<p>I was lucky enough to get accepted to these two great institutions. Now, I need to choose.</p>
<p>I plan on getting my MBA after undergrad, but that isn't set in stone. If I do go to Yale, I will be studying economics. I didn't get any financial aid from either school.</p>
<p>Please tell me which school you think is better! Biased opinions are welcome (obviously I'm on the Yale board)! I want to hear what everybody thinks. Thanks.</p>
<p>hey… im gonna be a tiny bit biased (got rejected from penn, accepted to yale)</p>
<p>BUT. straight up, wharton is a higher ranked MBA school (and their undergrad is awesome by extension) however, i got told (by both yale and penn) that getting your undergrad and MBA from the same school carries a negative stigma (many believe you only would have been accepted to the school because of your undergrad position… which isnt true, but its the way its seen)</p>
<p>i went on visits to both yale and penn, and i can honestly say the atmosphere at yale is WAY better… if you really like philly, then penns good, but yales campus etc is just spectacular, no comparison to penn… </p>
<p>sooo, if your overall plan is to get your MBA, then wharton is the place to be… for your MBA only… wharton is easily the best MBA program in the world (with harvard, IMD, london school of economics… all are the top pretty much), so, if you are to avoid any negative stigma, i would choose wharton when it matters the most, not for undergrad…</p>
<p>for undergrad i would choose yale… mainly because of the stigma issue and because yale is pretty much just plain better in my opinion…</p>
<p>I’m definitely going to visit both schools before making a decision, but I got a better vibe initially at Yale’s campus. Thanks for your input.</p>
<p>well good luck in your decision, and, like both yale and penn told me, youll be happy wherever you go. you cant really lose when it comes to the ivy league. except maybe like cornell 
lol kidding!</p>
<p>I go to Yale, econ major, worked at a bulge bracket investment bank last summer and will work at one again this summer. I also know a few top hedge fund managers, CEOs, etc. So I have at least some cred.</p>
<p>Here’s the deal: Going to Wharton is not any better for business than going to Yale and studying economics. In fact it may even hurt you. Sorry, but that’s the truth.</p>
<p>Why have I learned that?</p>
<p>All of the top investment banks look at Yale and Wharton (as well as other top schools). They take many kids from Yale and many from Wharton. However, if you go to Wharton, they absolutely drill you in the interview process. Every banker that I have talked to says that going to Wharton means that you will be drilled on technicals and EXPECTED to know everything ahead of time since you have been taught it. They realize that Yale (and Harvard) only teach economics, not financial modeling, so they have lower standards and look more at your general intellect. And, even though the Wharton kids know stuff going into interviews, they realize that Yale kids can learn it all on the job, so they take as many if not more.</p>
<p>This means that if you are an econ major at Yale you are not going to be put at any disadvantage even though you don’t study “business”/“finance” whatsoever.</p>
<p>And, in fact, you will probably be put at an advantage. There are way fewer people from Yale looking to go into business so it may be easier to stand out. Moreover, business schools like Yale kids just as much as they like Wharton kids if not more since they haven’t already studied business. And perhaps most imporantly, you will get to study something cool like economics–an actual real discipline–rather than just finance.</p>
<p>One senior exec that I talked to called Wharton undergrads “preprofessional money-grubbing dou***bags.” Quite simply, I don’t think it’s worth it…</p>
<p>Wow, that was the kind of insider advice I was looking for. Thank you so much.</p>
<p>I had no clue that they tested Wharton kids at a different level, but it makes sense.</p>
<p>I smell bias, I know thats what you wanted but if you want an honest opinion dont post it in Yale’s forum! What booyakasha said is not true, if you want to go into business wharton is a no brainer, ask anyone who really knows what he is talking about! (not saying that I do, I just think this is not the place to get the answers you are looking for)</p>
<p>BTW are you seriously stating that businesses like Yale kids better than Wharton kids because they haven’t already studied business??? that is a complete fabrication! Plus, it doesn’t even make any kind of sense. Could someone please enlighten me on how this can be possible?</p>
<p>
This has way too many logical fallacies to even begin with.</p>
<p>what buyakasha is basically trying to say is that Yale is obviously better because they dont teach you business, they dont teach you real life applications, and you are less qualified overall and because of this, top firms will lower their expectations and instinctively hire Yale kids. Yeah… that sound right. Please 1a1, dont let your decision be based by completely false and meaningless statements.</p>
<p>Wow, my statements are being completely misconstrued. All I am saying is that it does NOT make a difference and Wharton is not some magic route to an ibanking job that Yale cannot provide.</p>
<p>I have gone through this interview process twice. They do not expect you to know NOTHING if you go to Yale; they just expect you to know more about the general economy and general knowledge than drill you on accounting differences like between income statement vs. cash flow vs. balance sheet.</p>
<p>The thing about technicals is absolutely true; they expect you to know technicals when you major in finance at Wharton but they will use more brain teasers and general intelligence questions when you go to Yale.</p>
<p>I encourage you to look at other websites where kids actually know something about Wall Street. E.g. [Please</a> Advise Future Wharton Undergrad | WallStreetOasis.com](<a href=“http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/please-advise-future-wharton-undergrad]Please”>Please Advise Future Wharton Undergrad | Wall Street Oasis)</p>
<p>"The main negative i my mind about Wharton is that it is extremely competitive to get good jobs.</p>
<p>While at HYPS, students want to be lawyers, doctors, professors, business, etc, everyone at Wharton wants to get into business. Yet the number of spots for BB is limited (probably around 10 into each IBD per year). This leaves quite a few students with less desirable jobs.</p>
<p>So you had better get an extremely high GPA and solid internships."</p>
<p>"the bottom line is this.
If you want to work in Finance and don’t care about a liberal arts education, go to Wharton.</p>
<p>If not, go to HYP."</p>
<p>ETC. Bottom line is going to Wharton is not much more likely to get an ibanking job than Yale and you should base your decision on if you ONLY want to study finance vs liberal arts. Ibanks realize that Yale and Harvard kids will learn how to do it on the job rather than at school but that DOES NOT mean they hire them disproportionately less than Wharton.</p>
<p>I’ll answer with the benefit of experience at both schools, but in the end, this is only one person’s perspective:</p>
<p>I graduated from Yale about 10 years ago having majored in Economics (did not apply to Wharton/Penn undergrad) and eventually went back and got an MBA/MA from Wharton a couple of years ago. I now work at a well respected hedge fund in NYC.</p>
<p>I have great respect for Penn and its powerful array of academic and professional programs. I found Wharton to be an impressive, challenging and well-oiled machine for churning out analytical business and finance types. People at Penn are smart, ambitious, friendly and know how to have a good time, too. It clearly offers one of the superlative undergrad experiences in the US.</p>
<p>For a narrow spectrum of students, Wharton would have no match as an undergraduate choice. But I believe this clutch of students is, and should be, relatively small. For intelligent and thinking students, life is too short for this kind of intense focus at such a young age. This is what grad/professional school is for.</p>
<p>For most talented kids, I honestly believe Yale is a better choice. Yale pulsates with intellectual and creative life in a way that Penn does not. Students at Yale are just more broadly curious and intrinsically excited by ideas and debate and discussion. Extracurricular life (except sports, perhaps) sparkles more brightly and the options are far wider. I do believe you will be stretched more as a student at Yale, in a way that will affect you throughout your life which is not quite as likely to happen at Penn. Though I like Philly as a city, I personally think Yale’s campus is far more beautiful, bewitching and inspiring than Penn’s. (For example, compare the horror of Penn’s utilitarian Van Pelt library to the majesty of Yale’s Sterling Library – a nutshell of a contrast between the two universities.) Like most Yalies, I am a huge proponent of the residential college system which fosters a comfortable hominess in the undergrad experience.</p>
<p>As someone who now recruits in the financial sector, I can tell you that resumes from Wharton, Yale, Princeton and Harvard are all roughly equal when drawing a first glance from recruiters (then it’s up to you to shine in an interview). Wharton does produce a lot of slick recruits with an early depth of knowledge you don’t generally see in the other kids, but there is a cookie-cutter sameness about many of them. I find that that the interesting recruiting discussions happen with the kids from HYP who describe their Senior papers on topics like medieval philosophers and recent trends in neuroscience – you are much more likely to see a truly creative mind who in the long run is more likely to do interesting things in the business world as well.</p>
<p>Good luck, and hope to run into you in New Haven!</p>
<p>Wow, I’m in the exact same boat as you, choosing between Wharton and Yale!</p>
<p>I live right outside of Philadelphia, and it’s a great city. If you are a city person you will definitely like Philly more than New Haven. </p>
<p>Just one note though: getting a Wharton undergraduate degree a lot of times makes graduates feel as if they do not even need an MBA. A lot of Wharton grads end up never getting one because of the training they got with their BS in Economics. Just keep that in mind!</p>
<p>And I second mancune’s discussion of the campuses. Penn’s campus is great, but not nearly as nice as Yale’s.</p>
<p>Go here: </p>
<p>See what people in the industry have to say. </p>
<p>[Wharton</a> or HYP for undergrad ? | WallStreetOasis.com](<a href=“http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/wharton-or-hyp-for-undergrad]Wharton”>http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/wharton-or-hyp-for-undergrad)</p>
<p>Here is the deal, a lot of talented kids are in the same position as you, these are smart kids and they probably made a well-informed decision. Wharton’s yield rate is 80% only matched by harvard. Yale is in the low 60 and princeton in the high 50. The numbers speak for themselves! I think some of these biased posts are a bit resentful because kids are choosing upenn (a lower ranked school) for wharton over HYP. It is your choice, go wherever you will be happier!</p>
<p>I hope this is my last post on this topic. In response to poste3, none of the college admissions statistics show much, save perhaps the “peer admit” selections.</p>
<p>Even yield rate, for instance, can be misleading. Yale yield rate is 69 percent, Harvard is like 76, and Wharton (I guess) is like 80. However, it may well be that Wharton kids always go because they do not get into Harvard or Princeton. Thus Yale’s yield rate may only be lower because it has more overlap with Harvard and Princeton.</p>
<p>Brigham Young University has the nation’s highest yield. But you’d be very hardpressed to prove that based on its yield it is a more attractive university than HYPS!</p>
<p>To reiterate, do not choose to go to Wharton because you think it will give you a huge edge. The reason to go is if you don’t mind the intense competition and only want to study finance, not a broader liberal arts education.</p>
<p>Posted this in the Princeton forum, it is probably relevant here also:</p>
<p>You can do anything you want after Wharton. Whartonites become doctors, Profs (Gene Falk at Princeton) and even Supreme Court justices (Brennan). Remember, business, finance, management skills, and all of the other things you get out of a Wharton education are essential in every field. Penn Med School is the oldest med school in America, and part of the med school HYP (Harvard Hopkins Penn), a few Whartonites end up there and at other top med and law schools every year. You lose nothing by attending Wharton since half of your courses are liberal arts courses, so your son can still get a broad based education and study what he is most interested in. When he graduates, any employer and grad school will want him. Whartonites are at the top of the recruiting pile in Wall Street. </p>
<p>Actually, going to Wharton is beneficial because it allows you to then go on and get a law degree or another degree of your preference outside of business. You already know everything the top MBA students know and your degree is respected as much as an MBA, most Whartonites do not go back to get an MBA because it is useless to them. BUT, if you do go to an MBA program, going to Wharton also allows you to place out of basic courses in an MBA program and lets you take more electives, essentially giving you a super MBA. </p>
<p>No door that is open to a Princetonian is closed to a Huntsman kid; but if you want to get directly into Private equity or hedge funds, the reverse is not as true since kids with a business background are strongly preferred in such firms due to their size.</p>
<p>I write as a source of second-hand (third-hand, perhaps?) information; my sister is currently a junior at the University of Pennsylvania, although not a Whartonite. </p>
<p>When I asked her about applying to Wharton next year, she told me that Wharton undergraduates have very little freedom, since there are many classes all Whartonites must take; these classes are supposedly structured in such a way that many students (NOT all, but many) come to think in very similar ways. Furthermore, the competition is absolutely cut-throat, worse than it is in CAS. It’s said that a large portion of Whartonites (again, I repeat: NOT ALL, but many) are tools–very efficient and highly intelligent, but intensely focused (perhaps too much so?) on business, GPA, internships, etc. I’ve heard stories of students deliberately telling others false information at study groups in order to undermine the competition. (This practice, though, is obviously not very widespread. It’s hopefully a worst-case scenario.)</p>
<p>That being said, she advised me to not even apply to Wharton. Of course, much of her opinion reflects what she knows about me, and I’m probably not at all like the OP (I intend to go to law school). Plus, she herself changed majors three times during college, so while she may think Whartonites’ schedules are too predetermined and cookie-cut, it might seem fine to most.</p>
<p>The bottom line is that while some Whartonites are extremely happy, others are rock-bottom miserable, and this definitely isn’t a singularly Wharton phenomenon. =P I know I haven’t given you too much information, but I hope it’s helped at least a tiny bit.</p>
<p>Hmm … this is all interesting. Thank you.</p>
<p>I am going to visit both schools before I make a definite decision.</p>