How is an economics degree from Penn School of Arts and Sciences looked at by top firms on Wall Street? Obviously it would not have the same weight or value as a degree from Wharton, but is it still valued? Would it be better to pursue an economics degree from, say, Dartmouth than to pursue on from Penn since with an economics degree from Dartmouth it wouldn’t be glaringly obvious that you were not even in your universities business school?
@Hardworker99 your logic is quite flawed I think. Are you really asking what value a degree from an ivy league top 10 econ department affiliated with 7 nobel laureats has? First of all the majority of econ majors at Penn did not wanna be in wharton, it is not like Penn econ is the backup they had to settle with, although of course there are people like that too. Secondly Penn econ majors do just as well in wall street recruiting as wharton kids and Engineering kids. If you don’t believe me look at the very detailed employment statistics at penn’ s career services website. In fact econ majors are very sought after by wall street cause they tend to have stronger quantitative skills than business majors. Studying economics is perceived to be quite harder than studying business. Also econ majors at Penn have the extra advantage over econ majors at other schools that they csn supplement their econ education woth business classes from wharton. Truth is Penn is probably the most targeted school for business recruiting and it doesn’t matter what individual school you are in at Penn, everyone has access to the same recruiting opportunities. A lot of penn econ kids are not interested in business, but out of those who do, a huge percentage are very successful in securing top wall street jobs. If you are interested in business Penn is the place to be other than Harvard and the employment ststistics prove it ( whether u are studying business, econ or engineering at Penn it doesnt really matter anymore-- a few decades back whether you were wharton or non wharton mattered a bit more but not anymore). Given your interest in business and the fact that you are looking to get an econ degree the only school it makes sense to choose over Penn is harvard, and maybe yale /princeton because of the higher prestige of these institutions ( even though penn has better employment ststistics than yale, princeton and a stronger alumni base in business-related jobs). Dartmouth is not even close by a mile.
@Penn95 Thanks for the input. Definitely sound advice, albeit very biased. Keep in mind that according to many, Dartmouth is very close, if not ahead, of non-Wharton Penn when it comes to Wall Street recruiting. Dartmouth is known for having an exceptionally deep and well-connected alumni base on Wall Street that seek out fellow Dartmouth grads to hire. They do not call Dartmouth “Goldman Sachs” for nothing.
Ok yeah i guess " even close by a mile" was a bit exaggerated, but still Dartmouth is behind Penn (wharton or non wharton). i would have agreed with your statement that Dartmouth is very close, if not ahead, of non-Wharton Penn when it comes to Wall Street recruiting, if it referred to 20-25 years ago, but not today. The point is non-wharton and wharton wall street outcomes are not really all that different nowadays. Of course you will find more wharton people in wall street because more wharton ppl are interested in business than non-wharton people. However those non-wharton people interested in Wall Street have a huge success rate getting these jobs. People at the engineering school for example have a higher average salary and a lower seeking employment rate upon graduation than Wharton and so many of them get ibanking, hedge fund etc jobs. Also, so many econ majors do the same. Also, yes i might be a bit biased but the career statistics back me up. Also just by itself an econ degree from Penn has greater value than an econ degree from Dartmouth and the presence of wharton even further increases the relative value of a penn econ degree vs a dartmouth degree for those econ majors interested in wall street. In general very few people choose dartmouth over Penn, whether it is Wharton or non-Wharton Penn. There is really nothing that dartmouth can provide that Penn cant at least just as well and most probably quite better.
What people dont see is that the wharton presence does not put non-wharton students at a disadvantage but it rather complements their education, provides something unique that econ majors at other schools dont have and helps them with business recruiting. A recuiter wont put an equally qualified wharton applicant ahead of a non-wharton applicant just because he went to Wharton. Nowadays, wharton hampers non wharton peoples opportunities for Wall Street recruiting as much as say Harvard econ hampers Harvard non-econ Wall Street recruiting, i.e it doesnt really. What you describe in your original post is a misconception non-penn people (partly perpetuated by alumni who graduated from Penn in the pre-Judith Rodin years and dont know how Penn is right now). Ask anyone who attended Penn in the last few years (but not like two decades ago, Penn was very different in the pre-Judith Rodin years) and they will tell you the same. Also hopefully you will get a wall street job and you will see there that when Penn people are asked where they went to school most, if not all say Penn, not Wharton, regardless of whether they were in Wharton or not.
thought you would find this interesting.
http://www.phillymag.com/business/2015/07/03/penn-tuition/
“…The report also provided ROI by college majors. Penn ranked No. 1 for economics majors and third for business majors. It also ranked fourth in ROI for marketing careers and sixth for technology…”
The coursework, emphasis, and focus of an economics major at Penn is very different from that of the majority of students at Wharton. Finance is not the same as economics. Why are you comparing the two and suggesting that one is inferior to the other?
Both Penn and Dartmouth have strong alumni networks. I think the key reason Penn’s is stronger is that it is much larger… Penn has more than 2x the number of undergrads.
Proximity to Philly and NYC are also helpful.