Hi, I’m a international rising senior in the UAE so I better start my uni applications asap. However, I am not sure whether to apply EA to Stanford or ED to M&T program at UPenn. I have just finished a summer program at UPenn (leadership in the business world at wharton). So I’m interested in pursuing computer science or electrical engineering but also have a passion for business. I intend on either launching a startup or working for a tech company in a position that isn’t 100% technical (Google, Microsoft, Twitter, Fb etc.) . I am aiming to either pursue a BSc at Stanford and then an MBA (either at Stanford or elsewhere) or attend the M&T program where I get a BSc in engineering and a BSE in economics. I know that the likelihood of getting into either of these places are really low but I want to apply to my top choice in the Early round but can’t really figure out which one is better for me. Here are a few pros and cons I have gathered:
Pros of M&T (Cons of stanford):
Would be 2-3 years shorter since I probably won’t require an MBA (would need to spend more time for MBA)
Would probably be able to write a better essay since i have actually lived on campus for 2 weeks and spoken to professors and admissions staff. (Never even visited Stanford apart from researching on Google :P)
Would be 1 in 50 which is better in terms of getting recognised by employers. M&T students are usually considered to be the brainiacs of UPenn and being the brainiac of any Ivy has its advantages. (In Stanford I’ll be 1 in a 1000 super intelligent peers)
Although I do find liberal arts courses interesting, I don’t think they contribute much to my education and M&T hardly has any that are required. (Stanford has plenty)
Cons of M&T (Pros of Stanford):
Not many tech firms in Penn and city is great but not as pleasant as Stanford (Stanford has a pleasant location, great weather, near Silicon Valley)
Lot of stress since workload is A LOT (Comparatively much less stress)
Stanford has a better reputation for Penn in the field that I’m interested in.
So although I feel my chances at M&T are better, it’s still hard to figure out which education is best for me. And don’t get me wrong…I know that it’s EXTREMELY hard to get into these programs but I just want to make sure that I will choose the one that’s best for me to apply during the early round. THANK YOU!
There are many features you can debate, and weigh various pros and cons…but if you want to have an intersection with Silicon Valley then it becomes more simplified, in my mind,–Stanford. Many folks got to schools like the Penn program and others, so they are the position to go to Silicon Valley, but to a certain extend, Stanford is already part of that narrative…Overall, imo, a better school, and the networking for what you want to do is profound–Stanford.
I think the bigger Q is whether you can obtain admission, and I am not being snarky, as that is the same dilemma of most everyone else as well.
If Google or FB or MSFT or AMZN are your end goals, then your chances of being hired by them are greatly improved by applying to the University of Washington as opposed to Stanford or Penn. Your chances of getting into Stanford are likely remote given the thousands of students with similar goals and backgrounds. Be realistic.
Yes, that is true, but per his original post, his specific goal is to work at a VC. VCs, being the finance side of things, are dominated by the schools I previously listed.
If he wants VC, then UW, Cal, UCLA, USC, and other West Coast schools (or MIT) are more realistic bets. Every kid at Stanford wants to be the next Evan Spiegel, whose pop went to Stanford.
@SeattleTW Thank you for the response as well! I do realise that getting into these unis is VERY tough like I’ve mentioned in my post, but I don’t think that should discourage me from applying early because, however unlikely it is to get accepted, there is still a small possibility. Although I recently read that Microsoft hires most of its employees from the University of Washington, the University of Washington doesn’t have any early action or decision admissions so that unfortunately wouldn’t be an option.
Honestly if you really want to work in the Silicon Valley, UW would be my first choice because of its pipeline into Amazon and Microsoft. Not every kid at Stanford creates the next super app. So much depends upon your parents and lucky breaks. For example, Jeff Bezos’ father lent him $300,000 to start Amazon in the early 1990s. He left Princeton already a trust baby.
My daughters friend graduated from USC and is now a partner at a hot VC company in Silicon Valley. You don’t have to go to M&t or Stanford. Just check out the top VC. Even Kleiner Perkins hires from Cal Poly SLO.
This is the premier VC in the valley, and as you can see it is most represented from Harvard and Stanford:-see the following :http://www.kpcb.com/teams
No worries, I just wanted to give the lad a little background on what a typical (well, not sure if kpcb can be called typical) VC looks like from a staff and managers level.
@albert69 Ya, from where I come from, a rising senior is someone going into his/ her senior year…
@Hoggirl Thanks a tons for that link! However, from what I’ve seen the MS&E is targeted towards students who want to take an engineering look at financial matters instead of actually majoring in both engineering and management. The link really helped a lot though!
From what I’ve seen, the university doesn’t matter much when it comes to recruitment (as long as it has some reputation). Stanford students, along with UC and USC students, are more likely to work in the Silicon Valley only because the physical proximity provides more opportunity to get to interact more with these companies. However, if anyone in UPenn is set on Silicon Valley it won’t be much harder to go there than if he was a Stanford student.
Maybe they don’t want to go there. Maybe they have a East Coast preference but nothing stops them. My kid currently in an Airbnb rental in SV and there another Penn student in the same place.
Sorry, that’s not exactly correct. So, while proximity plays some role, is has more to do with the institutional synergy with the valley. So, collaborative relationships and research also texture this dynamic.
I was had similar interests when I was your age. I did a BS in EE at Stanford + co-terminal masters in EE and MS&E. One can combine degrees like this at Stanford, pursuing multiple degrees at the same time and co-terminal masters in fields that differ from the field in which you did your bachelors. Each master’s requires ~1 year’s worth of credits. I was able to finish the first 2 degrees in slightly under 4 years due to Stanford’s generous transfer credits for college courses taken during in HS. I finished the 3rd via their SCPD program while living and working hundreds of miles away. The combined degree program I was in offered opportunities to learn about what worked and failed for different tech companies, and meet some founders of well known start-ups and hear their stories, including one of the founders of Yahoo. Without it I probably wouldn’t have been inspired to start a successful Internet company.
MS&E is targeted towards more than just students who want to take an engineering look at financial matters. Some quotes from the website are below:
Comparing Penn and Stanford, one area with notable differences is location. Stanford will have more campus recruiting/internship, networking, career fair and similar opportunities with CA companies, particularly ones in Silicon Valley, including most that you mentioned; while I’d expect Penn to have the edge for career/networking opportunities with east coast companies. This includes opportunities with NYC banking/consulting companies and such.
Another difference is that Stanford’s REA is not binding. You can apply to Stanford in the early round and Penn in the RD round. You can not do the reverse. However, if you think it is very unlikely that you will get into either, as you wrote in your post, you might instead choose to apply to non-binding EA(s) that you have better odds of acceptance with, so you will likely only need to apply to a small number of colleges RD and can spend more time focusing on those few applications.
