<p>If you want to work in Europe in the future, go to Oxford
If in the United States, go to Wharton</p>
<p>Honestly, I think the point is Oxford will really "enrich" you as an "intellectual", whereas Wharton will train you to be someone proficient using excel-spreadsheets. </p>
<p>Wharton is excellent... but I think the consensus is that Oxford trumps it. Also, keep in mind that Oxford's Economics program (you have to apply specifically for it) is one of the HARDEST to gain admittance into at Oxford and it is VERY well recognized. Oxford's undergrad econ program also doesnt tie into the more recent Oxford B-School--- the undergrad econ program is EXTREMELY prestigious in Europe, definitely as much as a Wharton degree if not moreso.</p>
<p>funny thing is that the European presence at ugrad Penn doesnt seem to be very intellectual. Mostly wharton brats who couldn't write english to save their lives and uber vain glamourous bichis in the college. anyone else notice that?</p>
<p>Go to Oxford. Wharton's pure job training. Yea it's got a world class faculty, blah blah blah, but that means nothing in terms of the education. Once you've taken one upper level finance class, you've taken them all, since every thing else is just a rehash of the same stuff, over and over and over and over again. Wharton will kill any sense of intellectualism in you. Economics is not finance, it actually requires thought and understanding - both of which Wharton will not teach you. On the other hand, you will know how to work the Microsoft Office Suite quite well. Question is: do you feel like paying 40+K /year for stuff you can learn on the job? </p>
<p>Go to Oxford and get a real college education. That's my rec. G'luck with your decision!</p>
<p>
[quote]
Economics is NOT finance, it actually requires thinking and understanding
[/quote]
Oh, please, give me a break...
One extremely powerful advantage of Wharton is that you can take classes in areas like venture capital or international business. You'll never find this at Oxford. Besides, you can take classes anywhere at Penn or even double major if you have enough guts. Yeah, sure, you can do the hardcore number crunching at Oxford, stare at its thirteenth century architecture, and think that you are a chosen "intellectual."</p>
<p>Jenix. I take it that you're either a pre-frosh or a highschooler, so I'm going to say this: I was exactly like you....three years ago. You will look back on this post and laugh sometime down the road. </p>
<p>Look, I'm not saying Wharton sucks (it's def. an advantage when you're competing with english majors to land that job on wall street). Penn's where I go to school and I've had a great time here so far. But let me be frank for a moment and say this: between Oxford and Wharton, choose Oxford. You can always come back and get that MBA (I hope for your sake that you won't have to).</p>
<p>To the OP: just make sure that before you make your decision, you find out in as much detail as you can exactly what the curricular requirements will be at both schools, including how much flexibility you'll have to explore a wide variety of fields (humanities, sciences, etc.) beyond your main concentration, and the variety of courses available. Remember that Penn allows and encourages undergrads to take courses in more than one of the 4 undergrad schools (College of Arts and Sciences, Wharton, School of Engineering and Applied Science, Nursing) and in 8 of the grad/professional schools (Law School, School of Design, Annenberg School for Communications, School of Social Policy and Practice, Graduate School of Education, etc.). I'd be surprised if Oxford allows undergrads to pursue as diverse a curriculum (but I don't know, so check it out).</p>
<p>Don't be cutting off your nose to spite your face, by chasing off potential Wharton students who will be good, loyal (and WEALTHY) fellow Penn alums in years to come! :)</p>
<p>I'm a Cornell alum, but have studied at Oxford.</p>
<p>Attend Oxford. Oxbridge is perhaps the most superlative undergraduate education one can receive -- socially, intellectually, and morally. The tute system is superb, and your dons will become lifelong friends.</p>
<p>Wharton is just a glorified trade school full of wankers. You can always get your graduate degree in the States.</p>
<p>at the same time, there is sort of this welfare effect that its alumni and donors make the university as a whole complacent. while interdisciplinary studies are good, when large portions of the College are waffling on the majors in order to go to wallstreet for quick and limited money options (ibanking), that compromises the long term success of our other departments. Case in point, when was the last time a penn professor published a TERRIFIC book while at penn? and lets not even mention government leadership.</p>
<p>^ Well, Penn's liberal arts departments did pretty well in the last National Research Council (NRC) rankings of Ph.D. programs (a decent measure of faculty research, productivity, etc.)--Penn was among the top 10 schools with the highest number of departments ranked in the top 10. Of course, that ranking was published in 1995, but an updated edition is scheduled to be released in September of this year. We'll have to see how SAS departments have held up.</p>
<p>the Mayor of Philadelphia, the governor of Pennsylvania, and one of PA's senators are Penn alumni.</p>
<p>So at least we control our own block. Penn doesn't have much in the way of famous national politicians, but they've got a lot of people in Washington. And given that the strongest students ever to go to Penn for since the Founding Fathers are the ones in it right now, I think we can confidentially assume that Penn grads will grow prominent in the future--especially if Bush, Rumsfeld, et. all can convince Congress to pass an amendment banning HYP graduates from holding public office ;)</p>
<p>This is because of the tutorial system. Im pretty certain I wouldnt have a weekly one on one chat with some of the most important academics in the world in my field being an undergraduate in the states. </p>
<p>Having said this I would definatley rate the top American universities as a very serious rival at postgraduate level.</p>
<p>I didn't read a lot of this thread, but hear me out on this one.</p>
<p>Penn CAS is unarguably harder to get into than Oxford. Aside from two anecdotal examples that come to mind (friend who was rejected from all ivies including Penn CAS and accepted to Oxford, an English girl I met who was accepted to Oxford and came to Penn CAS), think about it this way:
Oxford and Cambridge are the Ivy League of the UK. They have together about 24k students. They have the same birthrate as the US, but only 75 million ppl.
The Ivy League, excluding Cornell (which really isn't as selective as the others), is 40k. It serves a country of 300 million. Same birthrate, same proportion of graduating highschoolers. Do I need to spell this out for you?</p>
<p>Penn is simply much harder to get into than Oxford. Combine with this the fact that Oxford's endowment is the same, they have 2,000 more undergrads, and they're in ENGLAND. I take it you live in America?</p>
<p>Bottom line: No one accepted to an Ivy, except for Cornell, should turn it down for Oxford.</p>
<p>Especially Wharton. Go there, believe me; you'll be much happier.</p>
<p>Muerteapablo -
Maybe as someone who chose Oxford over US schools of similar caliber, I'm a little biased, but I'm going to have to virulently disagree with you on this one. It is true that the acceptance rate for Oxbridge is higher than for the Ivies, but that has nothing to do with selectivity. First of all, one can only apply to either, excluding the possibility of cross-admits. Secondly, nobody applies to Oxford or Cambridge as a "reach" - schools cull their best applicants early on and intentionally limit the number of people they allow to apply. Thus, the statistics are misleading on the matter.</p>
<p>As for "anecdotal evidence" - it works both ways. Plenty of people at my school got into HYP and not into Oxford, or chose Oxford over comparable US institutions. In terms of admissions, the schools are looking for different things. Oxford cares purely about academics - more to the point, your skill in a particular field of study. Harvard also cares about sports, legacy, extracurrics, personality - none of which Oxford bothers itself about.</p>
<p>A further aside - Oxford has been the happiest experience of my life, and the tutorial system is unparalleled.</p>
<p>Penn's reputation worldwide is actually much more prestigious than nationally (pennstate?!). To 45 Percenter, Newsweek is garbage, try THES. I mean seriously, Berkley is good, but better than Cambridge and MIT? UCLA is better than Penn?? Stanford is on the same level with Harvard/Yale??? </p>
1 Harvard University<br>
2 Yale University<br>
3 University of Cambridge<br>
4 University of Oxford<br>
5 California Institute of Technology
6 Imperial College London<br>
7 University College London<br>
8 University of Chicago<br>
9 Massachusetts Institute of Technology<br>
10 Columbia University<br>
11 University of Pennsylvania<br>
12 Princeton University
13= Duke University<br>
13= Johns Hopkins University<br>
15 Cornell University<br>
16 Australian National University<br>
17 Stanford University<br>
18 University of Michigan<br>
19 University of Tokyo
20 McGill University<br>
21 Carnegie Mellon University
22 King's College London<br>
23 University of Edinburgh<br>
24 ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology)<br>
25 Kyoto University<br>
26 University of Hong Kong
27 Brown University<br>
28 Ecole Normale Sup</p>
<p>I would go to Oxford for E&M, I thought quite a lot about this over the summer, I’m from the UK and I have been accepted at Oxford for E&M, but I’ll try not to be biased. Oxford’s tutorial system will give you an incredibly intense education, you will be discussing your ideas with leading academics one to one, and have to defend your ideas and really think on your feet; there is no place to hide in a tutorial. In my view this is better preparation for business than the extra technical skills that Wharton will teach you. Yes Wharton will be better on the technical side of things, but the Said Business School is certainly not bad, and a lot of the faculty are ex Harvard/ INSEAD etc so they are at the top of their game - Oxford offers them a lot of extras such as college fellowships, plus the name, hence why they are willing to go to a slightly lesser BS. The contacts that you make at Oxford will be a lot more varied than at Penn, fewer business types, but Oxford produces a lot more people at the top of their game in the civil service, politics etc than Penn will, plus all the top lawyers in the UK went to Oxford or Cambridge. To sum up then, Oxford will be more varied and you will meet a wider bunch of people than at Wharton, but will be slightly less hot on the technical skills, Wall Street contacts. Plus Oxford is a beautiful city and you will live in a medieval college, whereas the area around Wharton seemed a bit nasty.</p>