<p>Great video:
[The</a> Wharton Undergraduate Experience - YouTube](<a href=“The Wharton Undergraduate Experience - YouTube”>The Wharton Undergraduate Experience - YouTube)</p>
<p>Hello! I’m having an extremely tough time choosing between here and Stanford. The thing that holds me back about Wharton is that the emphasis seems to be on finance and I’m worried that I might be influenced into heading down that path and later finding myself unhappy. I do admit that i am extremely naive about the finance world, however. I’ve always been more interested in learning how to run a company, market, etc. After college, I always want to be moving up and up, not just settling for a (albeit prestigious) desk job in Wall Street. Does anyone here have any feedback?</p>
<p>Double post.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Wharton is about MUCH more than just finance and Wall Street. In fact, I posted about this earlier in this thread, but a great post is always worth repeating 
:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/14038430-post119.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/14038430-post119.html</a></p>
<p>Also, as yet another example, Wharton has some of the oldest and most comprehensive (and best ;)) entrepreneurial programs in the world. But don’t just take my word for it–check this out:</p>
<p>[Wharton</a> Entrepreneurial Programs](<a href=“http://wep.wharton.upenn.edu/]Wharton”>http://wep.wharton.upenn.edu/)</p>
<p>EDIT: I see that kafkareborn was posting along the same lines at the same time that I was writing this post. So we’re both obviously correct. :)</p>
<p>Myth: Wharton does not foster a climate of entrepreneurism, or makes it difficult to do so. </p>
<p>Ha, I really should not be on here since I have a mid term on Monday, but I’ll play ball. </p>
<p>This is patently false, you absolutely do not have to end up on wall street. I am not even applying to any of the big banks as I am interested in the energy markets. In my management 100 group of 9 people, two started their own companies as freshmen: [Famocracy</a> - Be Discovered For Your Talent.](<a href=“HugeDomains.com”>http://famocracy.com/) [Locofoco</a> - Web Design & Development in Columbus, OH](<a href=“http://locofoco.com/]Locofoco”>http://locofoco.com/) Another friend founded this, and this is just in my small social circle: [TappGala:</a> The Best in Mobile Interface Design](<a href=“http://www.tappgala.com/]TappGala:”>http://www.tappgala.com/) </p>
<p>There are a ton of kids interested in entrepreneurship and there are tons of resources available. I even set up a meeting with Professor Len Lodish to talk about an idea I had, he invests his own capital in his students as he did with both students who went on to sell their companies. </p>
<p>[The</a> Daily Pennsylvanian :: Professors invest in student startups](<a href=“http://thedp.com/index.php/article/2012/03/professors_invest_in_student_startups]The”>Professors invest in student startups | The Daily Pennsylvanian)</p>
<p>Wharton has produced people who invented or ran companies such as Pay Pal, Linkedin, J.D Power, Zynga, Warby Parker, and two alums Jack Abraham and Nat Turner, both who graduated within the last 5 years sold their companies for 70 million dollars each to Ebay and google or something similar I believe (this is him: [Jack</a> Abraham from Milo.com and eBay: Wharton Entrepreneurs Workshop - YouTube](<a href=“Insights from an Entrepreneur with Jack Abraham (Milo.com, eBay) - YouTube”>Insights from an Entrepreneur with Jack Abraham (Milo.com, eBay) - YouTube)). WATCH THIS VIDEO, its great.</p>
<p>Wharton also has business competitions that provide seed money for students with the best business ideas. That’s where Abraham got his seed money for his venture, so this stuff works. </p>
<p>[Wharton</a> Business Plan Competition](<a href=“http://bpc.wharton.upenn.edu/]Wharton”>http://bpc.wharton.upenn.edu/) </p>
<p>Furthermore, Wharton has a small business development center that helps students launch their small businesses and allows students to serve as consultants for real small businesses in the local community. </p>
<p>[Wharton</a> Small Business Development Center](<a href=“http://whartonsbdc.wharton.upenn.edu/]Wharton”>http://whartonsbdc.wharton.upenn.edu/)</p>
<p>In short, the school is moving hard to encourage entrepreneurship, so money is literally thrown at you to go and do something. So Wharton really is one of the best places possible to be at. But at the end of the day, entrepreneurship, perhaps more than anything else, comes down to the efforts of the individual, not the school they attend.</p>
<p>But I have two important point to make:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>The classes you take at Wharton such as Marketing and accounting will help you immensely in giving you all the fundamentals you need to run your business effectively.</p></li>
<li><p>Wharton gives you a business degree and is self-sufficient in and of itself. If you decide to go full throttle and not look back into your idea, then you have a businesses degree and the associated credibility that comes with that. As an entrepreneur, you will almost certainly find that the opportunity cost of getting a further business degree is too high, so if you go somewhere else, you’ll just never get one. </p></li>
<li><p>If, for whatever reason, you decide that you want to leave entrepreneurship, or shift into Venture Capitalist or what have you, then its absolutely beneficial to have that financial background already without the need to get an MBA. </p></li>
<li><p>The alumni network at Wharton is unparalleled. Wharton clubs even have Wharton Alum exclusive events where entrepreneurs have a chance to pitch to angel investors. Furthermore, many of your classmates will probably be in the financial services industry and may be able to help get you access to capital (as was the case with Jack Abraham, who got an in through a friend of his that worked at a VC firm). </p></li>
<li><p>Having MBA mentors helps immensely and the business school professors often have amazing connections that can help you immensely. They are the most valuable resource at Wharton if used correctly. Only at Wharton will you have easy access to these leaders of business thought at such a young age. Guys that literally invent the processes companies use everyday from marketing tools to financial formulas. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>So in this field, perhaps more than any other, having the degree before hand makes an amazing amount of sense.</p>
<p>^ And it was so darn good, that he posted it twice! :p</p>
<p>Ahhh yes!! Just the kind of things I wanted to hear about Wharton. I’m nearly sold…just gotta visit to confirm it. Thank you two for your help!</p>
<p>^ kafkareborn and I make a great tag team. :)</p>
<p>Ha, agreed. Now i just have to ace this midterm.</p>
<p>Spiffy1994, let’s see if we can go just a bit further to seal the deal–this is from the Wharton Entrepreneurial Programs web site to which I linked in post #124, above:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>[About</a> WEP](<a href=“http://wep.wharton.upenn.edu/aboutWep.html]About”>http://wep.wharton.upenn.edu/aboutWep.html)</p>
<p>There are some hyperlinks in that excerpt that didn’t get picked up as links when quoted above, so if you’re interested in exploring further, go to that web page.</p>
<p>The bottom line is that Stanford and several other schools (Ivies, etc.) obviously provide a fantastic college education and experience, and someone like you would do well at any of them, and after you graduate. But while Wharton and Penn offer that same academic excellence, they also offer an added dimension not available to undergrads at those other top schools, as clearly demonstrated by the links posted by kafkareborn and me.</p>
<p>Hey! So I am deciding between Yale and Wharton, and I am definitely very grateful for this long (and very time-consuming, might I add) post. The debate was highly interesting. It’s been great help to me in deciding between the two universities.</p>
<p>I think I will go visit Penn (the Preview days) in the middle of April as well as Yale to get the “feel” of each school. At this point, I know that both schools are awesome and I believe I will do well in either of them.</p>
<p>I know this question is not really related to Wharton, but more about Penn, but if someone can help me out, that would be nice since it does account to my decision between these two schools: what is the housing system like like Penn? I know the general gist of it, but how CLOSELY is it to the Yale residential colleges system? I love the way Yale organizes their students, and I’m wondering if it is somewhat similar at Penn? What are your roommates like and are they from different schools at Penn? </p>
<p>Also, when do kids at Wharton usually get their first internship or some career-related stint? I hope to work internationally after I graduate.</p>
<p>@45%er: Very very nice. </p>
<p>I guess I’m jus afraid that the things I learn at Wharton are too practical and that I won’t be trained to be a good employer rather than employee. However it’s obviously evident that they do have tons of resources for entrepreneurs. </p>
<p>I do love Wharton though…a lot.</p>
<p>And also…I’m in control of my own destiny anyways. A Wharton education can’t hurt me no matter what I decide to do after college.</p>
<p>
What??? Are you kidding me???</p>
<p>Long before Wharton became known as a feeder into Wall Street, IB, and PE (which essentially has been since the LBO rage of the 1980s), it was widely acclaimed as a training ground for future captains of industry. Just take a look at this list of prominent Wharton alumni to see what I mean:</p>
<p>[List</a> of Wharton School alumni - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wharton_School_alumni]List”>List of Wharton School alumni - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>And a survey of the Wharton web site, incuding sections such as the Entrepreneurial Programs site to which I linked above, reveals that a large portion of Wharton’s resources and activities are still devoted to areas other than finance, including management, marketing, etc. And a significant number of Wharton graduates STILL go into areas other than finance. The bottom line is that Wharton strives to educate future LEADERS, as its web site makes VERY clear. And it intends to continue its 130-plus year tradition of educating future leaders in business, and also in other endeavors. That’s what Wharton is all about, as exemplified by its long and distinguished history.</p>
<p>As I’ve said before here on CC, the sexy Wall Street/IB/PE career paths seem to get all the attention on CC, but Wharton is about MUCH more than that, as it has been since its founding as the world’s first collegiate business school in 1881.</p>
<p>Would like to personally thank Kafkareborn for all the help he has given me, it is greatly appreciated!</p>
<p>First of all, Businessweek’s numbers have absolutely 0 credence, as the Wharton school withdrew all information from them and refuses to cooperate because they get things so wrong. </p>
<p>Think rationally, why would business week be the ONLY new outlet with this information ? How come they alone have access to this data, when Penn withdrew co-operation from them along with HBS ? Their figures are a load of crap. </p>
<p>I personally feel Wharton should reveal its numbers separately, and if you talk to administrators they will tell you that the acceptance rate has hovers between 5 and 7%, some years being stronger than others, but lets look at this mathematically shall we.</p>
<ol>
<li>There are a lot more than 5500 applicants to Wharton, pure and simple. We know that Wharton gets a disproportionate share of Penn’s applications due to the strength of the program, but EVEN assuming an even proportion of Wharton kids applying (550/2400)*(31000) you get over 7000 kids applying. Clearly the real figure is to the north of that. If i remember correctly, on my readmit day they mentioned receiving 9000 applications.</li>
</ol>
<p>But let’s try to do this as scientifically as we can.</p>
<ol>
<li>You overstated the number of pure Wharton kids. There are 50 Huntsman Kids, 50 M&T, 35 LSM, and 40-50 (i’ll use 40 in my calculations) or so from a medley of other very competitive dual degree programs such as the ones with the nursing and communication schools. </li>
</ol>
<p>That gives us: 550-170= 380 pure Wharton kids.</p>
<p>We know Wharton has a yield rate of 80% (only Harvard comes close with 78%, this is double digits above Y and P, admit rates alone don’t tell the whole story of selectivity - Wharton students are very self selective) so applying that to the pure Wharton number gives us 475 pure Wharton acceptances. Applying the pure Wharton number to the ratio above (380/2400*31000) gives us 4908 pure Wharton applicants. But note that this is significantly lower than the real number as the dual degree programs are highly self-selective (hence their incredibly high yield - well over HYP) so you are not getting 3000 applications for 170 spots as these calculations suggest. More importantly, Wharton is the most desirable school and the most internationally known (but not as impossible to get into as the dual degree programs) so Wharton draws more applications proportionally than the college, the nursing school, and the engineering school. But EVEN assuming that we distribute that evenly, dividing the pure Wharton applicants by the number of pure Wharton applications gives us (475/4900)= 9.6% an acceptance rate of 9.6%, under the 10% mark despite all of these assumptions of proportionality that we know are false. (This is how I think business week derived its figure which is also ~10% because they DO NOT HAVE ACCESS TO THE ACTUAL DATA, so they assume proportionality which yields vastly inaccurate data. </p>
<p>Move the figures to a slightly more likely scenario with Wharton receiving a slightly disproportionate number of applications, say 4000 more than we would expect, (after all, not many people would apply to the nursing school and the engineering school proportionally, so this is a reasonable assumption. Wharton also would draw more applications than the college proportionally) and you have 475 / 8900 (which is what I vaguely remember hearing - 9000 applications, during my revisit day - the session was held for pure Wharton kids, the dual degree kids had their own session where their own fso this number refers to pure Wharton), do all that and you arrive at an acceptance rate of 475/8900 = ~ 5.3 %, precisely what the Wharton officials told us.</p>
<p>And all this with only a third of Penn application being directed at Wharton. (including another thousand applications for the dual degree programs, who have very high yields, but not necessarily low acceptance rates because the applicants are so self-selective. Admit rates do not tell you the whole story when it comes to selectivity. Which is why HBS has a higher admit rate than Dartmouth, but also a higher yield. It’s precisely the same concept.</p>
<p>Addendum:</p>
<p>I’ve went and got all the actual number to work off of from the Penn site so we can run a few simulations. Turns out Wharton is even MORE selective than my previous calculations indicated as there are 496 Whartonites (including dual degree candidates) per class NOT 550. Here is my source material:</p>
<p>[Penn:</a> Penn Facts](<a href=“http://www.upenn.edu/about/facts.php]Penn:”>http://www.upenn.edu/about/facts.php)</p>
<p>The College at Penn (School of Arts and Sciences), 6,304 = 1576 per class
School of Engineering and Applied Science, 1,641 = 410 per class
School of Nursing, 556 = 139 per class
The Wharton School, 1,986 = 496 per class (and remember this is overstated due to the influx of transfer students into Wharton, both internally and externally, but we’ll ignore that) </p>
<p>Now using even more conservative figures for the dual degree candidates we get 50 M&T, 50 Huntsman 35 LSM and lets say 30 others including the nursing program (which I know is lower by at least 10, but whatever), Wharton is the home school for all these programs. </p>
<p>That gives us: 500 - 50 + 50 + 35 + 30 = 335 pure Whartonites.<br>
At Wharton’s yield of 80% we get:
335 / .8 = 418 applicants. </p>
<ol>
<li><p>Assuming we received 9000 pure Wharton applicants based on the information I received from administrators above, that would give us an acceptance rate of ~4.6%. I have heard the 5% figure bandied about. </p></li>
<li><p>Using business weeks figure of 5200, which, as I stated before they likely got from just using proportional distribution which is inaccurate, you get an acceptance rate of 8% </p></li>
<li><p>Using direct proportionality for pure Whartonites, you get 418/(418/2400*31000) = 418 / 5399 = 7.7% </p></li>
</ol>
<p>Now lets see what the acceptance rates of the other schools would be under these 3 scenarios (I have applied the overall yield of 64% to all other schools):</p>
<ol>
<li>W 496 N 139 E 410 C 1576</li>
</ol>
<p>N 217/(139/1900*21000)= 14 % (which, as I expected, is ridiculously low, they simply do not get as many applications as that, they are probably distributed between the college and Wharton as administrators informally say the real acceptance rate is 20%)</p>
<p>E 640/(410/1900*21000) = ~14 % (lower than the actual number. This portion would suggest they receive 5000 applications)</p>
<p>C 2462/(1576/1900*21000) = ~14 % (probably higher than the actual number as this would give Wharton an acceptance rate of less than 5%, when it is around 5%, so this would probably be 13 or even 12% when we account for the nursing and engineering school. </p>
<p>2, W: 8%, Non Wharton: (3750-620)/25800 = 12.1 % (The actual rate for the college, but this overstates the nursing school massively, and the engineering school somewhat, and the college rate slightly, suggesting that the Wharton rate should be lower than 8%. </p>
<ol>
<li>W. 7.7% Non- Wharton: (3750-640)/25780 = 12 % flat. </li>
</ol>
<p>So there you have it. Notice that for scenarios 2 and 3 the overall admit rate is too low, especially for non-wharton. For us to balance this equation: (3750-640)/25780 so that the admit rate falls at 12.3% we must reduce the number of Wharton admits, implying Wharton is more selective than the numbers suggest. So I hope this helps clear up this issue.</p>
<p>Do all Whartonites have so much spare time on their hands?</p>
<p>Ha, well i have an offer for a full time job, so i have less pressure than most college kids.</p>
<p>double post</p>