<p>Well I have quite the decision and I will be visiting both shortly. Does anyone else have/had this decision on this board? M&T is so unique, but I feel as if UPenn's reputation is taking a hit this admission cycle (note the use of cycle..meaning it will improve). Anyways what would you do? Princeton Financial Engineering with a certificate program or UPenn M&T? Any comments regarding either institution/program will be greatly appreciated. Persuade me please. </p>
<p>By the way, price is not an issue. I can't believe I have this decision, but it is one I am glad to have.</p>
<p>Personally, what did it for me was the fact that you have a greater flexibility of strong majors here at Princeton, and a greater breadth of talent.</p>
<p>I can’t speak much for M&T, but for ORFE itself, it’s a very solid major for the right kind of person (those who enjoy Applied Math + Econ type thinking).</p>
<p>Somehow the idea has become firmly rooted in nearly everyone’s head that colleges are like so many hamburgers and yes some hamburgers are really good, but they are still more alike in being hamburgers than they could ever be different from one another. Instead of the hamburger paradigm use another paradigm, music. Now some music means so much to you that the fact that there are other kinds of music out there just sinks into irrelevance. Colleges are made to engage every aspect of you physically, spiritually and socially, like music. Listen and allow yourself to be knocked on your ass by what you experience. Personally, my expectation would be that the transformative effect will be experienced at Princeton.</p>
<p>I go to Columbia, so not too much of a bias either way. M&T is top of the recruiting food chain on wall street. It does better than any other program in any other school. M&T is as good for consulting as Harvard and better at finance (IBD, trading, investment management, quant hedge funds) than anything. I’ve seen M&T resumes, their preparation for wall street just blows you away. A 3.7 from M&T and some marginal extra-curricular involvement, with appropriate coursework gets you into pretty much any interview you could possibly want and it’ll be easier to get a higher gpa at Penn. It’s a real boutique program with brilliant kids and on penn’s campus you’re the ■■■. Unless you hate penn for some reason, or got into H and want to pursue something like consulting, M&T is too good to let up on. People who recruit know exactly the program’s value and prestige, it isn’t just like going to U Penn. Wharton vs. Princeton might have been a different story.</p>
<p>The dilemma posed by “Why me?” is one DD is faced with. She has been accepted into the Penn M&T program and at Princeton. She liked the M&T program itself, but didn’t care very much for Penn as a whole. Princeton is Princeton.</p>
<p>Points to ponder, as I see it:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Wharton business is #1, no question. However, Penn Engineering while good is not GREAT (per rankings at least). Since M&T combines Wharton & Engineering, is the engineering side of the equation perhaps weaker?? Any thoughts?</p></li>
<li><p>Princeton has an array of certificate programs, for e.g., the certificate in sustainable energy – of special interest to DD. These certificates allow a student to differentiate oneself, much like M&T differentiates a student from the standard Wharton graduate.</p></li>
<li><p>True, Princeton does not have a business school, but one simply cannot go wrong with the top notch liberal arts offerings at Princeton. There is a reason that Princeton is #2 (used to be #1 ahead of Harvard until last year).</p></li>
<li><p>Princeton has a REAL focus on undergraduate education. We visited five of the Ivies last summer (all except Brown, Cornell and Dartmouth) and found that unique emphasis on undergraduate education to be true only at Princeton. The student body speaks for itself – I believe it is the only Ivy with significantly more undergraduate than graduate students. That said, we understand that M&T students also get a lot of special attention. Thoughts on this, anyone???</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Like “why me” cost is not an issue (well, both Penn and Princeton will break the bank, but we’ve been planning for this). So we are extremely fortunate to have this choice, but it is not going to be easy!!!</p>
<p>Thanks in advance for any thoughts on either Penn’s M&T program or Princeton, and especially a comparison of the two.</p>
<p>In response to confidentialcoll’s post, I have to disagree a bit. M&T is indeed a fantastic program and at my firm, almost all the kids we take from Penn are either M&T or Huntsman. That being said, that just brings them on par with the recruits from Princeton and Harvard. As for consulting, theres no real advantage between any of HYP over one another so I’m not sure where thats coming from.</p>
<p>Also, don’t put too much stock into UG business rankings/an attached business school. Wharton, Princeton, Harvard have no real discernible differences in how they place into finance.</p>
<p>Penn and Princeton are very different schools but do keep in mind that Penn engineering isn’t all that great while Princeton’s program is actually quite solid. Both will place you in finance very well so I’d say you should make your decision on where you think you would be happier for 4 years, Philly and Princeton are very different places. In my perspective, with its insane UG focus and beautiful campus everyone would always be happier in princeton but thats obviously very biased :)</p>
<p>A former roommate of mine chose Princeton over M&T and is very pleased with the decision. I believe he’s now ORFE with a Computer Science certificate, which is a very rigorous preparation for whatever finance/wall st job he’s aiming for.</p>
<p>After I graduate, I want to be involved in the mechatronics/prosthesis industry (possibly with R&D or management). I might also want to get a Ph.D. in an engineering field with hopes of being involved in the same field. Basically, I wouldnt want to work in finance, investing, or anything on wallstreet. Would M&T be a better choice because it would give me more experience with the business side (management/entrepreneurship) of the engineering industry or would Princeton Engineering with some certificates be better for me?</p>
<p>I’m not quite sure why Cornell is viewed as being so much stronger than Princeton for engineering. All my BSE friends went on to top notch grad school programs and certainly seemed to do no worse than my friends at MIT, Cornell or other “engineering” schools. Princeton and Cornell’s engineering depts are certainly comparable, are ranked closely and either would certainly prepare you just as well for a career in engineering. </p>
<p>That said, if you do want to be an engineer I wouldn’t consider M&T at all, Penn engineering just isnt a very good program.</p>