Stanford vs Penn M&T

I was recently accepted REA to Stanford. I am debating whether I should go ahead and submit my Penn M&T app. Could anyone give their perspective on what Penn M&T could offer that Stanford can’t, or just the differences between Penn and Stanford as schools? If anyone faced the same dilemma before, how did you choose? I am not saying that I will definitely get into M&T. I know it is super competitive. I only want to determine if I should even consider it over Stanford in case I did get in, and therefore if I should bother applying.

My intended major is bioengineering and Econ at Stanford, and would be bioengineering and finance & healthcare management at Penn.

What do you want to do long-term?

stanford is a very relaxed/friendly, but also competitive environment. there are lots of interesting and diverse people who are all very kind. most people at penn are rich white kids (usually from nyc elite private schools) who kinda just stick to themselves and its very fratty there. you only get finance internships at penn if you have connections, like most of the kids there. unless you have a lot of money to impress elitist snobs stanford is your best choice. but maybe that is just the experience of the few people ive talked to and M&T is a great program so I would apply anyway and talk to more people about penn if you get in (which you hopefully will!)

@jbrad2868 this is definitely not true about Penn You definitely don’t need connections to get finance or any other type of internships. Of course like in any other school connections could help. Penn is actually one of the most racially diverse ivies and definitely not known for having an overly elitist and preppy vibe compared to many other ivies and top schools.

@ivyoxbridge1 Penn is actually the ivy that is most similar to Stanford. Both are preprofessional with a strong liberal arts side, both are now for their great social life, students are friendly and social but also very driven and both are very entrepreneurial and practically-oriented.

If it was Stanford vs general Penn I d say go for Stanford, but since it is M&T the choice is not that clear. There is a good number of kids who choose M&T over Stanford. The advantages of M&T over Stanford would be that you get to major in business instead of general economics. Especially for a student with an interest in a specific area of business, like yourself, this could be a big deal. You won’t be able to major in healthcare management or finance at Stanford for example. The other benefit is the degree of individualized attention and resources M&T students have access to. There is an entire M&T office at Penn with multiple staff that is dedicated to providing academic and professional counseling exclusively to the 200 or so M&T students. Also the M&T alumni network is incredibly close-knit and organizes many events throughout the year. Finally the M&T name has a lot of clout in sophisticated employer circles.

That said there are many pros for Stanford too. Stanford has higher overall prestige and name recognition, stronger engineering school, stronger economics department, it is a bit smaller in size and has overall a more impressive student body and also better weather.

@ivyoxbridge1, if you are genuinely interested in business and technology, Penn M&T is the best place for this. Wharton will provide fantastic
business education for your undergraduate. UCB just established a similar program. If you look at more current student and graduate profiles in Penn M&T, you may have a more clear idea. Admitted to Penn M&T is highly competitive. It was common that someone were admitted to Stanford but not Penn M&T. Good luck.

@jbrad2868 That is completely false in regards to Penn. Very few students get jobs because of full-time jobs connection. The top firms (except maybe Blackstone) just want the smartest people and connections play effectively no part.

If you want more opportunities in finance, then M&T is the better option.

I am a happy parent of a Penn freshman. I am also the uncle of a STANFORD grad. I would go to STANFORD. It is a beautiful campus, good weather, and an amazing place to go to school. They have big time pac 12 sports that unifies the campus. Their alum are now second to none. The post graduate opportunities are special. Penn has many wonderful opportunities as well. I Jerry st think STANFORD is a bit more special and prestigious.

Connections never hurt (and it’s always better to have connections), but the beauty of a top school is that the school itself can serve as a connection! If you get into a school like UPenn or Duke or Northwestern, the school itself will open up doors for you.

Re the conversation about Stanford v. Penn, @Penn95 is right that UPenn has similarities to Stanford, BUT @Penn95 underplays the gap between these schools.

Stanford is, right now, poised to become the pre-eminent American university - something Harvard has never relinquished in the past 300 years. That’s huge.

Remember, a college decision sticks with you a long while. Right now, based on any possible metric - strength of departments, fundraising capability, etc. - Stanford wins. And that’s BEFORE we take into account that they not only have pre-eminent academics, they’re #1 for sports. Also, the talent pool is more concentrated - Stanford’s undergrad is considerably smaller than UPenn’s.

Stanford is UPenn academics on steroids, with better weather, unmatched sports, and an ascedant trajectory. I have the most confidence in what Stanford’s standing will look like in 20-30 years - more than even Harvard’s.

Penn M&T is strong, but why would you turn all that down at Stanford?

All is personal opinions. S is one of the elite schools but not the only one. Also, S has her own problems and disadvantages as other top schools have. The difference between S and other schools such as H, P, Y, Penn, etc. is not substantial in a reality. Both S and Penn are a pro-professional school with excellent liberal arts education among top colleges. Someone enrolled BS/MD in BU or other schools but declined S. Others attended Penn in particular H, M&T and LSM dual-degree programs and other colleges but not S. IF OP is genuinely interested in BUSINESS/FINANCE and technology, Penn M&T is a smart choice. OP may research the outcomes of Penn M&T in the past 30 years. Just my 2 cents for OP, no arguments with others.

@J2H239 - you raise good points, and the outcomes from M&T are great, but Stanford right now is at the very top of the mountain, and looks poised to stay there for decades to come. There’s excitement and a boldness to Stanford that make it perhaps the quintessential top American university.

A college decision can stay with you for decades. Why turn Stanford down? Every year it’s becoming harder and harder to turn S down.

@Cue7 I agree with most of your points. I’d choose Stanford over Penn unless I was dead set on going into IB/PE/HF in which case M&T would be the better option. Hell, Stanford only beats out Dartmouth among the Ivies in terms of how many graduates it places in each year’s analyst class, and even then barely for a school that’s twice as big as Dartmouth.

The only point I’d disagree on — Stanford is certainly established as a preeminent institution, but realistically I wouldn’t choose Stanford over Harvard for undergrad. Maybe that’s just East Coast bias though.

There is nothing you can’t achieve at Stanford. There is a reason why Stanford grads don’t flock to finance/wall street…they are chasing other opportunities/avenues. @BigPapiofthree is right on…Stanford, at least at this point in time, is the best package. It’s no longer about a specific program. Don’t get me wrong, Penn is a good school.

From Wharton, you get systemic and top notch business education, from management 101, marketing , accounting, finance… You can not get from anywhere else. Undergraduate engineering education is not much different across top schools. It really depends individual ability to use the resources.

There is no a clear conclusion regarding S vs Penn (M&T, Wharton) to others but OP who might get admitted to Penn M&T first.

Something may be outside of the discussion but relevant:
In general, S is linked to SV and IT/Startup; Penn (M&T, Wharton) is tied to WS and Finance/Money.
In a practical way, which one (SV and IT/Startup vs Finance/Money) is more critical…

Members above have already painted quite a clear picture of how Stanford compares to Penn. I am so sure when you submitted your early application to Stanford at that moment that you had no doubt you would go to Stanford.
The question is if you really like Stanford that much then why would you ask about Penn m&t program? That comes down to the fact that you must found something very solidly interesting about this program that you have started to have a second thought about your first choice. Don’t worry, this is absolutely normal and common for today’s college application processes. Penn M&T has been institutionalized for decades, graduates from this program are(were) very carefully screened and chosen. Prestigious firms responded to this form of penn training very favorably and would continue to recruite those graduates. Many experienced members in this forum had mentioned many times that it is not surprised to see M&T students turning down other top choices. In other words, all these kids are qualified to enroll in any top schools without hesitations.

Your most important part of the question is what would you like to get from this M&T program that Stanford can not immediately provide you? Stanford has management science and engineering, Berkeley has MET, MIT has new program in econ and compsci joint degree, and Princeton, Columbia and Others have financial engineering. But none of these similar named programs can be compared with the long successful program of PENN’s M&T. You major in penn’s compsci or one major engineering field and at the same time in Wharton’ famous applied Econ degree program, with all your friends surrounding with similar goals and levels. You must remember that before you enter that university, that is the name it will affect you, once you are actually in the university and that is the department it affects you most. Finally when you set foot on Stanford or M&T program, it will be the people in that particular program will affect you most. You still have time to decide, but one thing for sure there will not be one best choice or university for all students. Their need, interest, goal and talent come first. My best luck with you.

@Cue7 Not underplaying the difference between the schools. The difference is for sure there and I explicitly mentioned the difference in overall prestige, strength for most departments and of the student body. But it is also common knowledge that Penn M&T is really special and cross-admits routinely turn down even Harvard, Stanford, MIT to attend. This is not a simple Penn vs Stanford undergrad comparison.

You are downplaying M&T and what it can provide for kids with very specific academic and professional interests. At M&T you are a big fish in an already very big pond. At Stanford the same person will be an above-average fish in probably the biggest or second-biggest pond there is. The level of individual attention, guidance and resources the M&T and other coordinated Penn dual degree kids get is simply unparalleled. Penn M&T is for sure a very smart choice for kids like OP, which is why many kids with OPs credentials choose to enroll every year even over HYPSM choices.

@aoeuidhtns Nah these days people see Stanford as fully equivalent, tons of people turn down Harvard to attend, even east coast students. Harvard/Stanford are seen as the top two schools.

@Penn95 - what do you mean by “routinely” choose Penn M&T over Stanford? That may be misrepresenting what’s going on. It’s more accurate to say that “on occasion, applicants choose Penn M&T over Stanford, and this number is probably dwindling.” (This is based on Stanford’s ever-increasing yield, which is now in the 80% range.

Also, M&T is a great program - it’s a market-leading program, but it’s important to remember it’s a program and the applicant is choosing a school. Penn M&T students have their own building, great advising, etc., but they are still part of the U. more broadly. The Stanford experience offers a lot that simply can’t be replicated anywhere else.

There are universities out there with wonderful individualized programs that offer lots of benefits - Penn M&T, Brown PLME, UNC’s Morehead Scholars, etc. But I think we all need to keep in mind just how consequential progress in Palo Alto has been. I don’t yet concede the title of best research U to Stanford (that title still lies to the U in Cambridge MA, with their 300 years at the top counting for something), but the battle is getting very close indeed.

It’d be cool to be able to participate in that contest. The OP couldn’t by coming to UPenn - either now or, most likely, in the future.

A final point - M&T is wonderful, but it’s a narrower track. If the OP ever wanted to switch gears (not an unreasonable position for a 18 yo), Stanford is the best place not named Harvard to do so. The risk averse part of me, then, also finds the Stanford draw irresistible.

Let’s for a moment assumed that you also got in M&T at Penn and you decided that you would be a top financial analyst once you graduate. Here is one track you can consider when you get there. You take compsci as a major and absorb all the tech skills in the compsci world by taking algorithm, adv adlgorithm and network, machine learning and game theory algorithms etc. Shortly after you will be well versed in their programming circles and get very easy to communicate with the top tech people. Then on the same campus within 1/4 mile, you jump into Wharton world and take all the operation, information and decision courses in order to perfecting your operational skills in the management world, and to be even more ambitious you want to cover all the so-called financial engineering by enrolling in all the statistical and stochastic process, time series in Wharton statistics dept and merge them with all the other skills you got in the M&T Program. If and if you can survive (assuming you are truly smart enough) all these courses with all those top guns in this unique program. You might be one of the unbeatable best analyst in this tech and financial world. This is just a suggestion for the OP.

@soundfirst5 - you could easily make the exact same argument about Stanford - only you could add, if the OP had ANY interest in taking virtually any class outside of his/her “track,” almost all of Stanford’s departments are world-class. So, if the OP wanted to take econ or bio or sociology or psychology or history or whatever classes to round out his/her education, the best in the world would be at the OP’s fingertips at Stanford…

Oh, and you’ll also have great weather, access to world-class sports, and you’re classmates could be Olympic gold medalists, nfl quarterbacks, etc.

Oh, and the school is smaller, so the talent pool is more concentrated.

And the school is on the ascendancy - there’s a chance that within 10 years, it’s the unparalleled top research university in the world.

It’s hard to turn that all down for any place not called Harvard.