<p>Eh, I do have to correct for something here… the crimson school in Boston has more rep in PE (although we do clean out in the undergrad programs). Generally, the more quantitative the field is, the great Wharton’s advantage is.</p>
<p>Gah, it won’t let me edit. </p>
<p>Another common myth: huntsman program is for international relations and business. </p>
<p>It’s not, the program is for INTERNATIONAL STUDIES. As in, studying about specific countries/regions. International relations is the study of how countries interact and is closer to political science than cultural studies.</p>
<p>Go through a semester of OCR and compare what you have to high school friends a other Ivys, Duke, NU, Stanford, etc. Wharton/Penn gives advantages to getting jobs, but they are washed out by the fact that people here are slightly more competitive and preprofessional. Sure PE/HF is availabe, but the people who get those interviews have very strong finance heavy resumes. If you are really really on your stuff going to penn will put you in a great position for employment. If you are really on your stuff going to Wharton will give you some great opportunities. If you’re not going to be a superstar here (in a job sense) there are very few opportunities here that aren’t available at other schools.</p>
<p>Myth #9:
</p>
<p>The fact that you are competing against more kids is balanced out by the fact that companies reserve more jobs for Wharton kids, because they know that more smart kids that are interested in them are there. They know that if they offer you a job coming out of Wharton, that kid is far more likely to take it than the kid at Yale. That’s part of the reason Wharton places so much better. Ceterius Paribus, firms will take the Whartonite over the Yalie. That’s way some firms recruit solely out of Wharton. That’s why, at essentially every bulge bracket IB firm, Wharton (at the undergraduate level) is the most represented school. That’s why international firms come to Wharton first to get their pick of prime talent. The smaller, more technical, and more elite the firm is, the higher the concentration of Whartonites will be at those jobs, and, chances are, the more likely the Whartonite is going to get the job over the HYP kid. </p>
<p>Companies are not stupid, why would they allow such a loop-hole to exist? Everyone would just take the easy route out then and the company would be overlooking arguably better talent at the larger school. No company would do that. Companies look to higher kids where they can find smart, motivated kids, who will accept their offers. </p>
<p>Think about it logically. You have two equally intelligent groups of kids, one that studied business and liberal arts courses and one that only studied the liberal arts. More kids from the first group are interested in working for you than the kids in the second group. Who would you give more job offers to? Obviously to the kids in the first group and that is precisely what happens. </p>
<p>Also remember, it is cheaper for companies to hire Whartonites because they already have their technical skills in place, which means they waste less of the higher-ups time in training. Also, Whartonites tend to be driven (which is why they choose to attend Wharton in the first place), and that is a huge draw for companies. So no, it would not be better, it would arguably be worse.</p>
<p>Addendum to Myth No. 9:</p>
<p>Here is an analogy to help elucidate the points I made above. Say you want to be an engineer and you want to choose between two equally good schools, Yale and Princeton. Now, Princeton is superior to Yale in engineering and sends way more kids to top engineering firms than Yale. But, according to the logic you used above, even though Princeton is better at engineering (and is regarded as such by top firms, some of which probably do not recruit at Yale) you should go to Yale because more people at Princeton are pursuing engineering so there is greater competition. Obviously, the firms that are recruiting take into account the amount of students interested in the firm from the school and adjust the number of offers that they hand out accordingly. This offsets the competition between students for the same jobs at Princeton. Actually, you probably have a higher chance of landing the job out of Princeton since companies know that the yield for such jobs would be greater at Princeton than at Yale (since Princetonian are more interested), so they will overcompensate for that by giving out more offers at Princeton. Plus, if you do get a job, you will have a far larger alumni network in the field to help guide you. The same is true of Wharton and Yale in banking / PE / HF / VC.</p>
<p>Myth #10:
[quote=aweirdo]
I have heard my father (who is a managing director) say how they often recruit kids from Ivies without direct business experience and who major in, say art history<a href=“Essentially,%20if%20you%20go%20to%20HYP,%20you%20can%20study%20anything%20you%20want%20and%20still%20get%20a%20job%20without%20studying%20finance%20or%20showing%20significant%20interest%20in%20the%20field.”>/quote</a></p>
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<p>Myth # 11: HYP have a greater global reputation than Wharton and that will help you if you want to work internationally. </p>
<p>Wharton has more Global Recognition where it matters - the business world. Sure, your average farmer in China is more likely to have heard of HYPSM than Wharton, but any business professional would have heard of Wharton and would respect it more than YPM, HS are on an equal footing reputationally. Only Harvard’s network is as large. </p>
<p>Fact of the matter is, Wharton has a larger international alumni base than any other school in the world. Nearly 50% of Wharton MBA alums are international and work internationally (more than any other MBA program). In any given country (considering how weak the Yale MBA program is) Wharton would outplace YPSM by a factor of three-five (lower for Stanford) or more (considering that Wharton out places HYPSM at the undergraduate level and only Harvard matches it for placement at the Graduate level - considering that Stanford GSB is half the size). The top foreign companies sometimes recruit solely out of Wharton undergrad. </p>
<p>All the aspiring businessmen in these countries dream of getting a Wharton or Harvard or Stanford MBA, not a YPM one. Wharton has arguably two of the most famous alums in business: Warren Buffett and Donald Trump (Bill Gates would also be in this category), as a result it has immense global recognition. Many spin offs of Trump’s apprentice show appear in numerous developing nations (i.e Win in China, where Wharton was recommended to the finalist) that’s given it immense credibility among young entrepreneurs in the developing world. I’ve spent most of my life in Asia, I can tell you essentially every businessman knows Wharton. Many of the top businessmen you talk to in these countries are far more likely to have gotten their MBA from Wharton, done a deal with a Whartonite, had a Wharton work for them, than they are with a YPSM kid. If you go to Wharton undergrad, you have more than 80 thousand alumni in business to call upon with clubs all around the world, go to get your Harvard MBA after that and you nearly double that. Bottom line, Wharton’s alumni network is far far stronger. A Wharton degree is priceless. Wharton BSE and a Harvard MBA coupled is unbeatable since you can call on the largest and second largest networks in the world respectively.</p>
<p>"Cenk Uygur, the founder of The Young Turks show, easily one of the most influential liberal talk shows out there, is a Whartonite. The skills he learned at Wharton are key to his success. He learned how to be a manager, how to market himself, and many other things that make him the man he is today. "</p>
<p>Not to mention, he went to Columbia LAW School amongst graduating from Wharton’s undergrad program. Just goes to show the versatility and usefulness of a Wharton degree.</p>
<p>quick question - regarding graduate schools, i heard that the average wharton gpa is a 3.2-3.3. how can wharton undergrads be competitive for top grad schools with that kind of gpa?</p>
<p>This is a great, informative thread that has changed some of my views about Wharton.</p>
<p>Thanks! I’m applying next year, and I’ve definitely been under the impression of one or two of those “myths”. It’s good to see another angle.</p>
<p>Penn’s also got a killer football team, a killer party scene, and hotter women than Playboy (okay, maybe not, but certainly better than the rest of the Ivy league).</p>
<p>This should be on the Wharton webpage. Excellent posts kafkareborn.
I already go to Wharton but I have that much more of an incentive to kick major tail in class now.</p>
<p>This thread should get stuck up. Are there any moderators on here at all ?</p>
<p>Is it a myth that acceptance is near impossible if you haven’t taken Calculus BC in High School? As a senior, I will only be able to take Calc AB, and I’ve been told that I should’t even bother applying to Wharton.</p>
<p>^ bull I have at least 5 whartonites in my 103 class and that’s just ones I’ve counted wearing lanyards and tshirts. This means they either didn’t even take AB or weren’t solid on it enough to do the next level.</p>
<p>Wharton expects you to have taken the equivalent of AB calculus, not BC. I, and a number of other Whartonites, take 103 though; we do so purely as a GPA booster mainly though (so that we have high enough GPAs to get a good freshman year internship). Most of the Wharton guys could ace the final on the first day of class, I don’t even go to class unless i need to hand something in. Just about everyone I know at Wharton has covered that material already, but are too lazy to put the work in for BC or are taking it for strategic reasons, not because they can’t handle more advanced material.</p>
<p>You should be fine. But you definitely want to be comfortable with math and AB calc, I mean it is very basic stuff, you should not be having a problem. If you are, then you might want to think twice because you will get screwed by the time you reach stochastic calculus etc.</p>
<p>Just thought the new crop of Wharton hopefuls should see this.</p>
<p>We also have computers that are inaccessible to the other schools of the University. <em>evil, maniacal cackling</em></p>
<p>Are there any other Wharton exclusivities that I should know about?</p>