<p>@knight2011 Wharton places significantly better into finance jobs than Harvard, Yale, Princeton.</p>
<p>Harvard is the only one that ones close.</p>
<p>Overall, Penn is in that tier just below HYPSM:</p>
<p>U Chicago
Penn
Columbia
Caltech
Duke
Dartmouth
Brown
Cornell
Northwestern</p>
<p>In other words, it offers among the best undergraduate educations in the US. And Wharton puts its business/Econ program at the top. </p>
<p>I strongly believe that you should look at university rankings based on major selection. If you’re looking at engineering, Penn might not be the best, but it will be for finance. </p>
<p>@WhartonnotHYPS “I strongly believe that you should look at university rankings based on major selection. If you’re looking at engineering, Penn might not be the best, but it will be for finance.”</p>
<p>I know that you are excited about business school and Wharton. Your level of enthusiasm for your interest area is admirable, and often hard to find in a college freshman. </p>
<p>However, I would suggest that you consider avoiding making negative comments about Penn’s other undergraduate colleges unless you actually know something about that college. To me it seems like you just moved on from disparaging CAS, and are now making a comment that diminishes SEAS. </p>
<p>Based on your comments, I assume that you do not know much about SEAS, but they offer many amazing programs and have outstanding faculty and students. SEAS students and Faculty are not second class in any way. Penn does not do second class programs in anything. Penn understands that anything that is not excellent is not worth doing. Did you know that the average SEAS graduate has over 2 job offers at graduation, that the average salary is about 20% higher than average offers for engineers from other schools and that about 90% have a job lined up before graduation? In addition to engineering, SEAS graduates often go to work in business/finance related careers working for consultants, hedge funds, and other types of investment firms. They would not have these opportunities if SEAS were not providing an excellent education to outstanding students.</p>
<p>For your own benefit, please learn that the vast majority of Penn students from all four undergraduate colleges view themselves as one Penn class and have respect for one another. When you put down one of the other Penn colleges, it is likely to be viewed as insulting to Penn students from all four colleges, especially when you really do not know much about the programs you are disparaging. </p>
<p>No one is questioning the fact that Wharton is an outstanding college. However, you would benefit from learning that you can say that without putting down the other colleges.</p>
<p>@whartonnothyps, I am sorry you were rejected from HYPS. Im afraid even undergrads at wharton complain of harvard, princeton, and yalies placing above them. </p>
<p>@Much2learn It was not my intention to discredit SEAS, just to say that Penn SEAS is not top in the field. I had a friend that just chose Berkeley EECS over Penn Seas.</p>
<p>I think everyone is taking my comments in the sense that they’re all negative. It’s like comparing Lebron and MJ, one will be better than the other though both are legendary players. Penn is top 10 in the nation, and that’s why I want to go there. Understand that none of the comments are intended to have a negative tone, and I’m here to learn more about the school.</p>
<p>@knight2011 I’m applying this year</p>
<p>Berkeley letters and science is excellent. Were one to choose Cal L&S over Penn SEAS, I think it’s a “like vs. like” preferential showing.</p>
<p>Penn and Cal are thus:</p>
<p>Cal (like many top state schools) is stronger in Engineering.</p>
<p>Penn is stronger in Business.</p>
<p>I think past that it is probably a draw academically… but Penn has smaller classes and very slightly smarter students. Due to those factors, I give Penn a slight nod over Cal for undergrad.</p>
<p>Of course, Cal blows Penn out of the water in many grad programs.</p>
<p>Coincidentally my D’s final decision options for Computer Science were Penn, Cal (plus $100,000 merit scholarship), Cornell, Columbia, and Michigan (plus $80,000 merit scholarship). </p>
<p>The thing is that no ranking will help much with a decision like this. Each one of these schools could be the right school for the right student. They will all provide you with an excellent education. It is not as clear as one school being “better” at X and another being “better” at Y. What constitutes “better” will be different for different students. You really need to decide what things matter most to you in a college and then visit them and decide which college does the best job at the things that matter most to you.</p>
<p>Potential areas of interest include: overall education quality, major education quality, research opportunities, job placement rates and salaries, preference for being in a city, fit with the other admitted students, scheduling flexibility, required courses, clubs, weather, facilities, how positive are alumni and current students about their experience, is there any chance you will change your major, class sizes, internships, major college sports, etc.</p>
<p>Some of these things may matter a lot to one student and not at all to another student. You really need to assess the individual schools for yourself. Rankings are helpful when they have clear criteria and you can decide whether those are criteria that really matter to you. For example, based on the SAT ranges, you may feel that one college is too hard or too easy for you. </p>
<p>Once it was down to a short list of excellent schools, the one where you feel most comfortable and excited to attend will probably be the best one for you.</p>
<p>Funny to hear some naive high school kid blather on about rankings. Penn, HYP are at the same level. Plenty of students at each school have fabulous opportunities if they do well in college. Plenty of students at each school have mediocre opportunities if they don’t do well. There are very few differences, if any, among schools and students at this level, and it is up to the student as to what he/she makes of the opportunities. If the student doesn’t have the initiative and drive to network for jobs, few outside of the top 10-15% will go anywhere. That said, it seems like Penn is the very “Hot Ivy” with a dramatically higher increase in applications compared to HYP each year over the past years. Also, Penn is a bigger school by at least 1/3, so its 9% admission rate in the same range as HYP after accounting for size. As any parent of an applicant knows, hooks, etc play a huge role, and the pool of accepted applicants after accounting for hooks seems very similar in the past decade.</p>