<p>I'm not sure what to do. I have been accepted at Brown, Dartmouth, Wharton, and the University of Chicago. At Harvard, I have been waitlisted. During the fall, I failed to apply to Princeton, Stanford, and MIT due to bad advice. My dad says that I should matriculate at Wharton. Should I take a year off and apply at more of the top schools, or is my list of options just as good as Princeton, Stanford, etc.</p>
<p>Are you serious? Go to one of the amazing schools you've gotten into! Why on earth would you cheat yourself out of a year of learning just to get into a slightly more prestigious school?! You have got to be kidding ting me.</p>
<p>This kid is not serious in his/her request for help. If the situation is accurate the posting is insensitive and arrogant to other readers who probably, like me checked "need help" suspecting a full plate of rejections and waitlists and perhaps nowhere to go, a situation several students face.</p>
<p>If the poster is serious, I recommend they read other posting on these admissions forums and consider him/herself lucky and perhaps work on developing empathy.</p>
<p>ahand123, if this wasn't a joke, go visit your school options and decide for yourself. If you are serious, a gap year would be important to develop maturity and sensitivity more than anything else. Go do meaningful volunteer work in an inner city or rural area and gain some perspective.</p>
<p>I didn't intend to come across as pretentious as I did. I have created a few posts since this one, but I just don't know what to do. I want to create an investment company/fund down the road, or possibly manage a hedge fund. I don't know if anyone on CC is familiar with this aspect of the financial world or not, but if you are, I will gladly take your advice. I know that getting started on wall street requires a degree from a prestgious school or excellent connections. Wharton, from what I hear, is a step in the right direction. Am I correct in my assumption? How about the other schools that I have been accepted at? Also, I am a big fan of science and mathematics. Although I am not a great physcist or mathematician, I would like to contnue my studies in college. This is the reason I mentioned Princeton, Stanford, and MIT. Are the physics and mathematics programs at UPenn stellar, or are they substandard? Again, if anyone has sufficient knowledge of the quality of these programs, don't hesitate to comment. In summary, I am a science nerd who wants to amass a fortune on wall street. I am in need of quality information; I am trying to make a major decision. I want to maximize my chance of realizing my dream, and learn a few things about science in the process.</p>
<p>Go to Wharton for undergrad. Go to one of the others (I'd say MIT) for grad school.</p>
<p>How would that work?</p>
<p>Listen, the best I got is a couple low to mid tier UCs and a wait list. Taking a year off is resonable for me. You're just a little picky. Go with Wharton. #1 business school</p>
<p>Any more advice? My time is running out.</p>
<p>I suggest that you wait out the Harvard waitlist and try to see if you get in. If you don't take a year off and apply to the others that you failed to apply.</p>
<p>As you probably can tell I'm being sarcastic.</p>
<p>Anyone else?</p>
<p>Forget the H waitlist, chances are miniscule given their typical yield and huge wait list, and et happy with one of the great schools you're into...</p>
<p>this may sound a bit harsh....sorry in advance</p>
<p>your "problem" is a completely ridiculous one, any of your options will suffice (but i would recommend Penn or Chicago because both schools seem more in line with your interests)</p>
<p>you seem to be suggesting that because you want to study math and physics, you need to go to MIT, Pton or Stanford because the math departments at the univs to which you have been accepted are not good enough for you.</p>
<p>unless you are an upcoming fields medalist, or physics nobel prize winner - and quite frankly you are probably not because there are less than maybe 200 people in the world at any one time with the mental capability to do such things - the resources at any of your current options will be more than sufficient.</p>
<p>you are just beginning an undergraduate study of mathematics, you will not be able to exhaust all of the options at any of the schools you can potentially go to... i guarantee that you will not run up against any brick walls in your pursuit of mathematical knowledge.</p>
<p>therefore to suggest that you need the superior math departments of MPS is erroneous -- unless you think that you know more than all of the math professors at penn and chicago.</p>
<p>note: i am not suggesting that no student out of high school cannot undertake advanced mathematical study....some students certainly can....however, the OP did not. if the OP had completed advanced studies of mathematics, he would have had sufficient knowledge to be able to judge the coursework and quality of the departments by himself and make his own determination rather than asking us for advice.</p>
<p>in the same vein, you ought to consider that college level math and physics, is extremely different from high school level stuff, it is a completely different domain that you haven't experienced yet - so you can't even be certain you will like those two subjects in college.</p>
<p>now for the second part, your implied question about i-banking and finance.</p>
<p>first, my knowledge base: i am a freshman at a heavily recruited top 15 univ. i have spoken with many people in the industry, many recruiters at top firms, and many upperclassmen who have gotten internships or jobs at goldman, jpm, ms, etc.... that said, you can take my input for whatever you think it is worth.</p>
<p>wharton seems like the logical choice for such a career. however, i proffer one caveat that you should consider when making your decision.</p>
<p>almost everybody at wharton wants to go into finance.
therefore, you have to be confident in your ability to be at the top of your class if you want to get the best jobs afterwards.</p>
<p>competition for GPA especially is cutthroat but essential.</p>
<p>each finance firm puts rough quotas on how many job applicants it will take from each univ, so if you go to wharton the competition will be the fiercest... that said, it is an excellent school. </p>
<p>don't go to brown or pomona, although not bad choices, these schools are more into the humanities and you seem more science oriented</p>
<p>finally, if you are most concerned about the prestige factor of MIT Pton and Stanford, it is probably not worth taking a year to reapply and risk not getting in and having wasted a year.... especially since for finance there probably isnt a better name in terms of material benefit than wharton..... you just have to be prepared to do everything possible to maintain that very high (>3.7 , no, this is an example not an exact requirement) GPA if you do decide to go. and you should try to assess your ability to do this seriously and try as much as possible to remove your own environmental context from consideration, because the competition at wharton is going to be exceedingly more intense than anything you experienced in high school to a degree that you cannot imagine....it will be much harder to keep up the grades.</p>
<p>hopefully i've repeated myself enough to get my ideas on the table...:-)</p>
<p>Thank you for putting some effort into your post. To be completely honest, I am not that great at math or physics. I really don't have much ability in these subject areas, but I enjoy them. So I should have asked which program was more enjoyable. That being said, if you were in my situation, would you choose Chicago over Wharton, or vice versa? From what I hear, it is difficult to maintain a high GPA at Chicago, so I assume that it might be harder to get a top job out of there. I understand that if I were to take a year off, the inherent risk involved would outweigh any possible gains. If I could defer admission to Wharton and apply to a few other schools during my year off, I could eliminate the risk factor. Is this a possibility? You imply that I might have a hard time at Wharton because of the competition. Could I solve this problem by attending another college of equal prestige, or will the competition remain?</p>
<p>just pick wharton!!!!!!
or brown or dartmouth over uchicago</p>
<p>i would say go with wharton, it is more geared towards the field you would like to enter... competition will be fierce at any top school</p>
<p>and yes, the potential benefit from taking a year off, even if you do get into a school like pton, for example, is maybe not worth the lost year. especially since wharton is an excellent gateway to finance</p>
<p>if you really decide that you need the extra bump in prestige, you can always attempt to transfer....as for taking a year off, you already have good choices, there is no need to hold out for the unlikely chance that you will get better ones.</p>