<p>Historically Chicago is more quantitative than other business schools. At one end was Harvard with its case method, and the other end was Chicago with economic and quantitative analysis. All business schools now try to use a mix of the two approaches.</p>
<p>The fact that Stanford or Harvard may consider Wharton a peer in admissions matters has to do with the similarities of their programs. Chicago is a more rigorous and comprehensive MBA program than the others when it comes to the core disciplines. Wharton is more like Columbia, NU, NYU and every other MBA program than like Chicago. It tends to be geared for career changers who may not have strong quantitative backgrounds as undergrads.</p>
<p>What gets taught at Chicago is a graduate curriculum in business administration that is often too difficult for undergraduate liberal arts majors. If you examine class profiles of Wharton and Chicago, you’ll see Chicago has more undergrad business and engineering/physical science majors than Wharton. Chicago also has a smaller percentage of women.</p>