UPenn Econ BA vs. UPenn Math Econ BA vs. Duke Econ BS

PennCAS2014
Tue, 19 May 2015 14:50:02 +0000

Hi There-- have you already been accepted to both? If so, congrats! You have some great options in front of you. I will try to address your points as best I can, though I was not an econ major.

1. Academic Rigor: I am confident that the academic rigor at Penn and Duke (and at every other Ivy and Ivy +) is largely the same at the undergraduate level. That being said, the opportunities available to you at each school might differ. For example, you might find that more of the most groundbreaking research in econ is conducted at Penn (http://www.stat.tamu.edu/~jnewton/nrc_rankings/nrc41.html#area36) and thanks to Penn's One University policy and emphasis on undergraduate research opportunities, you can take classes with the professors doing this groundbreaking research regardless of the school they're teaching in (i.e. the graduate school of arts and sciences, the college of arts & sciences, Wharton, etc). You can easily become involved in that research yourself as well. Research is especially important for grad school applications as that is a major component of phd work and universities are often looking for students who have demonstrated in their undergrad careers the ability to conduct research, analyze/interpret data, and communicate their findings. Additionally, being in Philadelphia will allow you to take those lessons and apply them outside of the classroom. For example, I did research on the Tax Code in Philadelphia and made recommendations to the city government regarding ways in which they could create a more business-friendly climate to spur new economic growth and investment in the more impoverished sections of the city. Philly is also full of think tanks, government agencies, non profits, NGOs, and more organizations that would allow you to intern for them or work for them during the semester without having to miss a single class. Philly also has a fairly strong and growing finance sector that provides you with plenty of opportunities to intern/work directly in the fields in which you might one day work. Finally, because every school at Penn is so deeply integrated, you will be exposed to a truly interdisciplinary education that will encourage you to see the ways econ reaches beyond the boundaries of the traditional discipline and interacts with many other fields such as sociology, history, politics and more. Penn also just invested tons of money to build a new home for the Econ and Poli Sci departments that will encourage this intellectual cross fertilization and buttress the already powerful econ department (source: http://www.upenn.edu/pennnews/news/penn-receives-25-million-gift-create-perelman-center-political-science-and-economics). Between Penn's outstanding Economics department, your opportunity to utilize every different part of the University through the One University Policy, and the resources available to you through Philadelphia, I think you will find that a Penn education in Econ is truly outstanding.

2. Job Prospects Straight out of College: Penn's job prospects are second to none. Here is the career services data on the class of 2014: http://www.vpul.upenn.edu/careerservices/files/CASFinalReport14.pdf . Penn is one of the only universities to release to the public such detailed reports. From this (and the other survey's also available on the career services website) you can see that Penn grads (and those who majored in econ) do far better than their peers elsewhere. As stated in the survey, some of the top employers of College of Arts and Sciences grads are Goldman Sachs, BCG, Deloitte, and Morgan Stanley. Penn attracts the best firms in the world for on campus recruiting and ALL undergrad students (College, Wharton, Engineering, & Nursing) have the same opportunities to interview with these firms. Some firms will actually only recruit at Penn or Penn and a few other ivies. Penn's proximity to New York, the financial capital of the world, also makes it easy to meet with professionals in those fields and find jobs. There is also a page in that survey specifically dedicated to the immediate destinations of econ majors. Every firm from Barclays and BCG to Goldman and JPM are listed there. And the top graduate schools for econ grads who immediately went to grad school were Cambridge, Harvard and Yale. So if you are clearly set up well for a career or a continuation of your studies at grad school if you attend Penn.

3. Graduate/Law School Prospects: I already mentioned that grad school prospects are great. For law school It matters less what you studied and more that you did well in what you studied. So that means if you feel you will thrive in a vibrant, urban, research university with a multitude of opportunities available to you through both the University and the City, then Penn would be a great place for you. But if you feel that might be distracting from your studies and it might adversely affect your GPA, you may want to consider a quieter setting for college. Penn is special because it is large enough to provide you with every opportunity imaginable but small enough to keep you focused on your end goals. Philly is amazing but it is equally balanced by Penn's robust campus life which makes it easy to concentrate and focus on your Penn career while taking full advantage of everything that this world class city has to offer. But at the end of the day, if that's not how you see it, you should go where you will be most comfortable and capable of doing well in preparation for a law school application process that is largely (though not entirely) based on your GPA and LSAT score.

As an aside, Penn does a pretty amazing job at placing students in law school. The ten law schools with the largest concentration of Penn grads are: Penn, NYU, Fordham, Georgetown, Temple, Columbia, Harvard, Yale, GW, and UVA. Half of those schools are in the Top 14 (the 14 law schools that have never placed outside of the Top 14 in the US News and World Report rankings), and the others are regional powerhouses that place their grads into the most coveted legal markets even without similarly national reputations (Source: http://www.vpul.upenn.edu/careerservices/20122013lawstats.php ). Additionally, I can vouch for Penn’s career services both for their help in finding jobs and for their assistance in preparing a law school application. They have tons of data that can help you in your search for either a job or law school and advisors who are happy to help you out at every step of the way.

Realistically, you are choosing between two outstanding universities that possess more resources and opportunities than can ever be communicated in one CC post or utilized during a 4 year undergrad career. You cannot go wrong with your choice either way! So go where you will be happy and you will have fun!