<p>katwkittens - what does your DS want to do?</p>
<p>iv4me - what is the M&T program?</p>
<p>FWIW, in a very similar situation to Alumother regarding hiring, and have the same perspective.</p>
<p>KateLewis- The Jerome Fisher Program in Management and Technology (M&T for short) is a joint degree in business and engineering at the University of Pennsylvania. Only 55 people are selected every year, and the students are considered the "cream of the crop" at Wharton. They pretty much all take 6 classes a semester for 4 or 5 years, since there are ample requirements to graduate from both SEAS and Wharton. Many firms come to campus to recruit specifically M&T students. Go to this website <a href="http://www.mandt.wharton.upenn.edu/overview.htm%5B/url%5D">http://www.mandt.wharton.upenn.edu/overview.htm</a> for more info. </p>
<p>I am debating between M&T and Princeton.</p>
<p>I respect that there are people on here that prefer not to hire students straight out of undergrad b-school, but the hundreds of corporations and organizations that come to recruit at Wharton/Penn and the hundreds of wharton students they hire every year would beg to differ. Every top firm recruits at Wharton/Penn so I think they are fine with hiring us.</p>
<p>Wharton....it's about business. However, U Penn and Princeton are 2 very different schools. Have u visited? Perhaps that would aid your decision.</p>
<p>Honestly, Wharton is THE place for business. I'm in a similar situation with film. I can go to the big expensive film school, or go to state on the cheap for cinema studies. In the end, if I want to do film, what's the point in following all the roads in the woods when the the big gate just opened to the yellow brick road?</p>
<p>Kat - I made the choice between Wharton and MIT and ended up choosing Wharton for many different reasons. Feel free to talk if you have any questions.</p>
<p>"I respect that there are people on here that prefer not to hire students straight out of undergrad b-school, but the hundreds of corporations and organizations that come to recruit at Wharton/Penn and the hundreds of wharton students they hire every year would beg to differ. Every top firm recruits at Wharton/Penn so I think they are fine with hiring us."</p>
<p>As though the top recruiters don't come to Princeton or any top Ivy. Yes more Wharton students are probably recruited than Princeton students just based on sheer numbers (pretty much everyone at Wharton theoretically should want to go in to business otherwise they wasted their undergraduate education, while not everyone at Princeton wants to go into those fields) but I am sure that at Princeton it wouldn't be any harder to get recruited.</p>
<p>iv4me - sorry for the delayed response - the M&T program looks great. Engineering plus business is a powerful combination. Congrats on having 2 such great choices - don't think you can go wrong.</p>
<p>Studyless, I was responding to the following comments, not making a general comment. </p>
<p>Alumother: "As a hiring VP, I don't care to hire undergraduate business majors as I expect they will peak too early."</p>
<p>KateLewis: "FWIW, in a very similar situation to Alumother regarding hiring, and have the same perspective."</p>
<p>If you read what I wrote, I NEVER said that Wharton students get recruited more, what I was saying is that while some parents here don't care to hire students straight out of an undergraduate business program, that certainly doesn't mean that the top companies feel the same way.</p>
<p>In fact, I never argue that Wharton students get recruited more. I frequently say that if you want to work in business you can go anywhere and major in anything. My argument for choosing Wharton is if you actually want to STUDY BUSINESS, which is nothing like studying theoretical economics (which you get in a liberal arts school).</p>
<p>And lastly, to say that every Wharton alum should want to go into business or else they wasted their education is ridiculous. I for one did not go into business, and the beautiful thing about the Wharton degree is that you can do practically anything with it (career wise and in terms of grad school). It's an extremely flexible and marketable degree. And no, mine was not a waste. And my classmates in law school, med school, other non-profit work, government, etc. would agree with me.</p>
<p>Everyone on CC seem to admire the Wharton school at Upenn as the absolute best especially for undergrad business. From everyone's perceptions on Wharton and the prestige of many its programs like the Huntsmand and M&t and what people I know tell me- Wharton is the best for business. I don't know much- but from what i see and hear from everyone who goes there or went there- it really is the place for business.</p>
<p>But I ask- what is business? It can't just be a more practical course in commerce and economics. Why doesn't HYP offer it at the undergrad level if its such a great course? What do you learn in business that isn't covered in economics? Physics isn't completely theoretical- economics definately isn't and I've heard interesting things about Maths majors in the finance sector. I ask- what at college isn't theoretical?</p>
<p>Then it struck me- if a school- say .... Penn, offered an undergrad degree in Law would you take it? We've all heard of the Harvard business school and the Yale law school so why don't they all offer undergrad degrees in those areas?</p>
<p>Is there anything you learn in undergrad business that you wouldn't learn in an MBA? If you really want to persue a degree in business and finance then chances you'd need an MBA along and road so why the need to learn the same things over again? </p>
<p>Take Law for example- how many lawyers studied full-on legal courses for an undergrad major? If so many people who did economics or classics or history or sciences can all go to law school- then why would you miss out on a liberal arts education to learn the same things over and over again?</p>
<p>Wharton is the best- but what about the rest of Penn? Harvard, Princeton and Yale are the best because of their overall strength and prestige. I've heard of great things from every department at Princeton. Hell Bernake used to teach there- I doubt the job of being the chairman of the fed reserve is a "theoretical" job. </p>
<p>Just because you want to study business doesn't mean you have to study it at the undergrad level. Where's that intellectual curiosity? Don't you want to learn another language, take a class taught by Cornel west or a class in public policy at the woody woo? My point is that unless a business degree beats everything else hands down- you should consider broadening your interests and expand your horizons. Princeton is reputed for its undergrad focus and its strength in almost every field. You never know- your interests may change (there's a high chance that might happen) Love the liberal arts :)</p>
<p>You never know what you'll turn out to be. You could get hooked to a course on corporate law and you might end up being a lawyer. Who knows?</p>
<p>Good luck with your choices :)</p>
<p>A reasonable way to frame the decision would be to ask yourself:</p>
<ol>
<li>Do I want to avoid getting an MBA and therefore maximise business exposure during my undergraduate studies?</li>
</ol>
<p>If so, it would be interesting to look at some data of average income (at a certain age) of Wharton BAs who did not get an MBA later in life and compare them to average income of Wharton MBAs of the same age group.</p>
<ol>
<li>I f you come to the conclusion that an MBA at a top institution (like, but not limited to, Wharton) is a worthwile investment (over the span of an expected life-time) then the next question would be, if an undergraduate business major/degree enhances your chances of admission. Possibly not.</li>
</ol>
<p>If it doesn't (and there are data on that) you may want to ask which institution is best suited to provide you with a well rounded foundation that you will need to succeed in business even with an MBA.</p>
<p>Possibly you will agree that a non business-focused undergraduate curriculum followed by a top tier MBA gets you farther in (business) life, although I understand that there is no correlation between formal education and business success (the Bill Gates conundrum).</p>
<p>To follow up on Playfair's comments, not sure where they are now but over the years on CC quite a few Wharton grads have piped up on threads like this one to say please don't do an undergrad business degree; use your undergrad years to explore, have a broad range of experiences, and learn about all sorts of things because these will form the basis not only of your career but of your formation as a human being, including your leisure pursuits, etc. After that, they say, do an MBA and you're golden. Good luck with your decision.</p>
<p>Not to diss the older Wharton alums, but the curriculum today is not the same as it was then - it's not even the same as when I attended and I haven't been out that long.</p>
<p>You have to take more liberal arts classes now than you ever had to before - almost 50% of your classes. I'm sure the older alums didn't take anywhere NEAR that, and when I was there it was easy to get around that through AP credit, which led to a policy change.</p>
<p>I don't think one education is better than the other. However, I do feel that they are fundamentally different in terms of the classes you take and the way that you learn. Some people are really into the whole hands-on aspect of learning that Wharton provides. If you're more of an abstract thinker and you enjoy analyzing theory, then you're probably more of a lib arts person.</p>
<p>I do believe that one can be better for an individual, depending on their learning styles and actual academic interests.</p>
<p>But like everyone is saying, either way you're set. Just think about what kind of thing you actually want to study.</p>
<p>kjoodles - if you look at the curriculums and the classes you take for both types of degrees you'll see there is a huge difference between the theoretical and the applied economics.</p>
<p>some of the posts have made it sound like the rest of Penn is crap. Just want to say that it isn't, and by going to Wharton, you will get that business education but its not like you will miss out on taking a foreign language, or learning about something that interests you aside from business. As posted above, you will take many liberal arts classes, and the college at Penn is a great place to do so.</p>
<p>Well, you asked "What is business?" so I'll try my best to answer that question. </p>
<p>At Wharton, "undergraduate business" is a balance of classs throughout different fields that will be useful later on in the business world.
When they say "study business" they mean "study a nice mix of courses that will prepare you for analyzing problems that you might encounter in a future corporate job".</p>
<p>Classes taken include intensive work in statistics, computer programming, global politics and policy, domestic policy, international relations, economics, finance, and proficiency in a language. This is certainly different and much more diverse than the educaton you'd find in MBA classrooms.</p>
<p>Also, exactly half of your classes throughout your four years need to be in liberal arts outside of Wharton, so I wouldn't worry at all about missing out on anything.</p>
<p>it's about what school suits you best at this point. but if u want to work in a fortun 500 company or anything like that and start near the top im told that wharton is the best choice.</p>
<p>"Some people are really into the whole hands-on aspect of learning that Wharton provides. If you're more of an abstract thinker and you enjoy analyzing theory, then you're probably more of a lib arts person."</p>
<p>Very true. From course to course Wharton's program is more project-based. Princeton is more traditional paper-writing, except that for your senior thesis you can choose to do an extensive project with university support, etc. If I were deciding between the two this is what I would see as the difference, rather than in future potential, which is excellent at both schools.</p>
<p>Yeah, people are making it out to be that if you go to UPenn you'll have great business education but nothing else, and that only Princeton will be the one of the two to give a well balanced education.</p>
<p>That's simply not true. They're both top tier schools, and you're not going to be missing out on everything else at UPenn. And considering Wharton is the leader in the field you're passionate about...</p>