@much2learn I only spoke about RD applicants. Of course there are many applicants who apply ED who would have otherwise been able to gain admission at HYPSM. And the fact that the are willing to commit to Penn says a lot about Penn.
“Penn pulls more cross admits than you may think from these schools, especially Yale, Princeton and MIT”.
Penn has a sub 50% yield rate ( around 47-48%). Don’t you think that most of this 53-52% are students who turn down Penn for HYPSM? Of course there are students who turn down HYPSM for Penn but if you look outside the dual degree programs at Penn the probability of that happening goes down dramatically. Also yes it is true that Penn is more likely to win cross admits over Yale or Princeton or MIT, than over Harvard or Stanford but the fact still remains that it loses the cross-admit battle with these three schools too (although I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a pretty close with Yale).
“To many students, Wharton is better than HYPSM.”
To many yes definitely, but not to most. This has not been my experience at Wharton. The majority of Wharton students who applied RD were rejected from all or some of HYPSM. There is a small number that turned down Yale, Princeton, MIT and even maybe Stanford but it is the minority. Very very few Wharton kids were accepted at Harvard. Of course Wharton has many students who applied ED and many of whom could prob have gotten into some of all of HYPSM.
There is just that general perception that people have when they first come here that HYPSM is a bit superior. You can hear it in conversations throughout NSO, and the first few weeks of the semester. But then most fall in love with Penn and its uniqueness, understand that quality matters more than prestige and they wouldn’t change Penn for anything.