Wharton's real acceptance rate and prestige.... any idea?

<p>Hey guys, I felt like starting a riot so I thought I'd start this page. Obviously Upenn doesn't release acceptance rates for the individual schools. It's assumed that it's lower than CAS, but what is the acceptance rate.</p>

<p>Wikipedia says 5.3% (2012)
Google says 9% (2009)</p>

<p>What is the acceptance rate for 2013 (class of 2017)??</p>

<p>Added discussion: is there anything to be said for self-selection? Is it more/less/equally difficult to get into Wharton as, say, Harvard? Princeton? Yale? MIT? Stanford? What do you guys think?</p>

<p>It’s impossible to really get any sort of meaningful acceptance rate for Wharton alone because about 1/5 of the Wharton population is part of a coordinated dual-degree program. The best that you can really say is that the acceptance rate for just Wharton is somewhere between 7%-12% (5.3% is way too low, I’m willing to bet it incorporates dual degree students or does something else wonky). </p>

<p>I think Wharton is probably a great degree more self-selective than Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. A lot of people who are totally clueless apply to HYP because they’re household names and CommonApp makes it easy. Wharton has a less recognized name among the general public, so the applicant pool probably tends to consist of people who are more savvy about college admissions and (obviously) have a strong interest in business.</p>

<p>As far as prestige goes, it all depends on your interests. For finance/consulting at least, I’d say Harvard, Princeton, Yale, and Wharton are all roughly on the same tier. Stanford and MIT are both pretty good, obviously, but not to quite the same extent.</p>

<p>In general, I’d say Wharton is probably the “easiest” to get into of all the schools on that list. I put that in quotes because they really do look for different qualities in their students. You do not really need to be an academic powerhouse to get into Wharton, but assuming you meet a minimum academic threshold they really only care about your extracurricular activities (particularly things displaying leadership, community involvement, and drive/passion). The other elite schools also care heavily about both sets of factors, but I feel that they have a far greater emphasis on academics than Wharton does.</p>

<p>Hope that helps.</p>

<p>A member on CC did an in-depth analysis a while ago and came to the conclusion that the acceptance for Wharton was around 7% while UPenn had reported 12% (IIRC).</p>

<p>With that said, I think Wharton applicants definitely self-select, but there are also a few business interested kids who apply because of the name and might not have a chance of getting in. I agree with the above poster in that you don’t have to be an academic powerhouse to get into Wharton. However, if you look at the Classes of 2016 and 2017 Results Threads, you’ll see that many 4.0/2300+/Multiple APs get rejected from Wharton, where, if they had applied to CAS they probably would have gotten in.</p>

<p>Those who don’t have “academic powerhouse” credentials who get into Wharton are those generally with hooks, recruited athletes, URM, first-generation college applicants and residents of Philly and PA. I didn’t put legacies, because I think most legacies who are admitted have the credentials.</p>

<p>My sister goes to W and she tells me she knows like 20 kids who got 2400s and basically everyone was a valedictorian. Do u really think being from Philly helps? We just moved away from Philly actually haha</p>

<p>Back to the question tho… Would u put it on par with HYPSM UChicago, Columbja, etc? My aunt always says its the best in the county… She works on Wall Street . Where would u guys place it?</p>

<p>For selectivity, it is on par with HYP. For finance, it is the best.
Why? The undergrads are well equipped to handle any type of finance, without going back to get an MBA.
For other grads, the higher they progress in finance, the more skillset they need (thus MBA) that the Whartonites already possess.</p>

<p>If were were talking about strictly wall street, it’s Wharton=Harvard at the top then Stanford, Princeton, etc. If we were talking about prestige in general, Wharton is certainly below Harvard, but I’d equate it to Princeton. I would say the selectivity is in the realm of HYP but I don’t think it is as selective. It definitely beats schools like Columbia (blows out of the water for wall street) and Uchicago though. Being from Philly does help, so make that clear. Good luck</p>

<p>There are only three things a student should generally be concerned with: The quality of the education received, the type of degree received, and the brand value of the school. Others may tell you otherwise, but for most people in this economy, looking at getting the best bang for your buck is the highest priority for 80 percent of students.</p>

<p>In that regard, Wharton is at the top. Period. Whether it is slightly higher or lower than Harvard is irrelevant, because you are looking at the highest tier in terms of job placements and career prospects, not to mention networking.</p>

<p>The career survey reports speak for themselves.</p>

<p>I know kids here who had to choose Wharton vs HYP. Many picked Wharton for the practical education, brand value of the name, and the POWERFUL job placement record which is within the top two in the world, period.</p>

<p>Feel free to PM with additional Qs.</p>

<p>Breaker when u say on the same level as P, where is that in relation to YSM?</p>

<p>At a certain point, what level a school or department is on no longer matters. Vying for number one between Harvard or Wharton seems useless. Both of these schools combined can not produce enough elite level talent to meet the demand. Therefore, a cluster of upper tier schools may be a relevant marker that both Harvard and Penn and Stanford and Princeton along with others occupy. The fine differences between them are simply fine differences mostly based on preference and special expertise.</p>

<p>@Madaboutx, the whole thread is under a pretense that ranking the upper tier is useless, but some times it can be a little bit of fun. My whole issue with rankings is that focuses on a lot of useless stuff. I think the most important factor is the quality of students it attracts. A lot of times people are like "oh, cornell has a great engineering department."At the same time, if an engineer has a decision between Cornell and Harvard, they’re going to likely choose Harvard. I’m sure Cornell engineering is great, but what I mean to say is that Harvard will still attract the better student no matter how great the Cornell engineering department probably is. The best way to think about prestige is which school attracts the brightest/most talented individuals. Yield is a solid indicator of that. When I say Wharton is same level as Princeton, I think that someone moderately interested in business would be equally interested Princeton and Wharton (aka tossup, I’ve seen decisions go both ways). If someone had to make a decision between Wharton and Harvard/Stanford, most would easily choose Harvard/Stanford. If a business guy had to make a decision between Wharton and Yale/MIT for instance, they would choose Wharton. Basically, a business person would definitely choose Wharton over anything below Yale, anything above is a toss up or in favor of H and S. There are exception to every case of course, but that’s my rationale behind ranking the prestige of the schools. At the end of the day all these schools are targets so are all heavily recruited.</p>

<p>Hey guys, Wharton ED is my dream scenario but I’m worried my ECs aren’t up to par. Can you give me some quick advice? It would be greatly appreciative. </p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-pennsylvania/1530114-should-i-apply-wharton-cas-ed.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-pennsylvania/1530114-should-i-apply-wharton-cas-ed.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>*appreciated lol</p>

<p>according to the administrators at wharton, the RD acceptance rate for class of 2017 is around 5.7 percent. this is only for single degree first-year wharton students.</p>

<p>^yeah, that’s what I heard. And didn’t someone on here do an in-depth analysis of the admissions process and come up with 5.3% as the admit rate for pure wharton students?</p>

<p>for a single degree, what do you guys think the legacy ed rate is approximately.</p>

<p>Bloomberg says it’s 10%</p>