<p>Go visit. If you are more pre-prof, then W would be good. For me though, I would choose Yale, just so that I would have a more rewarding and liberal-arts (and less cutthroat) education, but that’s just me. You should go to the place that feels most comfortable to you, because honestly, at this point, it’s all about fit because they are both great schools with about the same level of career opps (W might be stronger in recruiting but honestly, everybody I’ve met at W wants to go into ibanking and the competition for the same jobs is something fierce).</p>
<p>I’m definitely going to go visit to find my fit.</p>
<p>My S’s classmate will be getting dual degree - Wharton (B.S.) and College of Arts, Math degree (B.A.) in four years. I also know someone who got an MBA with an extra year of study. These are some unique Wharton benefits. Having said that you can’t go wrong with either Yale or Wharton. Congratulations!</p>
<p>D had the choice between Wharton and Yale. Husband is a Wharton alum. In trying to convince her to go to Wharton he told her that Wharton is about the “destination” and Yale is about the “journey.” To his surprise, she chose the journey, and thus far has had an incredible experience at Yale. She has several leadership positions, has interned at a bank abroad and recently won a coveted internship with competition from Wharton, Harvard etc. Bottomline is that you have great choices. You just need to decide what’s best for you.</p>
<p>sjmomof2: could you elaborate? What field is your daughter in, what type of internships, etc. I’m just curious to see the path of a Yale student. Thanks.</p>
<p>Do you guys think it would be more beneficial to pursue business in Yale through economics or Ethics, Politics and Economics? Or, what kind of jobs can you get studying EPE?</p>
<p>This is an exact question of mine.</p>
<p>EPE or Economics are both good for business or law or whatever… your major, especially between those two, does not matter.</p>
<p>FYI, EPE is a competitive program to which you must apply during your sophomore and be accepted. Econ you can just major in if you want.</p>
<p>How competitive is it, in terms of percentages? Thanks so much by the way.</p>
<p>If you want to get the best jobs possible, go to Wharton. Coming out of Yale, you will almost certainly be able to get a BB IB, S&T, but more so MBB (consulting) jobs if you have a high GPA and show some basic knowledge of the industry. Obviously, you get all of that at Wharton too, and Wharton places a hell of a lot more kids than Yale does into those jobs. </p>
<p>However, the cream of the crop at Wharton have options that Yale kids don’t, thanks to their in-depth business knowledge. That includes Private Equity (the pay is almost twice that of the jobs mentioned above and is a lot more interesting. Half, or more than half of most firms PE jobs will go to Whartonites - some Yalies do get in right out of undergrad but it is very rare), VC (which some Yale kids do get into, it is just rare), and Hedge Funds (which is very rare for a Yalie). Some firms recruit exclusively at Wharton - like Silver Lake. If you want to have the widest possible set of jobs in the financial industry open to you, go to Wharton. If you want to have the widest set of jobs in all industries open to you, go to Wharton, but double major and get a liberal arts degree from Penn’s college. </p>
<p>The rankings on the street of so-called “target schools” are:</p>
<p>Wharton and Harvard at the top rung, and then the rest of HYPSM (Yale being last among these when west coast positions are taken into consideration). Yale’s greatest strength is its humanities. If you wanted to be a lawyer I would say go to Yale, no contest (unless you wanted to become a lawyer in a field related to finance). The Yale alumni network is much smaller relative to Wharton and Harvard since its MBA program is very weak. There is a reason that Wharton alone has produced more billionaires than all of Yale combined. Look, the bottom line is: if you want to be a banker or a trader or whatever, and don’t mind studying business along with liberal arts courses, go to the school known for its strength, go to Wharton.</p>
<p>If these schools are so close in your mind, why not just go to the school that has an alumni network in finance that is probably 5 times the size? We have already established that you can get a superb liberal arts education at both institutions. We have also established that for your career path, Wharton outstrips Yale (significantly if you count getting a PE, Venture Capital, or a hedge fund gig). Both schools provide for amazing undergraduate experiences. We have also established that going to Wharton means that you do not have to get an MBA, whereas the necessity of one at Yale is far far more likely, if not almost always necessary.
But Wharton has one advantage that Yale does not, the largest network on Wall Street. Only Harvard’s rivals Wharton for power. Ask anyone in the industry, they will tell you that networking is perhaps the most important thing when looking for a job. Wharton helps you there far more than Yale does since it has a vast alumni base (that Yale does not), that, in turn, provides for better job security since even in London or Hong Kong, there will be plenty of Wharton alums to help you out. </p>
<p>But you are choosing from two of the best schools on earth. Revisit both, talk to some professors at both Yale and Wharton if possible. There will be a lot of Wharton kids that turned down Yale for Wharton, approach one and ask them why they did that. Do the same at Yale. Ask both sets of kids what the career options are at both schools. You really cannot go wrong. Two of my cousins went to Yale. Both loved it. Another went to Penn, he loved it as well. All would agree that you are in a superb position. Congratulations and good luck. You seem like a very interesting person, which is why I have spent so much time trying to sway you. I hope I get to see you on campus!</p>
<p>I really appreciate all the work you’ve put in towards your responses. I will be visiting both schools in the coming weeks.</p>
<p>The most important thing I want to establish is my potential career. I know both schools provide many options, and I would like to pursue a career in business, but whether it is in Wharton’s specialty of ibanking/Wall Street or the more humanities-centered consulting/politics/NGO, I do not know yet.</p>
<p>Your welcome. Whartonites help fellow Whartonites in need, it is part of Penn’s culture. </p>
<p>I’ve just got one more thing to add: </p>
<p>Going to Wharton also gives you in-depth knowledge about these different career paths, (far more than you could learn over a summer internship) so you will know exactly what you are getting into. Wharton MBA students who have already gone through the process can also be useful guides and chaperones for you. So that will help you decide precisely what facet of the industry you love you wish to pursue.</p>
<p>You might want to give this thread a read as well:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-pennsylvania/899983-gladwells-theory-supports-wharton-ug.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-pennsylvania/899983-gladwells-theory-supports-wharton-ug.html</a></p>
<p>If you’re definite about a career in business, I think Wharton makes more sense no matter what the field. It’s important to keep in mind, however, that Yale doesn’t have as many UG’s interested in Wall Street as compared to Wharton. If you look at the proportion who get a job vs. those interested in one, I’d imagine it’s quite high. That being said, Wharton is still your best bet for business.</p>
<p>Btw, thanks for all the great posts kafkareborn. They all seem very unbiased and are a useful source of info to all, especially pre-frosh like me.</p>
<p>1a1</p>
<p>As a Yale BA and Wharton MBA who now has recruited for several years for a prominent fund, let me assure you that a Yale degree with a good GPA puts you in just as good a stead for a career in finance as Wharton. Yale is one of the target schools of any organization that habitually recruits on the street because it has some of the best undergrads in the land and you will find Yalies in positions of power all over the street. Only difference is they have generally had a much broader education than the Whartonites.
In addition to business, Yale’s alumni network extends deep into other channels of power. 5 of the last 6 presidents have a Yale degree; Penn has never produced a president, for example. 3 of the 9 current supreme court justices have a Yale law degree, even though it’s one of the smallest law schools in Amarica. There are no Penn people on the court now or in recent memory. In the long run, Yale’s stature and power can be very important for a career. </p>
<p>Go to Yale, get broadly educated, work a little, get an MBA. Life is long, live richly!</p>
<p>Wrong. Penn has produced a President (William Henry Harrison) - as well as the leaders of many nations (Nkhrumah, for instance). It also has produced more signatories of the declaration of independence than any other school. But how that will help you in business though? Last time I checked, your average Yalie did not call up Bush for help, unless you are in the skulls and bones or something (ha, if i knew for certain that I would get into the bones that would make my decision much much harder, they would be very hard to resist. One of my cousin was tapped by a society (not the bones) but he turned them down; I will never forgive him for that. </p>
<p>No doubt, Yale law school is the best of the best; it puts even HLS to shame. But, again, the connections you make there are very unlikely to help you in your career in any way. They are interesting to have, sure, but that’s it. Penn has a law school, nowhere near as good as Yale’s but still, that can offer you useful connections. Look, if you wanted to become a lawyer, I would probably be making the same arguments that I am making for you to choose Wharton about Yale, I openly admit that their law network is much stronger. But if business is your main focus, then the strength of the Wharton network is much stronger than Yale’s.</p>
<p>kafka-</p>
<p>You got me. I forgot about Harrison 150 years ago, but Yale has produced 5 of the last 6 presidents and many of the also rans like Kerry, Lieberman, Dean and Hillary. World leaders? The recent presidents of Mexico and Turkey were educated at Yale, for starters, and are teaching there now. Tony Blair chose Yale to host his institute for religion and politics, and is teaching there now, too. It is a powerful, powerful, network.</p>
<p>Look at this study by the Wall Street Journal on the undergraduate sources of students at a selection of top graduate professional schools:</p>
<p><a href=“WSJ in Higher Education | Trusted News & Real-World Insights”>WSJ in Higher Education | Trusted News & Real-World Insights;
<p>It’s not even close; the academic quality of the student body at Yale is just that much better. (I suppose you’ll argue that Penn students, unlike Harvard, Yale and Princeton, don’t need to go to grad school).</p>
<p>And, of course, there’s gotta be a reason students choose Yale over Penn almost 90% of the time:</p>
<p>[The</a> New York Times > Week in Review > Image > Collegiate Matchups: Predicting Student Choices](<a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2006/09/17/weekinreview/20060917_LEONHARDT_CHART.html]The”>The New York Times > Week in Review > Image > Collegiate Matchups: Predicting Student Choices)</p>
1 Like
<p>Ha, mancune, you have a little spark in you, I like that. But that does not change the fact that you’re wrong. </p>
<p>First of all, you make the fallacy of comparing all of Penn to all of Yale; we are comparing Wharton and Yale College here for someone that is interested in business. Wharton’s network, in the relevant career field, absolutely trumps Yale’s (much in the same way that Yale’s trumps Wharton’s in politics - something I do not deny). But the OP is not talking about Politics, stay focused on his interests. For his interests, Wharton is “just that much better.” Wharton alone has produced more billionaires than all of Yale combined. It is great that Yale has produced all of these presidents, but that has ZERO effect on you and your ability to network with alumni to find a job in the business world. Zero. Yale beats Harvard in the political arena, I am not surprised that it has some impressive alumni in politics, but that is not what we are discussing here. Last time I checked, the OP has an interest in business, not politics. And just as Yale’s network puts Penn to shame in politics, Wharton’s network puts Yale to shame in business. Which, again, is really what is most important to the OP. Alumni arguably matter more in business than in any other field. I’d love to hear of the time you called up Kerry and had him help you out on a huge deal. Again, Penn also has many prominent people in politics currently, Huntsman (the current ambassador to China and a former governor is an alum, as is Ed Rendell, as is the head of Time Magazine, Joe Klein). </p>
<p>Secondly, the WSJ source also says that Duke places more kids into grad schools than MIT and Dartmouth. Caltech places worse than Cornell, Wesleyan and Rice. Doesn’t that strike you as odd? What, are you going to argue that a hopeful engineer should go to Yale over Caltech because of this WSJ ranking? Obviously that is very foolish. Furthermore, it is talking about all of Penn, not Wharton specifically. Congratulations on finding a credible source to back up your claims. </p>
<p>For instance, Penn sends the most kids to Penn Med, the oldest med school in America. It is superior to Yale Med School. If Penn Med was included and Yale Med taken out that would undoubtedly sway things in Penn’s favor significantly. (The article says as much: Penn’s medical school (not one of our survey schools) has the highest percentage of Penn undergrads in six years.) Had Penn Med been included, that would easily add another 50 kids or so to Penn’s total and detracted some large number from Yale’s. Stanford’s MBA program was not included. Dartmouth Tuck School was chosen over Columbia business school. It is all very questionable. Michigan law was chosen over Penn Law or NYU law. These rankings are a single data point and not a very good one as I demonstrated above. They should have gone with the top 5 schools in each field and left it at that. Also, Wharton makes up around a 1/4 of Penn’s class. Few Whartonites go onto grad school (Wharton profs themselves have said that the undergraduate cirriculum is superior, or at the very least on par with, the MBA one) because they have no need for it. Therefore that does reduce Penn’s standing in such a ranking simply due to that fact. </p>
<p>Your preference ranking is also misleading, because, once more, it refers to all of Penn and not Wharton. The most applicants have little interest in business, and therefore would probably not think of Wharton or Penn as highly as Yale, so that skews the data. However, if you did a preference ranking of kids interested in business, Wharton would kill Yale. But that is not all, if you look carefully at the graduate schools chosen; there it is very easy to sway the rankings significantly one way or another. Anyways, the preference of a few college kids is insignificant to me, I care far more about employer’s preference and Wharton wins at that hands down (particularly in high finance areas like PE firms, VC firms, and Hedge Funds). </p>
<p>In the past ten years, Penn has produced ten Nobel Winners to Yale’s 8. That does not seem that “vastly different” to me. Many of Penn’s college’s departments beat or are essentially equal to Yale’s in the National Research council rankings, the same is true at the grad school level. The truth is, out of these schools is middle to upper Ivy League schools, both have incredibly brilliant kids and professors, Nobel prize winners and the like. Both will provide you with a superb liberal arts education. Is Noam Chomsky stupider than Yale’s top linguists just because he graduated from Penn ? And what about Joe Klein? Try harder mate. Try to stay on topic next time. :)</p>
<p>kafka-</p>
<p>Your arguments are getting as absurdist as the tales of the Czech master whose name you have coopted!</p>
<p>I don’t have the time to dig out data on the past 10 years, but over the long run, Yale has had far more Nobel laureates associated with it, 48, to Penn’s 23 according to this tally:</p>
<p>[List</a> of Nobel laureates by university affiliation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_laureates_by_university_affiliation]List”>List of Nobel laureates by university affiliation - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>And remember, Yale is half the size of Penn and Penn enjoys the advantage of a much larger medical complex, where a lot of laureates are generally nurtured. Penn SHOULD have many more laureates than Yale, other things being equal, but somehow it has managed to come up with fewer than half as many.</p>
<p>Like all Wharton undergrads, you view an education’s purpose by its proclivity to place you in whatever flavor-of-the-moment boutique all your friends are excited about. So, let’s do a little investigation.</p>
<p>Did you see the journal front page last week (I think April 2nd) on the 10 biggest pay checks on wall street this year. I guess you could call these guys the 10 “big swinging dcks” of Wall Street: John Paulson, David Tepper, Phil Falcone, John Arnold, Ken Griffin, Ed Lampert, Carl Icahn, Steve Cohen, James Simon and George Soros. All hedge fund heads. Six have a connection to Harvard, 2 have a connection to Yale (Ed Lampert-undergrad and Phil Falcone law school dropout), and only 1 has a connection to Wharton (Steve Cohen). Two have a connection to NYU and one to Princeton and 1 to Carnegie Mellon. In the long run, there is no disadvantage to going to an HYP vs Wharton, even for scaling the heights of finance.</p>
<p>I was a Wharton MBA student (Lauder) so I know well what Wharton is all about. I took finance with Franklin Allen and Jeremy Siegel and Gary Gorton (now at Yale, I think) and marketing with Jerry Wind. I put up with the gunner 20 year old Wharton undergrads who think that grinding out equations on derivative gammas is the holy grail of life. I found them narrow and homogeneous in interests and outlook and generally less interesting as a group than my peers at Yale as an undergraduate. </p>
<p>Look at the business world. Who has created the businesses that literally change society over the past 30 years? Bill Gates and the Zuckerberg kid from Harvard; Steve Jobs from Reed College; Princeton kids founded Amazon and eBay. Stanford students produced google and yahoo and a gazillion others. A Yalie gave us realaudio which ushered in the audio download revolution. I just don’t see as many Whartonites starting truly creative ventures with revolutionary prospects – they’re just too narrow in outlook.</p>
<p>It seems like it’s the HYPS kids who are changing the world, in business and in other sectors, not the Wharton gunners.</p>
<p>Again, if you’re smart enough to get into Wharton undergrad, you’d do better to get the kind of broad, creative education that HYPS fosters and hang around with those kids, at least according to my personal observation. There’s time to become a finance dweeb later [like me].</p>
<p>If you don’t mind me asking, what type of job do you currently have? I haven’t met anybody else who has done Yale UG -> Wharton MBA.</p>