Wharton vs. College of Arts and Sciences

I have been doing some research on Penn, as it is my top school, and it seems as if getting into Wharton undergrad school is significantly more difficult than other undergrad schools at Penn. I have heard it was as competitive as Yale and Harvard, but I do want to go there all the same. Unfortunately, I am not sure about my chances for both Wharton and the College of Arts. Since the chances of getting into the general college are greater, should I apply there rather than risking rejection from the university all together by applying to Wharton? I have:
4.93 weighted gpa on the 4.0 scale
1500 on PSAT
1550 on SAT (planning on re-taking)
Taken 4-5 APs every year except freshman and sophomore
An internship at a local healthcare company
DECA president
MUN president
Around 100 hours of volunteer work at the hospital

Wharton takes math scores very seriously so your math level 2 subject test scores, SAT math score, and the level of course rigors in mathematics would be important for them. I recommend taking that into account when you make your decision.

Actually Wharton is not significantly harder to get into than the College; they’re about equally difficult in terms of admissions rate and there is no evidence to indicate that students in either program are more qualified than students in the other. Furthermore, the comprehensive job placement statistics published by Career Services indicate each year that students in the College and Wharton do equally well finding jobs in their chosen professions after undergraduate studies and gain admissions to the same graduate programs at the same rates.

It is commonly believed that Wharton’s acceptance rate is about 1 or 2 percentage points lower than that of the College. Essentially the difference between Wharton and the College in terms of admit rate is about the same as the difference between Stanford and Princeton- which is to say, it’s negligible.

What does matter for your application to Penn is being able to convey to the school why you belong at Penn and why you belong in your specific program of choice (in your case, Wharton). The Penn admissions department is a well-tuned machine that doesn’t have trouble detecting candidates who incorrectly think they’ll be able to take advantage of the slightly higher admit rate at the College. And again, the difference between the College and Wharton is so small that it doesn’t actually translate into genuinely improved chances of admission and applying without a real interest in the program of study will reduce your chances greatly because you won’t look like a good fit for the school. Therefore, it is essential that you apply to the program for which you can honestly express your desire to attend. At the end of the day, Penn’s acceptance rate will probably be about 9% again this year and no applicant will have a very good chance of acceptance. So if you’re interested in Wharton, definitely apply to Wharton because you’re not actually more likely to get in to the College anyway.

@philly1881 The difference is not that significant. There probably is a difference in terms of difficulty to get in but it is rather small and it should not be the deciding factor. The difference is comparable to the relative difference between Harvard/Stanford vs Yale/Princeton.

I feel the best strategy is to go with the school that best fits your interests and talents. If you apply to CAS with a resume full of business ECs, courses and demonstrated interest in business, and without a good reason as to why you do not want to actually study business, they will sense that you are trying to game the system/are not a good fit for CAS and you will likely get rejected. It is perfectly fine to want to go into business but wanting to study something different, many people at Penn do it and are very successful at breaking into business, but you need to convincingly show that. Adcoms can very easily sniff out people that apply to CAS because they think it will be an easier way into Penn than Wharton.

Ultimately, it is best to apply to the school at Penn that has the major you want to study. You will get practically the same opportunities either way.