Transfer to Wharton, Is it worth it?
Fellow monkeys,
I've come to a certain conundrum: One of my good friends transferred to Wharton after one year from a good state school, for the sole reason being his pursuit of a IB or Investment Banking University Recruiting Report – 7 Key Takeaways
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I went to Columbia undergrad and now teach at Wharton.
If you're committed to a finance/business/entrepreneurship career track, go to Wharton. It's the best undergraduate business school in the world. Be warned though, everything is graded on curves.
Interested in more recruiting data?
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If you want to do finance definitely go to Penn. Your chances go way up that way. Also, I don't know who you've been talking to that "networks" to get an SA position. You kind of just apply, get the interview, and then get the offer. It's pretty straightforward.
Penn will help you get a job (one that you seem to want) and your friend is there, sounds like a no-brainer to me.
thats really complicated, it depends on a lot of things.
is tuition a concern? i am assuming you are a CA resident. if you need to stretch your finances or take on significant debt, i would say absolutely no.
do you strongly prefer to work on the east coast? if you dont care where you work, stay at ucla.
are you set on working in IB? you can break into IB in the west coast with a little bit of hard work.
does the wharton brand name really appeal to you? if not, forget about it.
like you, i had a friend who transfered to wharton. pm if you want to ask me any more questions.
I went to Penn, graduaed in '00. I've gone back and recruited undergrads. I think I have an idea. My opinion is No. As much as I love Penn, it doesn't seem like it'll be worth it to you. One thing that people discount is the amount of competition for finance jobs at Penn. In my experience, it really errodes the wharton career advantage more than you might think (for recent graduates).
is tuition a concern? Not really, I am already paying the piper(aka Sallie Mae) to finance my schooling career, its what you have to do when your from a middle class Midwestern family with 3 kids in college, and 2 more about to suck any family contributions dry in the next 5 years.
do you strongly prefer to work on the east coast? if you dont care where you work, stay at ucla.: I do not care geographically where I work, climate wise I'd like west coast, but Wall Street just gives me more opportunity.
are you set on working in IB? :Absolutely.
does the wharton brand name really appeal to you? The brand name itself doesn't appeal to me, but the opportunities afforded by it, and the fact that some people are elitists and don't understand that public education is just as good as private, leads me to want to have the wharton name on my diploma.
mr1234 just PM'd ya, and a thanks to who all else posted. All input is greatly appreciated.
Plunge boldly into the thick of life.
A few thoughts:
UCLA is a solid school- Berkeley would be even more solid, and Wharton would be even better. I think, though, that if you're the kind of person who could get into banking from Wharton, you're the kind of person who can get into banking from UCLA.
If you come from a middle-class Midwestern family, Wharton may not be a perfect cultural fit. Go check it out, see if you like the campus and people there, and maybe make your decision after that. Either way, I don't think UCLA is going to hurt you if you keep the GPA up.
It's certainly worth applying. You'll always be able to say that you got in if you decide not to go.
If you are competitive for Wharton, then perhaps you are also competitive for UC Berkeley/Stanford etc.
I'm starting my freshmen year at UCLA this fall.
Facing the same dillema.
What did you do about it?
For those undergrads who are already at good schools (yes, UCLA counts as one of them) that get decent finance/consulting recruiting, I advise against transferring to another college with the exceptions of harvard and wharton. Those 2 schools are head and shoulders above the others in terms of finance opportunities and the breadth of companies that recruit on-campus. So yes, if you can get into wharton transfer, go by all means.
Since this thread is from 2010 I'm assuming OP has died of old age, but if not, he's clearly a Michigan guy and I would love to advise him against this transfer considering he has most likely graduated or passed on. My condolences if it happens to be the latter.
yeah, funny how these old threads sometimes get bumped and then people start giving the same advice again :-)
Transferring from Duke to Wharton - Is It Worth It? (Originally Posted: 12/28/2013)
I'm a freshman at Duke considering transferring to Wharton as a sophomore because of its stronger business program and increased opportunities. I applied to Wharton regular decision in high school and was waitlisted. Although I like Duke, Wharton has always been my dream school. Are the networking/recruiting opportunities significantly greater for Wharton graduates compared to Duke graduates? Is it worth it to transfer?
I really do not think it is worth transferring unless you just really would prefer to go to wharton. It's up to you. Both schools are great
Yes.
If you are average go to Wharton. If you are a superstar, stay at Duke.
Definitely not true, it's hard to get good interviews if you're average at Wharton
Not worth it. Plenty of Dukies here on Wall Street (3 in my group). Plus Duke has way better weather, much hotter girls, and good sports teams.
Basically what he said ^
lol hands down... Better city.. One of the top Ugrad Business programs...
There is a reason that Blackstone PE Analyst positions go to Penn kids
How are your ECs going at Duke right now? If you don't have anything at Duke, I think there is little downside to a Wharton transfer. Same tuition, better recruiting.
If you're heavily involved in some clubs and taking on a lot of responsibilities, I think this gets to be a tougher decision. You can certainly make it to Wall Street from Duke, but the Wharton kids have some advantage. I think a finance club president at Duke with a strong GPA would be at little disadvantage to most (not all) of the Wharton class.
If you get the 3.7+, boutique IB internship soph year, and have some semblance of ECs then going to Duke over Wharton won't be the reason you get dinged for top banking jobs.
Personally having gone to an Ivy, if I could do it all over again I would have highly considered Duke for all the reasons Will Hunting cited.
Lol the fact that you went Ivy and would still say this is stupid... Yes Duke is a great school and yes its doable/easy to get into banking from there... But however "easy" Duke is... Penn is easier. Just to graduate with over a 3.5 at Wharton will at least get you an interview just about anywhere not to mention that EVERY bank BB, MM, and Boutique is on the OCR list at Penn
God, people are such idiots sometimes. If your GPA is high enough to successfully transfer to Wharton, your GPA is probably high enough to land you any finance job coming out of Duke, including Blackstone.
Or you could just save yourself the culture gap and go to one of those schools.
If OP wants to go to Wharton, and he has the GPA and not a whole lot of extracurriculars, I don't see the harm in a transfer here. OP does not need to go to Wharton to make it to the street, but for the same tuition and no loss of activities, where's the damage?
Definitely not worth transferring - Duke has great recruitment and is 10x more fun than Wharton. Have siblings/relatives at each college, and both have said that Duke is definitely worth it in terms of studying/fun tradeoff.
@"IlliniProgrammer", I went to Harvard/Wharton; I work at a tippy top group; and I am 100% sure that the OP is fine coming from Duke. In fact, if he wants to get into a tippy top group, his chances are likely better from Duke than they are from Wharton, unless he thinks he can be one of the 10-15 best students at Wharton.
P.S. I don't know anybody who gossips about the Harvard-Yale football game. How delusional is your perception of Ivy League undergraduates? Didn't you go to Princeton? What's the matter with you?!
EDIT: Another point to consider -- the vast majority of the top banking and buyside jobs out of Wharton go to the dual degree candidates. OP isn't transferring into a dual degree program, so it's probably a bad idea to transfer if the ultimate goal is a top banking or buyside gig.
I'm actually a "she," if that makes any difference. I have a 3.8 at Duke and I'm involved in a few extracurriculars (Duke Business Oriented Women, Duke Business News anchor, Smart Women Securities), so I'm doing well but I wouldn't call myself a superstar. I prefer Philadelphia over Durham and from what I've heard from my sister (who graduated from Wharton), Penn's nightlife seems to be much better than Duke's. It's gonna be a tough decision, but I appreciate everyone's insight!
In terms of cost, I am not on scholarship at Duke and Wharton is only $396 more expensive per year.
If it were me, given these particular circumstances, I'd stay at Duke.
If you had a 3.7 GPA getting easier courses out of the way and had lived under a rock all semester, you would be a prime candidate for transferring to Wharton. That doesn't seem like your situation. You do not necessarily want to go to Wharton, earn a new GPA, make new friends, and find new extracurriculars.
This is obviously a tough decision, but fortunately it's a high quality problem.
Cool campus, cool sports, cool colors. Duke is just such a cool school in my opinion. If they were close to a large city they might have it all.
It's not worth it transferring to Wharton, IMO. If I end up going to business school, and I'm still single, they will be near the top of the list.
You guys need a little more IlliniProgrammer in the college trolling. The key is to be subtle, not take it personally, ignore the direct ad-hominems and respond calmly/innocently to the less direct ones, forcing people to either become more direct and angry or to back off.
The goal is to sort out the douchebags from these schools from the nice people from these schools, and then to get the douchebags to blow a fuse defending the prestige or difficulty of their school- and to expose themselves as stupid/crazy or as a loser. Then you use this to promote whatever agenda you are trying to promote or point you are trying to make. Often my agenda has been that banks overlook non-target flagship state schools. Unfortunately, if this results in unfair benefits to the agenda, this sometimes blows additional collateral fuses, so you have to try and play somewhat fair and not throw everyone in the same boat.
Unfortunately, what I see here is sub-optimal trolling. People are defending the prestige and difficulty of their schools and how hard they have it rather than acting sweetly confused about the ad-hominems. You guys are both getting trolled.
Oh well. UIUC is a more prestigious school than Duke and Wharton or Harvard or whatever Ivy the other guy is claiming because we do better trolling. :-)
Yup, I even drive a clown car (a rusty honda). Speaking of that, I need to get back to it.While I'm pushing the rusty honda through the snow back to my prestigious impossibly hard midwestern state school, can y'all play nice? :-)
Hahahaha.. I do agree that banks overlook quality candidates from what are considered "non-targets" but the nature of the beast is for risk-adverse people, your chances are better and the path is easier going from Wharton over Duke
I also have nothing against trolling as I do my fair share on the forum. But kids like above are why more and more threads on this forum become useless and very little useful information actually ends up on WSO anymore.
The vast majority of those interview slots go to the same candidates so you tend to see a lot of the same faces at superdays. It's not simple math - you can't multiply 24 slots x 10 banks and assume 240 kids get interviews. There's 600 undergrads at Wharton, I'm sure those at the bottom of the curve have it tough.
This is accurate... Its true across applying to MBAs, Law School, recruiting for PE, etc. If you fit the mold at GS then you likely fit the mold at MS, CS, etc. Also if Wharton's UG average is a 3.5 that means half the class is under a 3.5 and approximately 300 kids can have a stab at those 240 interview slots (24 is conservative as the top 30 on the league table contains respectable names)
Transfer Worth It? (Originally Posted: 12/24/2011)
Hi everyone and Merry Christmas Eve,
Hypothetical Situation: It's the winter of sophomore year, and I am sitting on a 3.9-4.0 GPA at a top 15 school (Northwestern, JHU, Cornell, etc.). I have done good work and I am president of a few clubs, have done research, and I am actively interested in finance. Would it be worth it to take the time/effort/money to transfer to a "top" school (Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Wharton, etc.)?
Also- At my current hypothetical school I am receiving great financial aid.
no
If you have decent OCR at your school, then no. Transferring into HYPS is very difficult, and they all have around sub-5% admissions rates for transfers.
Assuming your goal is IBD, then it's better to focus on getting relevant internship experience (i.e. sophomore rotational, MM IBD, equity research, or PWM).
If you doing very well then it's better to stay put. Think about it like this, you stand out where you are now but would you if you moved??
Don't try to fix what's not broken!
No way, you've obviously excelled in various facets in your life. Now, it's up to you to show your passion for finance and network like a gypsy in Bulgaria.
Best of luck!
New hypothetical situation: My little bro is at University of Richmond as a freshman and wants to transfer. He can score in the 99th % on the GRE if he takes it. Will the GRE help?
He can't score anything until he actually takes it.
Worth it, or not?
Depends on if you go to Northwestern or not.
Haha.
May not be worth it. Really depends on which school you currently attend (and potentially your major). Those schools you listed do not necessarily stand on equal ground when it comes to recruiting.
transfer to wharton (Originally Posted: 08/06/2007)
How difficult is it to transfer to Wharton after 2 years at a top state university(think Rutgers, Maryland, Penn State)? What type of credentials and grades do they look for? Thanks.
I thought about transferring to Wharton, but the biggest barrier I ran into was the Math Pre-reqs - I think it was Calc 1&2 - Advanced Stats as well as a few other classes that I wouldn't have had time to take.
Basically the best of the best - but they do weight work experience when selecting candidates.
"Students are encouraged to transfer after their freshman year because we have very few spaces available for entering juniors."
-http://www.admissionsug.upenn.edu/applying/transinfo.php
I tried to transfer to Wharton as a junior. Like GateBreaker was saying, the biggest barrier was the statistics with a calculus prerequisite. I completed that though by taking 4 (Yes, four) statistics courses. One series was business statistics and the other mathematical statistics (hardest class I've ever taken). Despite that, and what I would really consider exceptional statistics and reasons behind transferring to Wharton, I was denied admission.
I made it into other "target" schools as well.
There's a post on this board about someone with 4.0 from UVA who got accepted as a junior to Wharton. This kid had multiple private equity internships and other stuff as well.
Basically, I think to transfer to Wharton, especially as a junior, you have to already be at a very good school. I think you're going to waste a lot of time trying to apply to Wharton and this is what everyone told me but I applied anyway because I didn't believe Wharton would turn away someone with strong merit to be accepted. Well, let me tell you, they do.
It is hard as shit even if you are at the best schools. I know people from other ivys that couldn't transfer even with a 4.0 after their first year.
It is hard as shit even if you are at the best schools. I know people from other ivys that couldn't transfer even with a 4.0 after their first year.
Rutgers, Penn State, Maryland, etc are NOT top state schools. If you went to Berkeley or Michigan then maybe, but then again those schools have good business programs themselves.
I was wondering if anyone could give me insight, about how Wharton would view a service academy like Naval academy or West point? Would it give me a solid advantage when trying to transfer?
are you a plebe or a yuck?
im a youngster, i did plebe year already
transferring to wharton from waterloo (Originally Posted: 04/03/2011)
.
Canadians don't do so well at American school admissions, but your record looks pretty good. On the downside, you look like every other Asian applicant at Penn. I wouldn't bank on Wharton--apply to Stern/Berkeley/Cornell/Michigan so you don't come up empty-handed.
Cornell seems to accept a lot of transfers, due to their larger size vs the other Ivy schools, and they have plenty of Canadian students. Don't know anything about Wharton.
Just FYI, just in case you were not aware though, at Cornell the undergrad business school is separate from the Johnson school, where the MBA program is located.
I can't speak for Wharton, but I do know people that transferred from Canadian schools to Cornell. High GPA + Standardized Test Scores + Interesting Leadership/Extracurriculars.
Any Successful Wharton Transfers? (Originally Posted: 02/12/2016)
Has anybody here ever successfully transferred to Wharton (or any other top-tier target school) for UG? I'd really appreciate any advice or feedback you might have. (I'm looking for investment bankers.)
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