<p>So I got accepted at these amazing schools and now I'm having a hard time choosing between them. I'm primarily interested in an economics major with view of entering management consultancy. Obviously Wharton would be the top choice as it is heavily recruited by all the top consultancy firms (if I am correct, not sure about this?) </p>
<p>However, I do have some problems with Wharton. I will refrain from asking about the cut-throat nature of Wharton, because it seems to have been addressed a few times on this board. What I am most concerned about is the accessibility of the professors, and the size of the classes. Are any classes taught by TAs? I don't want to attend large lectures where teaching comes second to research for professors. Do professors bring the material to life? Would you say Wharton is undergraduate-focused or graduate-focused?</p>
<p>In addition, say I want to minor in Computer Science or any other topic that I may find interesting - can I do that at Penn, given that I am a Wharton student?</p>
<p>Also, I'm concerned about the surrounding area of Penn. How safe is West Philly, and how often do students venture off-campus? Is the surrounding area improving, or has it reached a point of stagnancy? </p>
<p>To be honest I'm leaning towards Brown because of the open curriculum, more accessible professors and the prospect of a true liberal arts education. However, there are some things at Penn that I really would love to do, like Wharton's Leadership Ventures. I just have the aforementioned concerns, which I hope some current Wharton students could help allay. </p>
<p>P.S: if your goal is to get into banking, do not choose Brown. People in my office make fun of brown because of its liberal reputation (pass fail courses, no curriculum, grade inflation) - there is a stigma.</p>
<p>Bdude: I’m so excited to see your post! Brown and Stanford were among the schools I had to choose between before deciding to come to Penn last year. </p>
<ul>
<li>Brown really won’t give you a true liberal arts education because the fact that there’s no curriculum means that you don’t have to leave well-rounded. In fact, although my cousin loved Brown, she blamed Brown on not having prepared her for the world. She took classes in her field of interest, and that was, largely, it. Wharton and the College require that you are exposed to fields other than your own that you can, in turn, apply to your field.</li>
<li>All ivies have large INTRO classes. Once you develop a specialization, class sizes will get smaller, regardless of which school you’re in. And even in big lecture classes, at least at Penn, you can become really close with your professors- who are always professors and never TAs. In fact, I’m taking my professor from a large lecture class out to lunch next week through the Inn at Penn’s “Take your professor to lunch program.”</li>
<li>My cousin who went to Brown now lives in Philly and absolutely loves it! She feels that the city is her oyster. In truth, as with all cities, you have to be street smart, but the resources of the city are excellent and the area around the campus is safe. I wouldn’t worry about safety.</li>
<li>Brown doesn’t have as much money as Penn does to provide you with as many research/funding/leadership opportunities. I know it’s tempting, especially after the constraints of high school, to have the lack of requirements that Brown offers, but the requirements at Penn, compared to those of other schools, are nothing.</li>
<li>Yes, you could absolutely double major or minor in computer science, as a result of our one university policy. </li>
<li>I LOVE Penn, and, in my experience, everyone across all the schools does too. If you’re interested in finance and want a great education, with the flexibility to also take courses in other fields, this is the place for you.</li>
</ul>
<p>Feel free to PM me if you have any further questions.</p>
<p>As said by Susie, intro classes will be large, as will most of the Wharton core classes. All classes are taught by professors, though, and TAs will lead recitation sections. I’m not in Wharton so I can’t comment on the quality of the professors, but I hear positive comments about the professors quite frequently. </p>
<p>Minoring in anything outside of Wharton is logistically very easy and cross-disciplinary study is VERY much encouraged at Penn. Aside from finding time to fit in all the computer science classes you need to complete the minor (which I doubt would really be an issue), there are no hurdles to jump over whatsoever. Students from any school at Penn can take classes in any other school, including many of the graduate schools.</p>
<p>West Philly is certainly not Palo Alto, or Providence for that matter, but it could certainly be a lot worse. To start, Penn is not in the heart of West Philly–it’s right across the Schuylkill River from Center City and basically serves as the connection between Center City and West Philly. I feel completely safe on campus, including at night. It’s been so warm lately that you can find people reading outside at 11:30 PM. Students generally live as far as 2 blocks west of campus, but some students, and many grad students and professors, live farther than that. Most students are quite underexposed to West Philly, and if you venture 5 or 6 blocks off campus during the day you’ll find it really isn’t bad. You definitely don’t want to do that at night, but I think it gets a worse rep than it deserves. Crime happens like in any city (the majority of which is theft, which can happen prevalently on any campus, urban or not), but it isn’t anything that affects your day to day life. </p>
<p>I don’t know that Brown would necessarily offer more accessible professors. The general notion seems to be the larger the school, or the heavier the grad presence is, the less accessible the professors. Professors always hold office hours and I have never had a professor who isn’t willing to meet outside those times with students. If you want contact with professors, you can most certainly get it.</p>
<p>Thanks for all the input guys! I would really love to visit Penn but seeing as I am an international student, I can’t afford to do so at this time. Can anyone comment on the general vibe on campus? Are students generally friendly and accepting, or are they characterized by a sense of pretentiousness like at some of the other Ivy League schools? The main reason why I like Stanford and Brown so much is because of the laid-back student atmosphere. Now I know Penn students are a bit more competitive, but is it overwhelmingly so? Also how are internship opportunities for international students at Wharton?</p>
<p>bdude: We are super laid-back. You have to understand that while we all work really hard, we have tons of fun and not just through parties. This is really random, but on Halloween, for instance, everyone in my building dressed up and when went trick-or-treating on the rooftop lounge.
Harnwell has an international program that I’ve heard good things about. Also, we have an International House that kids like. Internship opportunities are really strong. I didn’t even try that hard to get an internship this summer and I got one through this Penn internship network thing that we have. (I’m not in Wharton though). I’m sure being international won’t be a problem.
Also, The Daily Beast recently released a study on the most stressful schools and Stanford’s number 1-- so much for being laid back.
Personally, I am motivated by my fellow students. We all study together in the library, Huntsman, the computer lab or the rooftop lounge, frequently in our pajamas, and we support each other. Honestly, if I have a question for one of my classes, I never have to go to my professors-- I always just go to my friends. On Locust Walk, during stressful times like midterms or finals, upbeat music is frequently playing. After a night of little sleep, you’ll appreciate the Penn spirit and energy.
People are not uptight. I mean, this is a place where you’re genuinely free to do your own thing and you will be accepted no matter what. We have people on Locust walk who wear suit and ties and people who wear sweatpants and T-shirt- EVERYTHING goes.
I understand how hard it must be to not be able to visit Penn, so I’m sending you some videos that show Penn and Penn students:
[YouTube</a> - “True Learning” - University of Pennsylvania](<a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGpOizUIY60]YouTube”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGpOizUIY60)
[YouTube</a> - Flash Freeze: University of Pennsylvania Freshmen](<a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fAOMhqRc34&feature=related]YouTube”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fAOMhqRc34&feature=related)
[YouTube</a> - The quad @ upenn](<a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7rIiiPx6z4&feature=related]YouTube”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7rIiiPx6z4&feature=related)
And we make sure we have fun: [YouTube</a> - UPenn Battle - Medieval Style<a href=“The%20noise%20in%20the%20background%20is%20because%20the%20person%20who%20filmed%20this%20was%20laughing%20because%20this%20happened%20in%20the%20middle%20of%20Locust%20Walk”>/url</a>.
Some pictures of Huntsman Hall: [url=<a href=“http://www.wharton.upenn.edu/huntsmanhall/tour/03walnut_street1.html]Tour”>http://www.wharton.upenn.edu/huntsmanhall/tour/03walnut_street1.html]Tour</a> Wharton’s Huntsman Hall](<a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Haic_OqETTE]YouTube”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Haic_OqETTE)</p>
<p>the number one employer of brown undergrads is goldman sachs and all of the major banks and consultancies recruit directly on campus. </p>
<p>if your goal is to work for mckinsey–the most prestigious management consulting firm in the world–brown is probably the best school you can go to. marvin bower (the founder of mckinsey and father of the whole management consulting industry) is a brown alum. several former mckinsey directors are brown alums, including one who know serves as brown’s chancellor. as a result, mckinsey hires more brown seniors than most other schools.
<a href=“Alumni Center | McKinsey & Company”>Alumni Center | McKinsey & Company;
<p>for some reason, most people on these threads just make things up–you should take everything that is said here with many grains of salt. at the end of the day, go with your guy and pick the school that fits you best.</p>
<p>McKinsey is actually my target company, although any other of the consultancy firms (like Bain and Booz) have also caught my attention. Do these companies also recruit on campus at Brown?</p>
<p>For example, for the last 6 years of graduating classes, the following numbers of Wharton undergrads accepted offers to work for McKinsey (remember that these are the numbers of ACCEPTED offers, not the numbers of offers made):</p>
<p>You’ll also find the numbers for comparable consulting firms, and see which firms recruit on campus.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that these are just the numbers for Wharton undergrad, which has less than 500 graduates per year, and they don’t include those hired from Penn’s College of Arts and Sciences and School of Engineering and Applied Science.</p>
<p>If you want to get into banking go to Wharton. If consulting is your thing Wharton and Stanford would be pretty even. Brown is significantly less recruited than Wharton or stanford, but also has significantly fewer students going into business. While goldman mighy be the #1 employer at brown, I’d venture that more penn kids wok at Goldman than brown kids. </p>
<p>Personally, if I were deciding i’d go to Stanford,but you’ll end up fine whereever you go</p>
<p>If you’ve already identified your major, profession, and even employer, then there’s no reason to go to a lib arts place like Brown. You’d want to go to Wharton to immerse yourself in the pre-professional atmosphere and make a critical mass of acquaintences for the future, basically pre-MBA.</p>
<p>Wharton student life is competitive, not cut-throat- will leave this discussion to numerous other threads. There is overachievement on assignments, not sabotage.</p>
<p>West Philly around Penn’s campus is safe; it’s not an expansive campus like Stanford but the University has expanded its shadow little-by-little over the years to the point where the central campus and 3-4 blocks of city around it are 100% safe. Philadelphia is much more happening than Providence or Palo Alto, esp. downtown- students go there a lot and most grad students live in Center City.</p>
<p>Since you are a foreign student, you should know that Penn has the highest foreign student percentage of the undergraduate population in the Ivy League at 12-13%. Employers know this and recruit it if they value it accordingly. A quick search for Stanford’s shows it at 5% a few years ago, so cannot be higher than high-single-digits now.</p>
<p>I study economics at Columbia. At the places I’ve worked at, my sense is that your listed three schools would enjoy a level of respect in this order: Wharton, Stanford, and Brown (a distant third). You’d be wise to give proper consideration to where you want to work as well. Although Brown has some connections in NYC, if you later decide to work in California, London, the Pacific Rim, or some other international destination, your Brown experience would be of little value to you, but a degree from Stanford or Wharton would remain highly valuable.</p>
<p>Although each of us enjoys a laid back atmosphere, you might also keep in mind that working at McKinsey (or like firm) is anything but laid back. You might be doing yourself a disfavor by pursuing a laid back education for an eventual job in a very driven industry.</p>
<p>folks in the upenn forum seem to have a strong anti-brown bias
everyone is entitled to their own opinion but it’s irresponsible to make things up when someone is asking for advice–it’s particularly disingenuous to tell bdude that choosing between stanford, upenn, and brown will make any difference in terms of a career in consulting. </p>
<p>the truth is that all will give you an excellent education, all send many students to prestigious consultancies (brown has a specific edge with mckinsey, but to get hired there you need to do very well no matter where you go to college).</p>
<p>given that you have the opportunity to choose among such great schools, you should pick the one that fits you best and will give you the best four year experience.</p>
<p>I don’t think its just that they’re biased. I think almost anybody would tell you to pick Wharton or Stanford over Brown based purely on academics and job prospects.</p>
<p>Ya…i second arzachel. I was admitted to five major universities: Dartmouth, Upenn (LSM), Brown, Duke, and Vandy (full ride). The easiest school to eliminate from my list was Brown. I just feel their grade inflation and pass/fail option is/has drained the school of much of its reputation with employers.</p>
<p>I’m not biased against Brown, nor do I favor Penn (my gf attends there but I turned Penn down for Columbia). One doesn’t need to be biased to recognize the strengths and weaknesses of the three schools mentioned by the OP. Brown provides an outstanding experience for some students. If, for example, the OP aspired to one day teach at a university then I would eagerly encourage him to attend Brown instead of Stanford or Penn. If he wanted to study dance, film, or art I would be equally enthusiastic. However, the OP wants to study economics with an eye on working for a demanding consulting firm. Brown’s model and culture, in my view, is an less suitable match for the OP’s stated goals than that offered by Penn or Stanford. It goes no deeper than that.</p>