I hosted a WSO webinar (link here) on Thursday, December 3rd about my application to Wharton and how I got in, despite having a low gmat score (only 10% of admitted students had a GMAT under 700, and mine was definitely nowhere near that). I'll be talking about the specific things I did in my application in that webinar. However, I figured to have an open ended thread for anyone with any questions about my experience thusfar, specific classes, professors, extra curricular activities, the culture, etc. Figure I can clear a lot of stuff up and give very specific details into my experience at Wharton thusfar. My goal is for you to know crystal clear what the experience is, as if you were an insider. As if you were a student already. When I applied to Wharton I had a few friends there, but one in particular who answered a million question of mine. I felt like a student already with all the inside knowledge by the time of my group interview. It really made a difference, and I hope to be that person for all of you who are applying. Profile: +Strategy consultant at IBM, worked with several Fortune 500 clients. +Internal strategy and venture capital at IBM afterward. +25, male, born in the US. +Self funding my MBA through successful stock investments (TSLA, AAL, HIMX, etc) Mod Note (Andy) - I talked to Xepa and he's still able to take questions (this Q&A originally went up 12/2015)
Trending Content - Business School and GMAT Forum
Career Resources
Sorry, but the obvious first question is - What is your race/ethnicity?
I can definitely say you are not Asian American. No way an Asian American would get into Wharton with a subpar gmat score.
That is the reality of liberal America for Asian Americans. We are allowed to be LEGALLY discriminated against based on our race. I'm sure Brady will chime in with one of his accounts, but as an Asian American male, I will completely agree with what he is going to write.
I am going to guess that you are a Navajo :)
I'm mostly Chinese, try again lol.
And let's get off the bitter soap box. This thread is about the student life, classes, Wharton's competitive edges, what I perceive to be our strengths. Things that I wouldn't have known if I didn't have one of my best friends at the school and even things I didn't know until I became a student here.
So, for example...at Wharton there are classes you can take with grad students at different schools and even undergrads. Those are the elective classes, not your required courses. Someone in another thread asked if it was humiliating (which actually inspired me to create this thread) to which, my response is, naw. MBAs generally don't care about grades as much since we have grade non-disclosure. Personally? I try, and I love how our core classes have so many office hours with TAs (like 8 hours a week worth of TA sessions available). But naw, most of my friends in those classes liked working with undergrads. Hell, I've done and won competitions with undergrads as my teammates.
snakeoil is so fuckin predictable, half your posts are whining about affirmative action, such a tool. So glad you aren't black/Hispanic so we can continue without him and Brady hijacking this thread into some anti affirmative action discussion. Moving on, what are your post MBA career goals.
.
Congrats! Hope your TBD went well!
The General Management is FANTASTIC! You know how I can tell what a good, well funded club is like? By the quality of their speakers and their food. 1) They had Chipotle at their speaker meetings. 2) They have fantastic speakers. They're all high quality. I remember they had like C-level execs, and one of their execs was someone at P&G who was in the board meetings directly advising the CEO and a former senior partner at McKinsey.
The agriculture club is great; they gave Indian and Chinese at their last two speaker events (yes, free food literally does dictate my life). One of their speakers was like the DuPont COO I think. And it was a room of 70 people only; you got to talk to him 1-on-1 aftrward. There was an LEK global partner in agriculture. It's very, very strong.
Don't know a lot about energy or chemicals, sorry. I know Dow does a lot of on campus events though.
Soooo many people do consulting. There's a lot of firms beyond MBB. There's literally like a Bain event every week. If any of you are curious, private message me your email and ask for a copy of our consulting club newsletter (with redacted contact information for privacy concerns, of course). I'll forward it to you. The weekly consulting club newsletter is like 1500 words filled with upcoming events on campus. It's comically comprehensive hahaha. Yes, I want to make the Wharton experience as CLEAR and TANGIBLE as possible, so anything I can do to help (as long as I have free time). If I was recruiting aggressively for consulting, I'd be in heaven.
And honestly I can't say what will make you stand out. The most common thing I hear is having PE experience. If you don't have pre-MBA PE experience, it's an uphill battle. For my friends in fixed income, investment banking, etc. etc. That's what they've told me. Now keep in mind I'm a first year so we don't have internship offers yet, but just my initial impression.
Again, I don't think the PEOPLE are cut throat...but they're all just so BAD ASS that like, you're inherently competing against them, so that's what makes it competitive.
1) The Lauder students are so close because they meet earlier than everyone else and go off on an international trip even before Wharton's pre-term (which, IMO, Wharton's pre-term is what creates a culture unique from HBS and Stanford. It's the biggest defining culture thing Wharton does).
The Lauder people are crazy smart. I have so much respect for them. But the profile is weird, like, a lot of Lauder people I know don't actually like a lot of the Wharton MBA curriculum, but they love the Lauder part (academically). I guess it really attracts a different type of person? They still gun for banking and consulting jobs, just not in the US for many of them.
God, the Lauder people are awesome. Some of my best friends are in that program. Their GroupMe is the epitomeeee of clicky / in-group hahaha. They have like 400+ messages a day. That thing blows up.
The Healthcare Management Program is awesome too.
Here's what I'll say about Wharton vs. HBS vs. Stanford.
Stanford is where you go to change the world. HBS is where you go to run the world. Wharton is where you go to get shit done.
Was just talking to our school newspaper about that today. Whether it's analytics, our specialized healthcare / Lauder programs, our emphasis on impact investing, our quant nature, our students just know their shit on an execution level. And when they propose strategy they back it up with data. The buck stops with us.
2) Just answered in above post.
3) Yah, like 10+ hedgefunds have had information sessions with us, and more have resume drops. It's fairly impressive considering everything I've read about how they have weird hiring cycles on WSO pre-MBA. I just applied for Elliott Management yesterday (doubt I'll get an interview though ahahah).