<p>I got into both schools, but still haven't made up my mind.
Can you guys help me make my decision? Make me fall in love with
either Harvard or Wharton.
I'm planning to major in economics.
Your responses would be greatly appreciated :)</p>
<p>H-Harvard.....</p>
<p><em>readies himself for the slew of hate mail</em></p>
<p>Depends. I think Wharton for undergrad beats Harvard econ but if you're not planning on doing business, you're better off at Harvard; more name-recognition.</p>
<p>I think you should go to harvard for Economics...The degree from wharton maybe called "economics", but you learn stuff like accounting etc which doesnt have much to do with econ....I'd pick harvard, and even if you do want to go into business, harvard is well recruited at</p>
<p>One thing to consider is Penn's "One University" policy, which strongly encourages each undergrad to take courses in more than one of the undergraduate schools (College of Arts and Sciences, Wharton, School of Engineering and Applied Science, Nursing), and in 8 of Penn's graduate and professional schools (Law School, Annenberg School for Communication, School of Design, School of Social Policy and Practice, Graduate School of Education, etc.). It gives undergrads a unique opportunity to design a diverse curriculum of depth and breadth that goes way beyond a traditional liberal arts or business program. I'm not sure that Harvard gives its undergrads a similarly wide-ranging "free run" of the university.</p>
<p>And of course, Wharton provides many business courses that can't be duplicated at Harvard College, while still encouraging undergrads to take up to 43% of their courses in the arts and sciences. And, 30% of Wharton undergrads earn dual degrees from Wharton and one of Penn's other undergraduate schools, so you could easily earn both a Wharton degree and a liberal arts degree (e.g., with an economics major) from the College during your four years.</p>
<p>Obviously, you can't go wrong either way. It's really a matter of personal preference (but remember, there's a lot more to life than just impressing other people with the name of your alma mater).</p>
<p>People do pick Penn CAS and Penn Wharton over Harvard FAS, but it is safe to say they are in the minority.</p>
<p>That being said, it really depends on what you want to do. If you know you want business/applied economics, go to Wharton. If you want more theoretical economics, go to Harvard.</p>
<p>Also go to their previews days or whatever. You might find the people at one school or the other to simply rub you the wrong way.</p>
<p>Indeed, the lure of the Harvard mystique is hard to resist (its yield rate is something near 80%).</p>
<p>But there are a few hearty individuals of exceedingly strong character and moral fiber who are able to do so. :) In fact, about 20%.</p>
<p>Adding: Not everyone who chooses to go to Harvard instead of another school is of weak character or moral fiber. What the hell? Sometimes the H is just the better choice for someone and their future plan.</p>
<p>^ That's why I put the smiley :) after the statement.</p>
<p>HARVARD!! no question</p>
<p>I'd go to Harvard despite what these fanboys would say</p>
<p>I picked Penn SAS over Harvard and a few other schools (later transferred into Wharton)... I think I regret it. If you're not so sure about business, then I'd stay away from it. I feel like I'm missing out on so much that I could have gotten elsewhere. Really figure out where your interests have the most weight and then try to choose this way.</p>
<p>"(later transferred into Wharton)...I think I regret it ".
legendofmax - You will be glad 10 year from now.</p>
<p>so you regret picking Penn? Or transferring into Wharton? Only the second one is really regrettable ;)</p>
<p>Just out of curiosity, what made you pick Penn SAS over Harvard FAS? May as well answer for posterity and future forum searchers</p>
<p>I don't think I'll be glad 10 years from now, but then again, I'll only know for sure in 10 years :P</p>
<p>ilovebagels: Yeah I regret picking Penn. I picked it for financial reasons, primarily. In all honesty I would have probably had a better fit at Harvard, Yale, or MIT. I don't want to turn this into an anti-Penn rant, but there are just many aspects of the school (the curriculum, the student body, the campus, the location, the costs, etc) that I thought would be great/manageable/etc before I got here, but over time I'm realizing my initial assessments were not quite accurate, in my opinion.</p>
<p>im choosing right now whether to go to upenn or not... please explain what has made you reconsider your choice. I used to live within walking distance of penn so i should get a feel for what you say.</p>
<p>^^you're the first student (out of the very few ive talked to) to regret penn. could you please be a little more specific??</p>
<p>These are some of my reasons (in no particular order, I'm just gonna spew stuff out randomly). Again, most of these are merely out of my own preferences for things, so I speak for nobody but myself:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>I dislike the traffic and the noise -- it seems like no matter where I live, I always hear sirens and people being loud. I've gotten used to it by now, but I prefer other schools where I haven't had this issue in the dorms. At Harvard/Yale/MIT, and Princeton too, I was able to have a good night's sleep without the noise. This is less of a problem in the High Rises and certain areas of the Quad, but there are too many dorms here exposed to noisy areas.</p></li>
<li><p>Whenever I go shopping for food/clothes/etc, nearly 8 out of 10 times I'm approached by beggars, and sometimes very rude ones. I don't want to deal with that on a college campus. I want to be able to go do my errands and get from place to place without getting heckled all the time. It's especially bad at food carts if someone's there begging to begin with, because any change you receive from the food cart is something beggars now know you have. I've had instances where I've been followed for nearly two blocks, being constantly hounded by someone who wanted me to give them change/food, even when I made it clear I was not going to. I'm not going to support that kind of behavior.</p></li>
<li><p>A lot of the required classes in Wharton (MGMT 100/101, LGST 101) don't really seem to be worth the time and effort, and they take up time that I'd rather be spending studying something else that I'd get more use out of. A lot of courses are extremely inefficient at teaching the material without resorting to a needless excess of notation and awkward structures. This especially made me upset in a few finance courses. I'd continually ask the teacher outside of class for clarification on certain aspects and definitions, and he'd simply refer me to these really huge, clunky equations that didn't handle exceptions shown in other examples. Wharton's just too full of notation and buzzwords for me. I got so fed up with it that I made my own algorithms for figuring the stuff out in a more intuitive format and I got a 100% on the final anyway. </p></li>
<li><p>I generally dislike having to walk such great distances to get from A to B all the time, and especially when the weather's so hot. Perhaps I'm simply lazy, but at least for me, I overheat really easily, and so by the time I walk across campus a few times, I'm totally soaked, and it's irritating. I'm not even out of shape; I'm just really not used to this kind of weather at all. Laundry's expensive here compared to the other schools ($1.25 per load) and I find myself going through laundry constantly because the weather. </p></li>
<li><p>Work study jobs here generally don't pay as much as work study jobs at peer universities (a lot of jobs here pay anywhere from 8-10, but at somewhere like Yale, my friend tells me that range is closer to 12 for an average wage).</p></li>
<li><p>With the exception of perhaps MIT, I just find the peer campuses to be more aesthetically pleasing. Many buildings here are a bit rough on the eyes or generally nondescript, and other buildings have ridiculous floorplans or elevator setups (Skirkanich Hall, Williams Hall, etc) that make it hard to get around unless you've been there a few times. </p></li>
<li><p>Too many arrogant people. With the exception of Princeton, I generally find peer institutions to have fewer arrogant people. This might be because of the way the schools are split up here (since there is a fair amount of Wharton/College/Engineering headbutting). </p></li>
<li><p>Wharton just doesn't fit my interests. Talking about money all day and analyzing interest rates doesn't really get my heart racing or anything. Some Statistics/OPIM/language courses are genuinely interesting to me, but otherwise, I'm just not motivated about what I'm learning in Wharton.</p></li>
<li><p>On more than one occasion I've gotten a test/project back with little to no feedback, but then no answer guide to check against later. Sometimes you'll turn in multiple assignments before getting the first one back, and this can put you in danger of repeating the same mistakes a few times until you finally receive a grade. </p></li>
<li><p>Too many people seem focused on getting jobs and nothing more.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>ouch. i don't have to worry about the wharton part (im in CAS) nor the noisy/city part because I'm used to it... but things like #6, #7 and especially #9 scare me... one of my biggest fears is I will go there and realize that the professors don't really care about undergrads. My dad works there and says that the focus is really on grad students... anyone want to disprove this for me?</p>
<p>Again it's only my opinion -- a lot of people would probably disagree with me. And #9 depends on the type of class you take. I'd receive a lot of feedback in language courses and math courses, but then in certain finance courses, the answer guide/grade might take eons to be released (an answer guide for the first test in one of my finance courses was put up not more than a week ago). This also bugged me in LGST, where I'd receive an entire essay back with just a number for the score. Not even an indication of what was correct/incorrect. When I'd ask the teacher about it, he'd tell me to "look through the readings and see for yourself." In certain Stat courses, the answer key might have a totally crazy combinatoric/integral/algebraic setup with no explanation as to why it's set up that way. Also, answer keys have mistakes OFTEN in Wharton, I've noticed. I can't count the number of times the answer keys have been found to be screwed up somewhere. It's extremely frustrating to me, especially when it's in subjects that I'm not super-passionate about, or in courses that I have a difficult time getting the hang of in the first place. Answer sheet issues in Accounting were like death to me. In MGMT, they give you loads of guidelines for Status Reports, but then the teams that go first always get marked down for random things that were never even mentioned in those guidelines. As a result, the teams that go last tend to do better because they've basically cut away all the random mistakes that everyone else made.</p>
<p>In my SAS courses, I never really had the feedback issue. Wharton, however -- tons of issues.</p>