sloan vs. wharton

<p>which one is better as an UG business school? what about say finding good jobs in financing after graduation? they have both been placed as the best, so i'm wondering whether someone can give me a detailed comparison...thanks in advance.</p>

<p>Wharton is better for finance. Sloan is better for technology management. </p>

<p>What's nice about Sloan (and MIT in general) is that, once you've been admitted to MIT, you can pick and choose whatever you want to major in. As long as you can complete the work, you will be awarded the degree. So if you come in thinking you want to major in EECS but then find out that you'd rather get a Sloan degree, you just do it. At Penn, you can't just 'decide' one fine day that you want to go to Wharton and then just go. If you weren't already in Wharton, you have to get admitted to Wharton, and that's no cakewalk. </p>

<p>However, personally, the differences between the two program are slight. I would worry about first getting in, and if you can get into both, then you can decide. But if you can only get into one (or none), then the point is moot.</p>

<p>I got rejected by both.</p>

<p>f***.</p>

<p>Untilted, I suffered the same result this year. The rejection from UPenn ED wasn't that bad, since I was hoping for acceptance to MIT Sloan. When I got my rejection letter from MIT, however, I have to admit that I was seething in rage and humiliation. Finding out from my friends that girls with lower stats and from this forum that new Americans with lower stats had gotten accepted over me and other elites didn't help. </p>

<p>Thus, may the Powers burn the mouth who suggested class diversity over talent! May they punish the person who advocated equality of the sexes!</p>

<p>yeah, i can well imagine just how competitive these two schools are...but im curious about your decision, flame<em>of</em>wrath, cuz it coincides with mine. Do you think that, in general, like purely in terms of stats, that wharton ED is harder to get in than sloan RD? By all means, anyone is more than welcome to answer.</p>

<p>me.mv, I think that since so many people apply ED to Ivy League Schools and good universities, now just so they can get in (lets forget the post-admittance groans and transfers to other colleges for now), applying ED gives you the higher rigor of screening that you would get in RD.</p>

<p>In other words, since I think (note the work "think") that the amount of ED people is rapidly approaching that of the RD people, the admissions dudes have to reject/defer a whole bunch of ED people in order to make room for the RD guy-whose-dad-gave-1-billion-dollars-to-UPenn. </p>

<p>Instead of being super-friendly and accepting to those in the ED pool, the admissions officials are now very critical because the ED pool is just so big nowadays.</p>

<p>Oh yeah, my stats was</p>

<p>GPA: 3.53 Unweighted, 4.01 Weighted
SAT I: 1530
SAT II's: 790 Physics, 760 Math IIC, 670 Writing, 730 Literature.
No AP's at the time of application.</p>

<p>What shocked me was that a guy with 1590 SAT, 800's on all SAT II's, five 5's on APs, and a 3.93-sh unweighted GPA was rejected by MIT! As was a guy with similar GPA, SAT II's, but SAT I 1540.</p>

<p>Just trying to establish a better reason of why I am now superbitter at girls who are admitted just so that MITl can boast of a good boy-girl balance (from my earlier post).</p>

<p>From a different point of view, I was accepted to MIT (with the intention of majoring in management at Sloan) and Wharton, and I chose Wharton. </p>

<p>I went to MIT's preview weekend, and the students and faculty there seemed to view Sloanies as people who couldn't handle the engineering curriculum; this was somewhat justified, as a large portion of kids in Sloan didn't actually enter MIT intending on majoring in Business. It seemed to be more of a fallback major for kids who weren't doing well in engineering. The Sloan bulding is all the way on the edge of campus, really far away from all the dorms. People at the school in general seemed to hold engineering majors in much higher regard.</p>

<p>At Penn, the attitude was totally different. Wharton is Penn's pride and joy. They just built a gorgeous new building with cutting-edge technology, and everyone at Penn seems to value and respect Whartonites. For business, Wharton is hands down the best. It makes more sense than MIT if that's the direction you're headed; Wharton had an 84% yield rate, showing that the people who apply know it's the best for what they want to do. </p>

<p>Also, the core curriculum at MIT has a ton of science and math classes; while these are useful, extra courses in subjects like finance, management, or global economics would probably be more useful in the business workforce than Physics. Wharton's curriculum just made more sense as far as practicality is concerned. </p>

<p>If you go to Wharton, you'll have everything you need to be successful after graduation; only about half of Wharton grads find it necessary to go back to get their MBA while about three quarters of MIT grads do. Also, while lots of the big names recruit at both places, Wharton is a definite for EVERY big bank's recruiting stops. They'd be less likely to stop and recruit at MIT simply because the interest is smaller. </p>

<p>Bottom line - They're both great schools, and you can't go wrong, but I think Wharton has the edge. Feel free to message me if you have questions =)</p>

<p>To expand on the recruitment point - Here are some recruitment schedules at major firms. Even though Sloan is ranked highly, it's often left off the road map simply because it's traditionally thought of as more of an engineering school, where Penn is a hot spot for business. </p>

<p>On the following lists, you'll find Wharton but not MIT, just an example of how Sloan can get screwed over because of MIT's techie reputation:</p>

<p><a href="http://www.sgcowen.com/AboutSGCowen_697.htm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.sgcowen.com/AboutSGCowen_697.htm&lt;/a>
<a href="http://www.lazard.com/careers/FA-NA-UG.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.lazard.com/careers/FA-NA-UG.html&lt;/a>
<a href="http://www.barcap.com/campusrecruitment/analysts/calendar.shtml#%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.barcap.com/campusrecruitment/analysts/calendar.shtml#&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>eighteenforluck - i dunno how true that is. The examples you have brought up are only 3(not to mention 2 of them aren't all that prestigious..... just look at their other recruiting locations) out of many firms. I would think that Sloan does just as well as Wharton in recruiting... worst comes to worse, you can always go to that OTHER school in Cambridge. </p>

<p>On my perspective on business and such, I have a friend who went to Haas undergrad and is now at Wharton MBA. He worked at CSFB and knew quite a bit about i-banking. His perspective is that within the top echelon of major recruiting schools, they are almost all similar in recruiting. Hell, it might even be easier to go into ibanking from Sloan than Wharton. Don't forget, at Wharton, EVERYONE wants to go into ibanking and consulting while many at Sloan are interested in entrepeneurship and such. </p>

<p>I, like eighteenforluck, was also admitted to MIT (didnt apply to Wharton.. was about to, decided that the extra essay on why i wanted penn was too hard) and went to prefrosh weekend. It definitely seems that Sloanies takes a back seat to the engineering majors although many of the engineering kids still hold much respect for the Sloanies. The environment at MIT was definitely more techie and science feel than the professional atmosphere you will feel at Wharton(the new Wharton building is incredible.... Huntsman is one rich ass bastard). In the end, however, I turned down MIT (and probably Sloan) for an economics degree from its "rival" down the street. If you are interested in undergrad business, an economics degree from HYPS will do just as well as someone with an undergrad business degree.</p>

<p>Thanks for the input, both of you.</p>

<p>The thing is now, business has become an eventual goal rather than an immediate topic in my life. After getting rejected from Whar/Slo and becoming stuck in University of Maryland College Park, I decided to rally myself and go into the sciences at Purdue University, West Lafayette. Can you believe it? I applied in April and got accepted!</p>

<p>I believe that Wharton and Sloan are both great schools, but that the admissions officials are just loonies. Oh yeah, I'm curious: irock1ce, how come Harvard never shows up in the USNews Undergraduate Business Ranking? Just thought it was odd.</p>

<p>they don't have a UG business school :)</p>

<p>You serious? Nothing? Crazy!</p>

<p>So that means that nobody can get an accounting degree or even a simple marketing degree from that school??!!</p>

<p>My eyes are seriously about to bulge out of my sockets in shock.</p>

<p>You can't go wrong with either school. Most likely, the decision would make itself - it would be quite a feat to get into both. If you are in that position, go with your gut feeling - because your success on graduation will depend upon how successful you are in college, and you'll do better if you are in sync with your environment.</p>

<p>if you want to learn accounting, going to harvard won't help you. UIUC and UT-Austin are the ways to go..........</p>

<p>
[quote]
Also, the core curriculum at MIT has a ton of science and math classes; while these are useful, extra courses in subjects like finance, management, or global economics would probably be more useful in the business workforce than Physics. Wharton's curriculum just made more sense as far as practicality is concerned ...</p>

<p>...To expand on the recruitment point - Here are some recruitment schedules at major firms. Even though Sloan is ranked highly, it's often left off the road map simply because it's traditionally thought of as more of an engineering school, where Penn is a hot spot for business. </p>

<p>On the following lists, you'll find Wharton but not MIT, just an example of how Sloan can get screwed over because of MIT's techie reputation:

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</p>

<p>Well, I don't know about that. You guys are basically saying that MIT loses out because of its highly technical background and that finance companies don't want people with that kind of background. If that is so, then why is it that numerous IB's and hedge funds recruit plenty of MIT engineers? Not Sloanies, but engineers? For example, for many years now, one of the biggest recruiters of MIT EECS students has been Goldman Sachs. Why is that, if banks don't want people with technical backgrounds? In fact, often times, MIT engineers are more successful than Sloanies are in getting IB jobs. </p>

<p>I would point out that it's not just at MIT where this happens. Arguably the biggest IB recruiting ground at Stanford is the Stanford engineering school. In many years, more Berkeley engineers get IB and finance jobs than Haas students get. It would seem to me that these banks are not at all scared to hire people with highly technical backgrounds.</p>

<p>I would also point out that IB hiring is certainly not as deterministic as some people here think. The fact is, it really doesn't matter what classes you take. i know that sounds bad, but it's true. You can get into an IB knowing nothing about finance. For example, I've seen Harvard and Yale English and history students get hired by IB's, despite never having taken a single finance, accounting, or economics course before in their lives. The fact is, these are things that you can learn fairly quickly. What can't be learned quickly are things like personality, work ethic, drive, the physical stamina to work 90 hours a week, and that sort of thing. That's what IB's are really looking for. That's why Harvard and Yale are so successful in getting people into IB, despite not holding many courses on finance, or accounting, or any of those other things. You don't even really need an economics degree. It's not that deterministic of a process. </p>

<p>What I would say is that Wharton probably has a slight edge on Sloan when it comes to IB simply because Wharton has more established IB ties, which means that there is a stronger network of Wharton grads on Wall Street. But to say it's because of the superiority of the coursework seems dubious to me. IB's have never shown much of an interest in coursework before (hence, that's why Harvard English majors can get in), so I don't know why they would now.</p>

<p>Sakky, I agree - engineering majors are popular with IBs, but he was asking about finance jobs for an undergrad business major, not an engineering major. When I talked about the "techie" reputation, I meant that a lot of Sloan undergrad majors end up on the business end (usually doing some sort of quant. analysis as opposed to pure finance) of technological companies such as Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, etc. , because they heavily recruit MIT students. Compared to Sloan's list, you'll see that Wharton grads often end up at more "traditional" finance powerhouses. Of course, though, you'll see people from both schools end up with both types of positions - a lot of it depends on personal preferences, too. </p>

<p>It's little off topic from the OP's undergrad business question, but Sakky is right that a lot of engineering undergrad majors end up working for IBs or other financial corporations (However, they're usually sent to get their MBA at some point to brush up on their business skills). In fact, like you said, lots of times the MIT engineer will beat out the Sloan kid because it's known that the engineering curriculum at MIT is insanely rigorous. This is an alternative yet solid path to take, because engineers are great problem-solvers and are almost always successful in the business world. Also, for this reason, you may want to consider a double major at MIT or UPenn's Management & Technology (M&T) program. </p>

<p>The only thing I really disagree with from the previous post is the suggestion that undergrad English majors, even those from Ivies, do just as well at IB firms. While it's true that connections can play a large role in landing a job, what they do once they've gotten the job is another story. IB first-years undergo an extensive training program in which they compete and are compared to the other newbies. While this is only hearsay, my brother (now an associate for an IB) says that people who graduated from business schools like Wharton, UMich, Sloan, Stern, etc. consistently rank highest and get into the most prestigious and high-paying groups. They've already seen a lot of the material, so they tend to pick everything up more quickly. </p>

<p>Anyway, as everyone's been saying, getting into either school would make you set. Even if ypu're rejected, you're obviously pretty smart if you're considering schools of this caliber, so you'll (and you, too, flames<em>of</em>wrath) undoubtedly succeed wherever you go. Just food for thought. =)</p>

<p>
[quote]
Sakky, I agree - engineering majors are popular with IBs, but he was asking about finance jobs for an undergrad business major, not an engineering major. When I talked about the "techie" reputation, I meant that a lot of Sloan undergrad majors end up on the business end (usually doing some sort of quant. analysis as opposed to pure finance) of technological companies such as Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, etc. , because they heavily recruit MIT students...

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Yet it is perfectly relevant. It has been asserted that banks don't like Sloanies relative to Wharton students because banks don't really like hiring techies. I am demonstrating that banks don't mind hiring lots of engineers, and engineers are obviously techie. Heck, an MIT engineer is clearly more 'techie' than a Sloanie. So if it's really true that banks don't like Sloanies because they're too techie, then why do those same banks seem to have no problem in hiring engineers? </p>

<p>
[quote]
It's little off topic from the OP's undergrad business question, but Sakky is right that a lot of engineering undergrad majors end up working for IBs or other financial corporations (However, they're usually sent to get their MBA at some point to brush up on their business skills).

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Uh, actually, nearly ALL banking analysts get sent off to get their MBA's. It's not just the guys who came in from engineering. It's not just the guys who came in with English degrees from Harvard and Yale. It's basically everybody. It's just basically understood that analyst jobs last for about 2 years, maybe 3 if you're really good, and then after that nearly everybody is expected to go off to B-school. </p>

<p>
[quote]
The only thing I really disagree with from the previous post is the suggestion that undergrad English majors, even those from Ivies, do just as well at IB firms. While it's true that connections can play a large role in landing a job, what they do once they've gotten the job is another story. IB first-years undergo an extensive training program in which they compete and are compared to the other newbies. While this is only hearsay, my brother (now an associate for an IB) says that people who graduated from business schools like Wharton, UMich, Sloan, Stern, etc. consistently rank highest and get into the most prestigious and high-paying groups. They've already seen a lot of the material, so they tend to pick everything up more quickly.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I never said they did just as well once they're in. I'm simply talking about the hiring process. And the fact is, banks hire a LOT of people with surprising majors, including English majors, Biology majors, History majors, and so forth. </p>

<p>In fact, anecdotally speaking, I would surmise that it's clearly easier to get into IB with a non-business degree from Harvard than with a business degree from a no-name school. In fact, even a business degree from a name-school may not be as useful as a Harvard degree. For example, I strongly suspect that it may be easier to get into IB from Harvard than from, say, the Berkeley Haas School or the Michigan Ross School, despite the fact that Harvard does not offer a business undergrad degree. The way I would think of it is, I suspect that plenty of Berkeley Haas students would rather be going to Harvard, but not too many Harvard students would rather be going to Haas. Yet if Haas students really were getting better job offers than the Harvard students are, then the Harvard students should want to switch over. I doubt that they want to. </p>

<p>The point is, it doesn't really matter if you would have been more successful at some bank than another guy if that bank doesn't hire you and instead hires that other guy. You have to get into the company before you can succeed at the company.</p>

<p>
[quote]
You serious? Nothing? Crazy!</p>

<p>So that means that nobody can get an accounting degree or even a simple marketing degree from that school??!!

[/quote]
</p>

<p>You do realize the majority of the "elites" do not have undergrad business, right? M is the only one of HYPSM that has it. Cornell and Penn are the only Ivies that have it, and many other Ivy-equivalents with top B-schools (Duke, Chicago, Northwestern) also don't have undergrad business programs. If you hunt through the curriculum you can find biz courses (finance, management, marketing, etc) but there is still no formal degree.</p>

<p>BTW, I'd also tone down the bitterness about admissions. To be blunt, your stats were not as strong as you probably thought they were. Your rejection can probably be attributed to that more than any kind of affirmative action.</p>