I feel like upenn is overrated for recruiting

I know we are a target school, even non Wharton, but I’ve talked to some kids from Stanford, MIT, and Dartmouth (of course insanely great schools) but they were able to land offers without being in an incredibly finance centric environment.


Feel like at penn everyone is recruiting for OB / consulting so it’s super hard to stand out. Competition at penn makes it harder to recruit IMO but the sheer volume of applicants makes it’ a school known for finance. Thoughts?

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Schools that have an attached business school are always naturally more competitive, given that more people are going for finance spots. Obviously, Penn is going to be more competitive than a Williams/Amherst or even a Dartmouth. However, on a pure per capita basis, your school has more alumni, which means more people to talk to across finance and a higher absolute number of seats.

Will note some people are not super finance-centric who get roles from all schools; though obviously the rate is relatively higher for those that go to non-business school-affiliated colleges, because to some extent there are different expectations for recruiting, whereas business school kids are assumed to be more technical than non.

 

Recruiting at Dartmouth is arguably worse than Wharton. A lot of people who place are nepo. Plus there’s less alumni out there but a relatively large percentage of undergrads who want to break into IB/PE.

 

I feel like kids from semi targets want to go to Penn because of the network, strength of the alumni base, but legit everyone wants to do finance, consulting, tech, startups, quant etc…

Sure you have much more of a network, but so much more competition, so much more emphasis on technicals, and have to do all these extra stupid internships as well. Or dual degree with Wharton as well.

I guess the ceiling is much higher if you work harder at Penn, but you probably could strike out if you don’t aggressively network, keep a high GPA, and learn techs while being in the top clubs.

Still think Wharton is easily a super target alongside Harvard. But Penn (minus wharton) might be slightly below duke/uchicago.

Idrk myself, I don’t go to Penn but that’s what it seems like.

 

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