@Classof2017 @lostaccount Wharton is definitely not HYPS level in terms of selectivity. The vast majority of Wharton students who applied and were accepted RD, were rejected from HYPS, just like the rest of Penn students. Penn’s coordinated dual degree programs are on HYPS level in terms of selectivity, and students routinely reject HYPS for them, but general Wharton not as much.
All that said Wharton is definitely a huge draw for people to come to Penn and its general admission rate is probably around ~ 8% vs the general Penn acceptance rate of 9.5%+.I am sure that a very significant part of ED applicants are applying to Wharton. Also keep in mind that Wharton is relatively self-selected, since not so many kids wanna study business straight out of high school. So Wharton tends to attract those kids who already know for sure what they want career-wise.
I wouldn’t say Wharton is significantly harder to get into nowadays, but prob slightly harder. The dual degree programs at Penn (M&T, LSM, Huntsman and also Vagelos, VIPER) are definitely significantly harder to get in and in general you can tell there is a difference between these students and the rest of Penn.
SEAS has become increasingly selective over the last few years and the outgoing dean of SEAS even claimed that SEAS has become the most selective school in his farewell email, but he didn’t give any more statistics to back this up so who knows how true it is (prob isn’t true tho…). CAS is thought to be a little bit easier than SEAS. Nursing is extremely self-selected so its acceptance rate is quite high.