Wharton - Mythbusters

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Pennsylvania
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<p>Theres free printing.</p>

<p>Actually, you are given a set amount of print credits every semester and it usually lasts the whole semester. Plus, the printers in Huntsman are like industrial printers. And you can print wirelessly from laptop which has saved me.</p>

<p>OP: Great topic. That gives a lot of demystification to the newer batch.</p>

<p>I would like to add that the competition really heats up junior year. I felt that my first half at Penn was not as competitive and I was generally doing well ahead of the curve. I guess it must be that all my classes were specialized so plenty of ppl got weeded out.</p>

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<p>Does this mean that going to Amherst would be counterproductive for someone who plans to enter the business world as soon as she can?</p>

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<p>Also, the Group Study Rooms at Huntsman Hall are exclusively for Whartonites and only they can reserve them. (Yes, resume your cackling. :slight_smile: )</p>

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<p>It’s my general impression that Wharton kids are less arrogant than kids from HYP, do you think that’s accurate?</p>

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<p>Good luck with your applications everyone !</p>

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<p>@kafkareborn. No…Wharton kids are the creme of the crop when it comes to pretentious douchbaggery. Not saying that’s a bad thing (I can come off as one a lot of the time too), just mentioning it. I also think the fact that they seem to care way more about their grades than actually learning highlights their aspirations for big bucks, which leads to (in some cases): fame, women, high social status, etc. Anyone that strives for such a thing is, in all honesty, an arrogant person. </p>

<p>I’ve also heard that Wharton kids try to screw the regular Penn kids over (in one way or the other). Is this true? If so, “Hello Wharton!”</p>

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<p>Supersizeme, you have no idea what you are talking about. </p>

<p>You don’t even go to Penn “I’ve also heard that Wharton kids try to screw regular Penn kids” that just shows that you have probably never even met a Wharton kid in your life and are talking utter rubbish. Most of my friends are non-Wharton, I highly doubt that I am trying to screw them over. I know the same is true for all other Wharton kids. Just repeating what you said makes me feel dumber. How would one go about screwing non-Wharton kids over anyways? Unless you mean hooking up with randos after frat parties or with their partners; if so, then I would agree with you, but they do that with other Whartonites as well.</p>

<p>Furthermore, it is quite possible to be ambitious, but to also have humility. Warrenn Buffett, a Whartonite, comes to mind as an exemplar of those qualities. So i would disagree with you there. Yes Wharton kids are ambitious, but I have not detected arrogance among them. </p>

<p>Considering that you know nothing about Wharton, have not studied there, and probably have very limited interactions with Whartonites, I will not even reply to your comments about Whartonites not liking learning. That is just false, they just like learning things that they feel will help them change the world - they are utilitarians in the Millhousian stream. </p>

<p>I actually go to Wharton and have interacted with several Wharton kids, my impressions so far are that Wharton kids tend to be very humble and are not arrogant at all, far less so than some of the HYP kids I know anyways. Take your myths elsewhere.</p>

<p>I would take anything supersizeme says with all the salt in the ocean.</p>

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<p>I remember hearing a ton of things about Wharton kids being arrogant before I came here and to tell you the truth, I’ve come across more arrogant people who are in the college than in Wharton. The people I know I in Wharton are very chill but also very driven and passionate about their interests. I’ve many had great intellectual conversations with Whartonites.
I’ve never taken a Wharton class so I lack that sort of insight, but I definitely think that saying all people in Wharton are arrogant is a gross generalization.</p>

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<p>Just wanted to add two recent anecdotes to illustrate Wharton’s international standing (I got in ED). FYI: I live in Europe.</p>

<p>My father grew up in rural Northern Europe and studied economics at his hometown’s university. I asked him if he actually knew Wharton before I got in and he responded that of course he did. Indeed, he knew Wharton even before earning his Bachelor’s degree-I repeat-IN RURAL NORTHERN EUROPE. He proceeded to tell me about how well respected they were in his industry and how he knew 55K tuition was almost a bargain for the opportunities Wharton afffords its alumni-and nowadays he’s a banking executive. In Europe. Where people ask you where Pennsylvania is. And why you’re going to Penn State. My point: the people who count will know.</p>

<p>Second, I was over at a friend’s house only a few days ago. His family thinks I’m uber smart. They’re also in banking (…guess which town I live in haha). I told them I got into UPenn. They gave me the usual “Penn State” blabla…until my friend interjected, telling them I got into Wharton. These people did not know the difference between UPenn and Penn State, but they knew WHARTON! Do I need to say more?</p>

<p>Wanna impress the postman? HYPSM
Wanna impress the job recruiter? Wharton</p>

<p>lolll this reads like advertising ;)</p>

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<p>ROFLMAO. Gladwell’s book is called OutLIERS, not Outliners…Did you even read it? Because I did and it’s pretty much garbage. His book is a “popular sensation” only because it tells the masses what they want to hear (i.e. “Genius is 99% perspiration” and so forth) and appeals to the lowest common denominator in terms of critical thinking. It’s pseudo-scientific nonsense that has been destroyed by competent behavioral economists, sociologists, psychologists, statisticians, etc. Basically very few, if any, people in the academic community think that the book is worth the paper on which it is printed. That’s why you see most of Gladwell’s so-called “works” in the bargain bin at Barnes & Noble and not in peer reviewed journals. “Gladwell’s methodology has been criticized for too often falling prey to fallacious reasoning, inadequate and anecdotally-based sampling, and oversimplified analyses.” ([Outliers</a> (book) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“Outliers (book) - Wikipedia”>Outliers (book) - Wikipedia))</p>

<p>So if you want to make the bold and (to me, boldly false) claim that HYPSM kids cannot learn on the job and would be at a competitive disadvantage to Wharton kids, then you need to cite a more reliable source. Give the HYPSM kid a few weeks and s/he should catch up to the Wharton kid in no time, regardless of industry. It’s undergraduate business training, for crying out loud, not rocket science. There’s a reason why you need a medical degree to practice medicine, a law degree to practice law…but you don’t need any business/finance degrees to go into business/finance.</p>

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<p>@ebreezy, it is psychological fact that experience does matter, and what Gladwell says does have some merit. Herbert Simon conducted a study and did find that the minimum amount of time to become an expert at something is 10 years, or 10,000 hours. You don’t make sense saying that a person who has no background in something can catch up to someone with at least 3 years of experience in 6 months, its not logical. Even if we take your position that learning finance/business is as easy as sharpening pencils, 3 years of pencil sharpening experience is still an advantage over none. As for your comments on not needing professional licensing, yes to meddle around in finance you don’t need anything, but as soon as you want to help manage someone elses money, there are quite a few certifications you need, its all about liability and accountability, doctors have human lives on their hands, I am glad they need 4 years of school. Maybe I am biased, but I find it hard to believe that an HYPSM kid could catch up to a person steeped in the field for 4 years of undergrad. Those kids are smart, but not that smart. lets also not forget that while an HYPSM kid is “catching up”, the Wharton kids are also learning, so the advantage still stands.</p>

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<p>Yeah, because job recruiters won’t be impressed by HYPSM. And because the impressions of postal workers don’t count. In fact, your following statement implies that postal workers themselves don’t count:</p>

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<p>In my life, I’ve very rarely literary “laughed out loud” at a post. Your post, Mr. Kafkareborn, not only made me laugh out loud, but it oozed of torrential, pretentious ******baggery. I mean, you’re name is Kafkareborn-- who do you think you are? </p>

<p>Your reply may make sense, but the tone of your message pretty much contradicts your message. You come off as an a**hole, and there’s no doubt about that. As a Wharton and Penn student, you’re doing a terrible job of upholding yourself as a personable or pleasant person to interact with. If you hold the same persona that you do on the internet in real life…well then wait till you go into the “real world”, and it smacks you square in the face. </p>

<p>Oh, and supposed preconceived notion about Whartonites isn’t actually a preconceived notion. My friend at Penn told me.</p>

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<p>Here you’re committing yourself to a tautology. You’re already assuming that the (high finance, banking, consulting, etc.) jobs that Whartonites traditionally seek are the “best possible jobs.” So of course, it follows (for you) that “*f you want to get the best jobs possible, go to Wharton,” and that Wharton gives you a “competitive advantage.” </p>

<p>But what if someone like me doesn’t share your values and assumptions? What if I want to create my own products instead of making a living off others’ creations? What if I want to found the next Faceb00k or G00gle instead of take them public and/or trade their equity? For people like me, you can see why Wharton holds little or no appeal. Maybe there’s something in the entrepreneurial and free-thinking spirit at places like Harvard and Stanford that allows their students and grads to found revolutionary and transformational companies and institutions that change the world. Did the founders of Faceb00k or G00gle go into their pursuits for the sole purpose of making money? I doubt it. They were just doing what they were inspired to do; I just think that they wanted to make their mark in the world, so to speak. They were enabled because they thrived in environments where their peers and colleagues think outside the box. Do we see this sort of thing at Wharton? I think less likely because Whartonites seem to share a gunner and striver mentality whereby making money is an end in itself as opposed to a means to an end. Whartonites go into college with the express purpose of making money. This gets back to why you seem to value Wharton-type jobs in the first place: because of their earning potential. For someone like me whose main goal in life is not to make money but (as cheesy as it sounds) to make a difference in the world, a place like Wharton is anti-thetical to everything I stand for and I would much rather go to any HYPSM over Wharton or any other undergraduate business school, for that matter. No offense.</p>

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<p>ezbreezy, I think you have identified a weak point in the Wharton promoters’ arguments when you say that getting a high-paying job and becoming rich seems to be a top motivating factor in most students’ decisions to attend Wharton, and in turn governing what they do there. But don’t push your argument too far. I am pretty certain that you have no personal experience of Harvard or Stanford if you think that “free-thinking” or “entrepreneurial” are among the top ten adjectives one would use to describe them. Sure, they each have free-thinking and entrepreneurial students, and so does Wharton. But all of these places are in fact hotbeds of conventionality.</p>

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<p>But I do have personal experience.</p>

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<p>Response to Myth 5</p>

<p>You mis-characterize my position, obviously I am well aware of the fact that there are several jobs outside of finance, and the ‘best job’ is one that an individual finds most fulfilling, that’s a given. Given the context of my comments, I was clearly talking about the finance industry and not all industries. Within the finance industry itself, my statement holds. If you read on, you would find that was what I was referencing. </p>

<p>I take issue with your characterization of Wharton students though. The entrepreneurial ethos is alive and well here, and I can point to several recent companies that were founded by Whartonites that made an impact on the world, including two major ones that were just sold to google. In fact, I would argue that at Wharton people are interested in business on a deeper level, it is something to be studied academically, thought through, changed, and innovated as several Whartonites such as Milken with Junk bonds, Mittal with his water purification venture, Asness with High frequency trading, Cisco, Buffett with his own flair of value investing did. </p>

<p>You yourself characterized business as something that you can easily pick up in a few weeks and as something that is not intellectually stimulating. We often hear HYPSM students say that they only heard of banking their junior year and decided to go into it despite knowing very little about what it entails. This leads me to believe that HYPSM people are the ones that enter business instead of the field of their true interest (whatever it is that they studied in college) because of the money, whereas Whartonites appreciate it as an academic field to be explored, not just profited on. Obviously this is a huge generalization, but you partook in a few so I will too. </p>

<p>Lastly, Wharton is full of kids who started their own business back in highschool and continue to operate them. There is a huge appreciation for innovation here, we’re engrossed in the business world for four years and are surrounded by thought leaders in the field like Lodish, of course a spirit of innovation exists on campus. This is clearly demonstrated through programs such as the Wharton Entrepreneurial Program, the entrepreneurial residential program and other heavily subscribed programs that seek out people with entrepreneurial flair and helps them incubate their ideas. </p>

<p>And I am speaking from personal experience here. A friend and I are developing a few products as we speak and are considering taking next year off to focus on them. I know several freshman that have already launched business ideas and things of that nature. </p>

<p>So I would definetly disagree with you on that premise.</p>

<p>Does Wharton have its fair share of conventional types ? Absolutely, just as Stanford and Harvard do. Does Wharton have its fair share of innovators ? Absolutely, just as Stanford and Harvard do.</p>

<p>Well I’m off, someone else can continue this debate if they’d like. You raised some good points. Even though I disagree with you, I appreciate the fact that you’re a good debater and seem like a nice person as far as I can tell. Good luck with everything. I’ll keep my mind open on what you have to say, I’d encourage you to do likewise.</p>

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<p>A few more entrepreneurs that come to me:</p>

<p>Sculley of Apple, Musk of Pay Pal Space X and Tesla, Weiner of LinkedIn, Patrick of Wallstreetoasis, Hamdeh of Vault, j.d power. Those are just a few that came off the top of my head.</p>

<p>I’m happy that there has been some dialogue on this issue, at least we can discuss our differences, deflate exaggerations, and really self-reflect about the benefits and drawbacks of our respective experiences. I think this will prove extremely helpful to high schoolers. Thanks for contributing to the thread. </p>

<p>I realize that I may come across as over-exuberant, my main intention was just to help students who are coming in get a perspective of the benefits of a Penn education, not to bash other schools - all schools that I respect. If I’ve strayed from that, that was not my intention.</p>

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<p>Ha, and this debate was just getting interesting. ezbreezy, you probably know this, Stanford grad as you are, but I cannot help but point out two major fallacies in your arguments; mainly, your appeal to authority and your use of ad Hominem attacks that others used against Gladwell and not his arguments.</p>

<p>You do not directly say anything about the substantive arguments Gladwell makes, mainly that practice breeds perfection - simple enough really. That was the premise Kafka reborn uses to highlight the benefit of a Wharton education as it allows one to put in a lot more hours into practice than you would at a HYPSM school, and thus you come out better prepared. One manager I know said that if a HYPSM kid is a one on a finance scale, a Wharton kid is a 6, even they have a lot to learn. If we actually read what you posted, all you say is that some smart guy said that some of Gladwell’s research was not up to academic standards - that’s not an argument and it does nothing to disprove the point Kafka made. Even if you argue about the finite details of Gladwell’s research, the broader point he makes is still valid, and it is that broader point that Kafka’s arguments are centered on.</p>

<p>And now to address your appeal to authority. Just because someone supposedly important says something, that does not validate it. Einstein believed in the steady state of the universe - he was wrong. At one time popes said the earth is in the middle of the universe - they were wrong. Just because you can quote someone saying something bad about Gladwell that you gleamed from a wikipedia article, that in no way invalidates the reasoning of Gladwell’s arguments. And even if we assume that some of Gladwell’s ideas are faulty, that does not invalidate this particular idea Gladwell puts forth. </p>

<p>The fact of the matter is finance is not as simple as you make it seem. Steven Cohen and John Paulson (both who went to undergraduate business schools btw) would not earn the billions of dollars - and create immense value for society by making markets more efficient - that they do for executing things that a HYPSM kid could learn in a few weeks. There is a reason it takes a long time for people to trust you with their capital, they need to know you’ve fully mastered everything you learned before trusting you with everything they worked for. It belies logic to suggest that the Wharton curriculum is so simple that one could learn it in a couple of weeks or months. If that was the case, given the fact that Wharton kids are every bit as smart as HYPSM kids, then they could fly through the curriculum in no time. Either Wharton kids learn relevant material that takes a while to master, or Wharton administrators (arguably the best business minds on the planet) created a business curriculum that only contains ‘a few weeks worth’ of material relevant to the business field, but take four years to teach it. Furthermore, if what we learn in business school is so useless that one could learn it in a few weeks, what’s the point of an MBA ? Why would employers send their employers to get one after having worked in the industry for two entire years or more? </p>

<p>It is far more complicated than that and there is a lot of practice that goes into perfecting your skills. Just because you can learn to throw a football pretty quickly, you are not going to become Brady overnight and you probably will have a tough time competing with a guy who played football all through college. That’s just a fact. </p>

<p>Furthermore, this entire debate was centered around someone who is looking to go into business or finance, so suggesting that finance and business are not useful pursuits is irrelevant, as that is not what is being argued. If the argument was whether Wharton was the best place to learn to balance your inner Chi and go onto become a Buddhist monk, you would probably be correct to suggest that other places - such as a temple - would help you better. But again, what does that matter if its not what the reader of this thread is looking for?</p>

<p>Sorry if this was a bit long.</p>

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<p>You just got Boomed!, Nice post Platorepublic, echoing my sentiments exactly, although I don’t know if ebreezy can offer a rebuttal, we will wait and see.</p>