Penn Cross Admit Battles?

Does Penn win cross admits with Columbia, Dartmouth, Brown, Duke, U Chicago, etc.? Is there data on this?

The site Parchment has data on this, but their findings are VERY suspect:

http://www.parchment.com/c/college/college-rankings.php?page=1&perPage=25&thisYear=2017

(The 2018 student choice rankings have Harvard, for example, as #37)

Also, most top schools now yield protect with heavy use of Early Decision. Schools reliance on ED ranges from the absolutely absurd (UChicago, taking supposedly 70% of the class early) to the absurd (Penn, taking about 55% of the class early) to the still considerably absurd (Dartmouth taking about 50% of the class early).

So, the actual universe of students who are actively choosing between top schools is shrinking more every year. Penn will probably only make ~1900 RD offers this year, meaning there are only a few hundred or so students - in the entire world - who are considering, say, going to Penn or Dartmouth. It’s a fairly small sample size, and drawing any conclusions based on the decisions made, would be foolhardy, to say the least.

More broadly speaking, top urban research universities are “hot,” right now, but again, yield shouldn’t factor into your decision to go to one place over another.

@bmcauliffe Parchment is not 100% accurate but gives a good general idea when you are comparing peer schools where there is a significantly large sample size of cross admits. If the percentages are colored, it means they deem the split to be statistically significant.

Don’t use the rankings, use the college match-up tool. http://www.parchment.com/c/college/tools/college-cross-admit-comparison.php

The Penn cross-admit outcomes with the other elite schools look something like this:

Penn loses to HYPSM

Penn goes more or less head to head with Columbia, UChicago and probably Duke

Penn wins the battle with Brown, Dartmouth, Cornell, JHU, Northwestern

@Penn95 @bmcauliffe @cue7, There are around 130 (-150) dual-degree kids admitted to Penn every year. In this cohort, Penn probably wins (or at least does not lose) to HYPSM.

Many in Wharton also were cross-admitted by HYPSM. and many got in with ED would have a great chance at HYPSM.

Also I believe Wharton holds its own against HYPSM.

@J2H239 @fs2000sa @happy1 From my experience Penn dual degrees for sure hold their own against HYPSM.

Single Wharton degrees does so to an extent but significantly less so, in my experience. The thing is there are not too many people who are absolutely dead-set on studying business before their college career has even started and most know that they can break easily into business doing econ or sth else at HYPSM. Also a lot of the Wharton kids (myself included) tend to be especially prestige-concious and find it hard to turn down the lay prestige of HYPSM for the more niche prestige of Wharton. I was one such person, turned down Yale but it was a rather are decision at the time. However I met few other single-degree wharton kids who had done the same. At least this is my experiece (I graduated with the past five years).

I think getting in ED at Penn and thus not applying to HYPSM is a bit different from actively choosing at over HYPSM when you have both acceptances at hand. But yes i agree that Wharton especially attracts many people ED that could potentially have been admitted to HYPSM.

My assessment is that a lot of Penn admits get cross-admitted to HYPSM, a tiny number of non-wharton kids chooses Penn over them, a bigger but still small number of wharton kids does so and a substantial number of dual degree kids chooses Penn.

@Penn95 I believe we are in general agreement (and FWIW I’m a Wharton alum as well). My comment was purely anecdotal but I do know a number of students who, like yourself, did turn down HYP for Wharton over the last few years from our HS. They knew they wanted business and felt Wharton was the best choice. IMO Wharton has plenty of prestige even versus HYPSM. Obviously there is no “one right answer fits all”. For those who would be happy studying for an economics degree, HYPSM are great choices. But as you know while both can lead to meaningful employment, there is a big difference in terms of coursework between studying economics as a liberal arts major and being in an undergraduate b-school.

And I agree that acceptance into one of the selective dual-degree programs would also make Penn a strong contender against HYPSM.

Just for the record, students in the College pick Penn over HYPS as well. I’m not saying it happens all the time or even as often as it might happen in Wharton or Engineering-- but the College does a solid job of appealing to its HYPS cross admits. I chose Penn over Yale and Princeton and I had friends in the College who also chose Penn over combinations of those four as well. I recognize the commenters above are speaking generally and have accounted for people like myself and others in their comments-- I also recognize we’re probably not the majority. But I just want to state clearly and publicly that while it’s not the most common choice, there are those of us who do choose the College over HYPS and it might happen more often than you think

@PennCAS2014 - so what would you ballpark the actual cross admit battles look like with HYPS from the college? Are you thinking, say, penn gets 25-30% from these schools (maybe less from h and s)?

@Cue7 since colleges don’t really seem to release the data on this I would feel wrong speculating with that level of precision. But when I ultimately chose Penn over my other top choices, I did so with the inherited belief that I would be one of the only ones who chose Penn for arts and sciences over schools like HYP. In reality, I met lots of students who had done what I did. I also didn’t quiz everyone I met on where they got in-- it was more through organic conversations about what the college process was like for us and seeing students at multiple admitted students days who eventually chose Penn with me that we discovered Penn-HYP cross admit wins weren’t nearly as unheard of as they were made out to be in places like CC. It goes without saying that the majority of students in the College probably did not choose Penn RD over HYP schools (something that is probably true of the university as a whole and each of its schools as well), but we also weren’t so few and far between.

There are also some non-dual-degree recruitment tools (like the Benjamin Franklin Scholars program and the University Scholars Program) that can appeal to someone who might ordinarily choose Princeton, for example, because of its perceived name recognition, but that might enjoy the academic opportunities at Penn even more once exposed to them through these programs. Again, it probably doesn’t overcome the prestige-bump for lots of students who are admitted to both Penn and HYP, but there were students both inside and out of those programs who I came across that did just that. But I would just be speculating if I were to actually guess at a percentage.

@happy1 I think in general there is a difference in curriculum between doing a liberal arts degree and doing undergrad b-school, but i think for Wharton specifically that difference is smaller because Wharton is part of an ivy with strong offerings across the board and about 40% of the classes taken by Wharton undergrads are taken outside Wharton. So I think Wharton provides both a highly technical business education and a well-rounded general education. Same goes for for the non-wharton kids, they can get their liberal arts education plus get technical business skills though Wharton classes if they want to. Penn is very special is that way, imo.

Regarding prestige, I think in business circles the Wharton name is probably only second to the Harvard name. But in terms of general prestige across industries and amongst the general population I think the HYPSM prestige eclipses the Wharton one. For cross-admits who are super focused on studying business that doesn’t matter because they know Wharton is the best place out there for undergrad business. however, for the people who are thinking that they want to eventually end up in business but they are unsure of their major, the lay prestige consideration and the curriculum differences come into play.

We can agree to disagree on the “prestige” factor. I’m a Wharton grad working in business for 30+ years and a Wharton undergrad degree is as good as it gets. In any case it is splitting hairs.

And I certainly understand that a good part of Wharton (or any other b-school) courses are taken in the liberal arts. (And thank goodness for that as everyone should get a well rounded undergraduate education) But I view economics as a liberal arts course of study that is very theoretical at the higher levels in contrast to a b-school which has its own core curriculum and discrete majors. One is not better than the other but they do provide a different background. It is up to each person to pick what is right for him/her. Certainly if one is choosing between HYPSM and Wharton there is no wrong answer.

@happy1 i dont think we are disagreeing here, we are both saying that for business the Wharton name is tops, which is definitely the case.