@Raemi11 Nope, I wouldn’t say that Wharton dominates the campus by any means. If anything, the College is the most obvious presence on campus because it houses about half of all undergrad students and every person at Penn will end up interacting with the College at some point (whether they realize it or not! For example, several science and math classes in the engineering requirements are actually housed in the College or taught by College faculty, along with the language classes that Wharton students take, etc.). In terms of campus leadership, you’ll find that CAS students tend to make up the majority of club memberships and many leadership positions, again because of CAS’s larger representation in the school. All of Penn’s schools are doing tons of research and getting a ton of press for it as well-- especially the Med School. Of course Wharton has the best name recognition among the laypeople and outside of the Northeast - that’s certainly no secret. But the campus experience is characterized by cohesive interaction among students from all four schools. I’m not exaggerating when I say that within a month of coming to campus, you’ll all feel more like Penn students than CAS or Wharton students. I lived with, ate with, partied with, studied with, took classes with, exercised with, etc. etc. students from across Penn’s four undergrad schools. You see each other so often and in so many different contexts that any preconceived notions about what “types” of people go to which undergrad school melt away very, very quickly. The idea that “wharton dominates” is just a misconception.
It is true that a lot of students end up going into Ibanking and Finance. But that’s true across the ivies. Several years ago, the Ivy’s quintessential liberal arts college, Dartmouth, had 4 valedictorians and all of them took jobs in banking/finance. It’s a very popular career for high achieving students from the most elite colleges because they’re the low hanging fruit: most people who want them can get them and the employers come right to campus and recruit us so it makes it easy for us to get prestigious careers. That being said, there are tons of resources to help students who do not want to go into those fields at all. The reality, however, is that other industries don’t recruit the same way and so some of the most coveted jobs in politics, for example, will require you to pursue a different, less obvious path to attain them (but that would be true anywhere, not just at Penn). Penn DEFINITELY has the resources to help you get those jobs though. From my graduating class alone I know at least a handful of people who currently work on the Hill, several in the White House, and several in executive departments (like state, treasury, DOD, DHS, etc). I can’t think of anyone with whom I graduated that went to work for a think tank but I looked at the alum directory and I see people from my class at the Brookings Institution and at AEI. I don’t know them personally but they are around!
As for law school admissions, I cannot think of a better school for undergrad. Here’s the link to the Penn Pre Law statistics website: https://www.vpul.upenn.edu/careerservices/20152016lawstats – as you can see the top 5 schools at which Penn undergrads matriculated for Law School last year were Penn, NYU, Harvard, Columbia, and Stanford. If law school is the goal, I can personally assure you that Penn will do wonders in connecting you to that goal.
And yes, you can definitely run for office one day. Penn alums have been in politics since the country was created! But voters care very little where you went to college to be honest. People say voters don’t like ivy league grads but the last 5 Presidents have all been ivy grads and of the opposing candidates, 4 were ivy grads. Penn has had alums become president, governors, mayors, congresspeople, state attorneys general, and many other elected positions all within the last 10 years (adding to its long history of political alums). In addition to all of the elected officials, Penn alums have gone on to appointed positions as well and behind the scenes jobs at places like the SEC and in campaigns and more.
Yes, people do take internships over the school term. I know a person who worked in the Philadelphia DA’s office during the school year. Another friend did the Penn In Washington Semester where you take classes and have an internship. (She’s currently pursuing graduate work at Harvard and intends to run for office one day). Don’t forget the Factcheck.org is actually a Penn creation and you can likely become involved with that as well (among the many other politically oriented institutes and organizations on campus that might allow you to intern with them). And while I’m name dropping, Mary Frances Berry, Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, John DiIulio, and Vice President Joe Biden are all professors at Penn (though Biden’s role as a professor has not been fully fleshed out yet). Being able to interact with these political figures, learn from them, and potentially cultivate relationships with them while on campus will be meaningful experiences as well (disclaimer: you are unlikely to cultivate a relationship with Vice President Joe Biden as he is very busy 
but the rest are there!).
And now feels like a good time to bring up Penn’s Program on Opinion Research and Election Studies:
https://news.upenn.edu/news/penn-pores-offers-undergraduates-role-researching-presidential-primaries
“As a part of a collaboration with the NBC, PORES staff and a select undergraduate students will be staffing the NBC Decision Desk the nights of the primaries. They’ll be working alongside analysts who will write the results of the exit polls for broadcast journalists and Web writers connected to NBC News and MSNBC.”
At the end of the day, if you’re main concern is running for office then your major concern should be about building the best possible network you can. College degrees don’t win elections, but ivy league networks certainly influence them and fund them. Going to Penn grants you membership to an exclusive club with a disproportionate affect on local, national, and international politics. It won’t make you into the type of person who can get elected but it will put at your fingertips all of the resources necessary to start working towards your goals in ways that other universities simply can’t. Finally, this is all especially true along the Northeast Corridor. If your political ambitions will intersect with that region at all, be sure to keep in mind the benefits of building your network close to there.
I hope you enjoy your visit to Penn! Let me know how it goes!!
