I would not be the least bit surprised if "PennDude" is actually the notorious anti-Penn troll "Arbitrageur," under a new identity just established to continue his/her anti-Penn-CAS flaming and nonsense. In fact, it's a bit too coincidental that "Arbitrageur" suddenly shows up out of the blue today, after a lengthy absense, and posts anti-CAS hokum yet again:
and then "PennDude" suddenly springs into existence and posts virtually the same identical garbage.
IGNORE THIS POSTER--under whatever name he/she posts. What he/she says is completely worthless and untrustworthy, and totally lacking in factual basis. This person obviously has some pathological reason to come into the Penn forum and spew his/her baseless venom. Perhaps he/she was rejected by Penn, or had romanitc overtures spurned by a Penn student or alum, or was fired by a Penn alum.
In any event, his/her posts are complete and utter garbage, and are not to be trusted.
Don't worry about the recognition part of it - I've said this in other posts, and I understand the need for recognition based on the work you put in to gain admittance to a top school, but try to let it go. (I say this having gone to UChicago for undergrad and UPenn for grad - the two best universities many folks have never heard of!)
If Wharton's your dream, go for it - the recruitment and status it enjoys are nearly unparalelled (and exceed most other schools in terms of job placement).
At the same time, if you're looking for schools with more "reasonable" admissions chances, and you like the Wharton atmosphere, be careful if choosing schools like Columbia and UChicago. If you really like the atmosphere at Penn, you should think about schools such as Duke, Northwestern, and Emory. If you want a pretty intense core curriculum, UChicago and Columbia are good bets.
Either way, unless anyone really has hard stats to back this up, recruitment from Penn CAS, UChicago, and Columbia will roughly be comparable - if your own personal soft factors and GPA are up to snuff. UChicago has less of a finance/consulting culture than Penn CAS, but if you want it, you'll have plenty of opportunities.
The key is that the atmospheres of all these schools differ considerably (with UChicago and Columbia being closer to one side of the spectrum, and Penn more on the other with Duke and Northwestern - although all schools share similarities).
Thanks everyone, esp those who said that my stats "exceed UPENN's level" :P
13 APs, 2300, Superb ECs sound like a perfect HYPSM applicant.
oh btw 2300 sats havent happened yet. when i posted that, I meant thats what I was shooting for. as of now, i have a 2250. I have one more chance in October before 11/1. (im thinking if i stay with 2250 - CAS & if it goes up to 2300 - Wharton) (but 13 APs and Superb ECs are still here lol)
However, affirmative action is actually going to absolutely kill my chances.
I am a
1. Male
2. Asian
3. International Student
4. Attending a College Prep High School
5. Located in Massachusetts (yup, Northeast)
Can an applicant be any unluckier than this?
Acceptance rate for MIT international RD is 3.38% (MIT EA is only for Americans :/ )
Being 1.2.3.4.5., I would rather apply to schools that are reasonable, but at the same time that I am in love with.
UChicago, Wharton, UPENN, Columbia + maybe Brown.
I do not know what the exact acceptance rate for Wharton is, but I'm assuming it's right above HYPSM? so about Dartmouth-Brown acceptance rate level? (columbia actually had a lower acceptance rate than princeton for the last two years, wth )
So can somebody please tell me where Wharton stands in acceptance rates?
plus i think when it comes to ib firm recruitment, Wharton is definitely #2 or #1 (maybe harvard bcuz of its prestige, but definitely more than Princeton Yale Stanford)
I visited and equally love all those schools, so now it's time for the math game :P hehe
I do not know what the exact acceptance rate for Wharton is, but I'm assuming it's right above HYPSM? so about Dartmouth-Brown acceptance rate level? (columbia actually had a lower acceptance rate than princeton for the last two years, wth )
So can somebody please tell me where Wharton stands in acceptance rates?
As you probably know, Penn does not publish acceptance rates for the individual undergraduate schools. However, kafkareborn, one of the more knowledgeable posters in the Penn forum, recently performed some rather extensve calculations using available data, and concluded that Wharton Undergrad's acceptance rate is in the range of 7-8% (i.e., in roughly the same range as HYPS):
Wharton - Mythbusters (read this entire page, including the spreadsheet to which kafkareborn links in post #141)
I think it is about dartmouth easy.. not cornell easy... I mean its no harvard, but still...
Columbia-Penn-Brown-Dartmouth, so called the "Mid Ivies" are really all about the same. and its all about what your preferences are...
I think it's like Princeton and Yale,,, you can't really say one is better than the other. I would 100% prefer Princeton to Yale, but there are others who will definitely choose yale over princeton without a thought. I think this is similar to the relationship among those mid-ivies.
^ That is absolutely correct, as anyone who really knows these schools will tell you. And I'd also include Cornell CAS in that group--similar competitiveness in terms of SATS, GPAs, etc.; many top-10 and top-20 liberal arts departments; etc.
As you'll find once you've graduated from college and spent time as an adult in the real world, the liberal arts programs at these schools are all comparable in the view of employers, grad schools, and most well-informed, reasonable adults. It's only in the hyped-up, neurotic, obsessive-compulsive, and, quite frankly, naive and immature world of many high school students (and some college students) here on CC that these schools would be deemed NOT to be comparable in terms of the quality and prestige of the undergraduate liberal arts programs they offer.
As you indicated, at this level, it's all about personal preference and fit, and anyone who tells you otherwise is full of you-know-what.
Last edited by 45 Percenter; 07-18-2012 at 08:20 AM.
jazn, they are all great schools. I'm basing my opinion on my CAS classmates, most of whom could not get into the other mid-ivies. Also, this is a small sample, but take a look at the Penn RD results on this forum. A lot of accepted CAS students did not get into the other ivies. Penn CAS has a higher acceptance rate than columbia/brown/dartmouth due to a bigger class size. It does NOT mean that it's not as good as those schools academically, but it's just not as selective.
jazn, they are all great schools. I'm basing my opinion on my CAS classmates, most of whom could not get into the other mid-ivies. Also, this is a small sample, but take a look at the Penn RD results on this forum. A lot of accepted CAS students did not get into the other ivies. Penn CAS has a higher acceptance rate than columbia/brown/dartmouth due to a bigger class size. It does NOT mean that it's not as good as those schools academically, but it's just not as selective.
The differences between the acceptance rates of Brown (9.6%), Dartmouth (9.4%), and Penn CAS (usually similar to the overall admit rate, 12.3%) are statistically insignificant, and the SAT, ACT, and high school GPA ranges of their accepted and enrolled classes are virtually identical. At this level, the differences in "selectivity" (however that is defined) among these schools are really insignificant.
Plus, how many of your 1,600 CAS classmates have you personally surveyed to determine that "most . . . could not get into the other mid-ivies"? We know that almost half of your CAS classmates got into Penn through Early Decision, and it certainly cannot be concluded that most of those 700-800 CAS students "could not get into the other mid-ivies." So how many of your remaining 800-plus CAS classmates have you personally questioned about whether they were able to get into other mid-ivies? I suspect that the sample on which you've based your conclusion is, again, statistically insignificant.
I've been keeping up with Penn admissions--including reading the Penn admissions threads on CC--for many years and, in my experience, the statement that "most [Penn CAS students] could not get into the other mid-ivies," is simply not true, and is utterly unsupported by any available and reliable data.
Assuming that you really do go to Penn, you may have found that it's not the right personal fit for you, or that it doesn't adequately satisfy some lay-prestige requirement of your ego, but that doesn't justify your making sweeping, unsubstantiated, and clearly erroneous generalizations about Penn CAS students and their ability to get accepted to other Ivies, or to ultimately get accepted to top graduate programs.
First, comparing 9% acceptance rate to 12% is NOT equivalent to comparing 47% to 50%. By this I mean that what matters is not the absolute difference but the relative one. So brown's acceptance rate is roughly 20% lower than Penn's, which is not a trivial difference.
Second, you're correct that I did not talk to every single one of the CAS RD admits. I probably talked to about 50 of them during freshman orientation when we invariably asked each other questions like, where they're from, what other schools they got into, etc. And my observation was that most of them did not get into other ivies. Even among the whartonites, I only know of 2 who turned down a top 5 college (harvard/yale/princeton/mit/stanford), and one is in M&T and the other in huntsman.
As I said before, I do not think that students at the other mid-ivies are "better" or "more qualified" than students at Penn CAS. I'm merely pointing out that Penn CAS is not as selective.
First, comparing 9% acceptance rate to 12% is NOT equivalent to comparing 47% to 50%. By this I mean that what matters is not the absolute difference but the relative one. So brown's acceptance rate is roughly 20% lower than Penn's, which is not a trivial difference.
Sorry, but in the REAL world, the difference between 12% and 9% acceptance rates IS trivial--especially when you consider that for the Class of 2012 that just graduated, Brown's acceptance rate was 13%, and Dartmouth's was 13.2%.
As I've said before, only in the hyperventilating, OCD, prestige-obsessed, and limited-time-horizon world of many high school students--and some college students--here on CC would the difference between 12% and 9% acceptance rates be parsed so finely as to attempt to draw some sort of distinction as to selectivity. Trust me, in the grown-up world of employers, grad schools, etc., these schools and their respective students and graduates are all viewed as comparable, and NO ONE cares whether one of these school's acceptance rate is 1, 2, or even 3 points higher or lower than any of the others in a given year. It's just not something they're concerned about, or even know about.
And again, I'm personally aware of many Penn CAS students who chose Penn over schools like Brown, Dartmouth, Columbia, Duke, etc. (all of which Penn CAS competes with for students), your personal survey during NSO notwithstanding. And think about it: do you seriously believe that the difference between 9% and 12% acceptance rates for 2 schools that both have about 1500-1600 entering freshman (in the cases of Penn CAS and Brown, for example) would result in most of the overlapping acceptees choosing the 9% school over the 12% school merely because of the slightly lower acceptance rate? Because that's what you're essentially saying and, quite frankly, it makes no sense.
Last edited by 45 Percenter; 07-19-2012 at 06:00 PM.
^I completely agree with 45 Percenter. The percentage difference between Penn CAS and other Ivies is ridiculously insignificant.
And in terms of anecdotal examples, I have met quite a few Penn students that turned down top tier schools. Practically every individual I've met at Penn (who wasn't accepted ED obviously) mentioned very notable schools they turned down in order to take a place at Penn.
Mind you as I make this argument I'm feeling a bit silly.
I can't really seem to understand the justification behind such a trivial argument. Why does it matter whether or not a Penn student turned down Harvard or not?
I think any informed person will realize that Penn offers an amazing education. Period. Beyond that it shouldn't make ANY difference to you whether or not your roommate could've gone to Stanford.
Honestly its probably best you transfer. Someone so concerned about the looks and prestige of a college shouldn't be at Penn (because thats just not what Penn is about). I'd really like to know how you react when people ask if you go to Penn State! Must be such a horrible feeling! How dare people insult your superior existence by mentioning a University so beneath you!
Go transfer and stop spreading your nonsense!
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