<p>Q: How are Wharton students similar to Harvard Business School students?</p>
<p>A: Both got into Harvard</p>
<p>Both wished they were at Penn CAS?</p>
<p>It’s very sad, but you realize that the size of a Wharton class is almost twice the number of people who are admitted to Harvard and turn it down? And all available evidence suggests that most of those people wind up at Yale, Princeton, or Stanford? Sure, a few go to Wharton, or MIT, or to take the fancy true full rides at Michigan, Duke, or UNC, or even go to Brown. Or Deep Springs. But I would be surprised if there were much more than 20 students per year who turn down Harvard for Wharton. And maybe not even that many. The numbers just don’t work otherwise.</p>
<p>not exactly a great comparison. When looking at 10k/year for harvard or 55k/year for Wharton, it’s hard to turn h down</p>
<p>I appreciate the joke, even though it isn’t that rooted by fact. And that’s coming from a soon to be Wharton kid. </p>
<p>I agree with Necrophiliac…fin aid at Harvard is substantially better (even though Penn did give me a pretty decent package)</p>
<p>JHS makes valid points as well.</p>
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Actually, the size of a Wharton class is roughly the SAME as the number of people who turn down Harvard (450-500), not twice the number. And given that Wharton’s yield is similar to Harvard’s (around 75%), that means that fewer than 150 admitted applicants turn down Wharton. For what it’s worth. :)</p>
<p>I hope I’m not the only one who realizes the OP said “Harvard Business School”, not undergrad</p>
<p>Well, we should split the difference, 45. Harvard offered admission to about 2,100 students; I thought it was closer to 2,000, so I was using 350, not 450. But Wharton’s class is 600, not 450-500. So not double the Harvard “leakage”, but meaningfully larger, 133%. And it doesn’t matter much to the larger point – the folklore is that Wharton has lots of people who turned Harvard down, but the numbers make that very unlikely.</p>
<p>And, if Wharton really has a 75% yield (I don’t know if that’s true, but it seems reasonable), taking into account the effect of ED, it’s yield among people who actually have a choice to make is closer to 50%. (I’m assuming 300 people admitted ED and about 560 RD, to yield 600 students.) Which of course is a testament to how tough getting into Wharton is. I don’t think anyone is turning Wharton down because he doesn’t think it’s the premier undergraduate business education in the world. The people who turn Wharton down – and the people who don’t turn it down, too – tend to have very attractive other opportunities as well. Wharton could no doubt boost its yield considerably by admitting people who weren’t likely to be admitted to Harvard (or wherever), but that’s not the way to have the strongest possible classes.</p>
<p>^ JHS, according to Penn’s web site, Wharton’s total undergraduate population in Fall 2009 was 1,896, which means an entering class of not more than 450-475, and not 600 (taking into account that Wharton does admit some transfers after freshman year):</p>
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<p>[Penn:</a> Facts and Figures](<a href=“http://www.upenn.edu/about/facts.php]Penn:”>http://www.upenn.edu/about/facts.php)</p>
<p>Not sure where you got that 600 figure. 
Sounds closer to the total number accepted.</p>
<p>EDIT: I see now that you probably derived it from the 2,406 “Total Wharton undergraduates” on the Wharton page posted in the “Wharton Admit Rate” thread. I suspect that number includes dual degree candidates, many of whom were originally admitted to and are based in the College, and not Wharton. It’s quite confusing. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>You’re right, I got it from that page, although I didn’t get there from that thread. It IS confusing. I have always thought that Wharton represented about a quarter of Penn’s undergraduates, so 600 made more sense to me than 450. Are there really 100+ dual-degree students per class based in the College? That sounds like an awful lot.</p>
<p>Whatever, I guess.</p>
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<p>From the Wharton Undergraduate web site:</p>
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<p>[Wharton</a> Undergraduate: Top 10 List](<a href=“http://www.wharton.upenn.edu/undergrad/why-wharton/top-10-list.cfm]Wharton”>http://www.wharton.upenn.edu/undergrad/why-wharton/top-10-list.cfm)</p>
<p>Of course, that also includes Wharton/SEAS dual degrees (and even a few Wharton/Nursing), and not just Wharton/College.</p>