a small liberal arts school; you would get better grades and have more job opportunities.</p>
<p>Remember, prestige is not everything. You miss out on a lot at an institution like Penn.</p>
<p>Professors, for the most part, care about their research FAR more than they care about teaching. You can go full semesters without having classes with fewer than a hundred students in each. You have to be much more aggressive about attaining your goals than the average person, and that’s not always a good thing.</p>
<p>I know three people at Penn who have transferred into Wharton or been accepted into a dual degree with Wharton and the College. I know FOURTEEN people who have transferred OUT of Wharton and INTO the College. That should pretty much say it.</p>
<p>Doing WELL in school outweighs the school’s name by more than you can EVER IMAGINE. And remember, it’s not like high school where you go for eight hours or so and then go home. If you don’t like it, you CANNOT escape it because you are there 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.</p>