Hey Guys,
I recently attended an Alumni forum hosted by Penn, and I heard something very interesting.
One of the 4 alumni and the admissions rep herself both transferred into Wharton! One was in SEAS and the other in the college, and they eventually picked up a 2nd major from Wharton, and then they dropped their first major. I was wondering how common this is. I checked online, and it seems all you need to do is fill out a pdf form and drop by the office to turn it in. Of course you need a certain GPA and all that.
Do you think it will be easier to just pick up a second major from Wharton?
Also, if I’m in Wharton, can I add a 2nd major as NETS(Network and Social Systems Engineering)?
Will it be easier than what? getting into Wharton in the first place? No. The difference between the acceptance rate at Wharton and the acceptance rate in the College is about the same as the difference between the acceptance rate at Stanford and the acceptance rate at Princeton-- which is to say- negligible. And people on CC have been saying that SEAS now has about the same acceptance rate as Wharton. So unless you think that it’s SIGNIFICANTLY easier to get into Princeton than Stanford (which, if you do, then we have more here to worry about than acceptance rates 
), you should just apply to the school at Penn at which you think your academic interests will be most completely met. So, once a student at Penn, internally adding a second degree isn’t difficult, but today it is pretty equally hard to get into Penn’s undergrad schools so one isn’t likely to have the opportunity to add a second degree anyway.
It is not particularly common for students to pick up an uncoordinated dual degree (essentially, being admitted to Wharton and then adding a major from the College of Arts & Sciences) but it’s certainly possible. More than the forms and the GPA, you’ll just need an ACTUAL reason why your intellectual needs aren’t being met in the school to which you originally matriculated and how the second degree will help you in your educational goals. I know students who seemed qualified on paper but were not permitted to pick up the second major because it wasn’t clear that their curricular needs could not be met simply by taking courses in the different schools. I also knew students who seemed far less qualified on paper but had an outstanding reason about why they needed the second degree in marketing to supplement their degree in art history.
In all, the acceptance rates at Wharton, the College, and SEAS are so close that you should just apply to the program that you want to study in because your odds of getting in don’t actually improve by applying to one over the other. At the same time, the liklihood of conveying passion about what you actually want to study goes up markedly when you don’t have to fake it- so your essay about “why wharton” will probably be much stronger than your “why SEAS” essay if you actually care most about business and not engineering.
Finally, I’m not sure about NETS but on their website it seems to indicate that dual degrees are not permitted with NETS- though I can’t tell if they mean that students already enrolled in a dual degree cannot also join NETS or if NETS students are not permitted to have a second enrollment in the College or Wharton. http://www.nets.upenn.edu/how-to-apply – my inclination is to say that for this program, dual degrees are not allowed.
@PennCAS2014
" http://www.nets.upenn.edu/how-to-apply – my inclination is to say that for this program, dual degrees are not allowed."
That is how I read that too, but I have been told that there may have been a few exceptions for the right student. Student would need to discuss the possibility with their faculty advisor and the NETS program coordinator.
I have the impression that the greatest limiting factor is that the NETS requirements are more extensive than they are for most majors. Still there are definitely students at Penn who can manage it with an additional major.