Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania

Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania
Logo of the Wharton School
Established 1881
Type Private
Endowment $991 million
Dean Thomas Robertson
Academic staff 304
Undergraduates 2,305
Postgraduates 1,671
Location Philadelphia, PA, USA
Alumni 81,000
Affiliations University of Pennsylvania
Website www.wharton.upenn.edu

The Wharton School is the business school of the University of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and is the world’s first collegiate business school (and the oldest business school in the United States). It was established in 1881 through a donation of Joseph Wharton and is considered to be one of the world's preeminent business schools.

Alone and in conjunction with the other schools and colleges of the university, Wharton grants B.S. and MBA degrees, offers a Ph.D. program,[1] and houses or co-sponsors several diploma programs. With the most electives of any business school,[2] Wharton's MBA program offers concentrations in accounting, business and public policy, entrepreneurial management, environmental management, finance, health care systems, human resource and organizational management, insurance and risk management, legal studies and business ethics, management, marketing, multinational management, operations and information management, real estate, retailing, statistics and strategic management.

Since the 1990s, the popular and financial press has consistently ranked Wharton as one of the world's top institutions for business education.[3] Moreover, it has been ranked the best business school in the world by the Financial Times in every year in which the newspaper has ranked business schools until 2010, when London Business School overtook the top spot (in 2005 and 2009, it tied for first place with Harvard Business School and London Business School respectively).[4] Wharton usually receives the highest reputation scores from academics and recruiters.[5] According to Forbes, approximately 90% of billionaires with MBAs obtained their master's degree from one of three Ivy League schools: Harvard Business School, Columbia Business School, or Wharton.[6]

The school currently has 278 faculty members, translating to a 17:1 student-to-faculty ratio. The school's faculty are the world’s most published and most cited among business schools.[7] Research published in the peer-reviewed Academy of Management Journal ranked Wharton as the top institution in the simultaneous pursuit of scholarly achievements and excellence in teaching.[8] Most recently, the Chronicle of Higher Education rated Wharton's Marketing and Management departments as the first and second in the world for research productivity, respectively.[9]

The admissions process at Wharton is highly selective; it is one of the most competitive business schools in the United States. A high GPA, high GMAT score, and very strong non-quantitative credentials are typically prerequisites to admission.

The school publishes an influential[10] on-line journal, Knowledge@Wharton, that is "the envy of every other school" according to The Economist,[11] and has a newly established publishing house Wharton School Publishing. Wharton maintains the world's largest financial, economics, management, marketing, and public policy data warehouses accessible through state-of-the-art web-based data management services, called WRDS.[12]

Contents

History

The Wharton School, the world's first collegiate business school, was founded in 1881 by Philadelphia industrialist and philanthropist Joseph Wharton.[13] A native Philadelphian, Wharton became a leader in industrial metallurgy and built a fortune through his American Nickel Company and Bethlehem Steel Corporation. The anvil, a School symbol, reflects Wharton's pioneering work in the metal industry. Joseph Wharton envisioned creating a new collegiate foundation that would produce educated leaders of business and government. From the beginning, he defined the goal of the Wharton School of Finance and Economy to be "to provide for young men special means of training and of correct instruction in the knowledge and in the arts of modern Finance and Economy, both public and private, in order that, being well informed and free from delusions upon these important subjects, they may either serve the community skillfully as well as faithfully in offices of trust, or, remaining in private life, may prudently manage their own affairs and aid in maintaining sound financial morality: in short, to establish means for imparting a liberal education in all matters concerning Finance and Economy."[14]

Undergraduate program

Admissions

Prospective Wharton candidates apply in their senior year of high school either through the early decision (ED) process or regular decision (RD) process. Unlike many other undergraduate business programs where students transfer in after their freshman or sophomore year (University of Virginia's McIntire, Emory's Goizueta, UC Berkeley's Haas), Wharton applicants apply specifically for Wharton during their senior year of high school. These candidates are then grouped with a pool of applicants separate from those applying to University of Pennsylvania's College of Arts and Sciences (CAS), School of Engineering and Applied Science (SEAS), or School of Nursing.[15] Though some of the admissions criteria for admissions into Wharton, CAS, and SEAS overlap, the admissions committee, when selecting Wharton students, also looks for qualities that fit with the business school's unique undergraduate culture.

The admissions process for Wharton's undergraduate program is extremely competitive. Wharton's acceptance rate in 2009 was 7%, a figure lower than admissions at Stanford, Harvard, and Princeton. Wharton's yield, or the percent of students who matriculate after being accepted, is about 77%, a number matched only by Harvard (76%).[16][17]. Princeton's yield in 2009 was 60% and Yale 69%. Through its selective admissions process and consistently strong performance, Wharton has maintained its position as the top undergraduate business program in U.S. News & World Report, the most widely used undergraduate ranking table in the United States, since the ranking's inception.[18]

Students in the other three undergraduates schools who satisfy certain prerequisites may transfer into Wharton after their freshman year. The transfer process is objective: students with the necessary coursework are ordered by GPA and admitted from highest to lowest until all spots are filled. Conversely, Wharton students may also transfer out of the business program into CAS or SEAS.

Academics

The specialized program at Wharton focuses on a broad range of business or finance-related subjects. Though students graduate with a B.S. in Economics, Wharton's curriculum is very different from that of a typical economics major (which the University of Pennsylvania offers through its College of Arts and Sciences). Wharton emphasizes teaching students the skills they need to obtain and succeed in many careers as opposed to general economics theory.

At the same time, undergraduate students are given a general liberal arts education to complement their business concentration. Potential concentrations include Actuarial Science, Business and Public Policy, Environmental Policy & Management, Finance, Health Care Management and Policy, Insurance and Risk Management, Management, Marketing, Operations and Information Management, Real Estate, Statistics, and Transportation. Second concentrations are also available in more specialized topics such as Entrepreneurship & Innovation or Retailing. Emphasis is placed on an international perspective, aided by the geographically diverse student body. Leadership and communication skills are also an area of focus with many core classes incorporating group projects and all freshmen enrolled in Management 100, a course in which student teams complete a semester project benefiting a partner Philadelphia community organization.

A small group of students also choose to apply for a dual degree, allowing them to graduate with two degrees—a B.S. in Economics from Wharton as well as a B.S. or B.A. in another subject taken at the University of Pennsylvania such as Engineering or Mathematics.

Graduation

Over 50% of Wharton's typical undergraduate class of 500 students go into investment banking with the majority employed at a bulge bracket firm earning a typical base salary of $70,000, a typical signing bonus of $10,000, and a year-end bonus for first year analysts as high as $100,000.[19][20][21][22][23] [24] The next most common industry after investment banking is consulting, with firms like McKinsey & Co., Boston Consulting Group, Bain & Company and many other firms hiring approximately 30% of the students. A number of students also enter the buy-side with offers from top hedge funds such as Citadel Investment Group or private equity firms such as Silver Lake Partners or Blackstone Group.[25]

Graduate programs

Wharton MBA program

Wharton School's differentiation lies in its 19 majors, over 250 faculty members, 11 academic departments, nearly 200 electives, 24 research centers and initiatives, and a strong alumni network.

The school offers two paths, an MBA for full-time students and an MBA for executives.[26] Students can elect to pursue double majors or individualized majors. During their first year, all students pursue a required core curriculum that covers traditional management disciplines—finance, marketing, statistics, and strategy—as well as the leadership, ethics, and communication skills needed at senior levels of management.[27] Students pick electives in the second year.[28]

Wharton MBA's required pre-term for full-time students includes coursework, waiver testing, and the "Learning Team Retreat". Coursework includes introductory and review courses in financial accounting, microeconomics, statistics, and financial analysis. Preparatory courses cover material not included in fall coursework that students are expected to understand. In addition, pre-term includes classes on business history and languages, as well as short seminars in communication skills, computing technology, trading simulations, and career management. Students may also spend term time at INSEAD's Fontainebleau and Singapore campuses.

Wharton's MBA for Executives is a two-year, lockstep, weekend residential program with the same curriculum, campus classroom time, credit requirements and elective choices as the full-time MBA program. As such, this is one of the most highly sought and rigorous programs with very high selectivity (low acceptance rate). This program, for more experienced professionals, has the same campus classroom time and credit hours as the full-time program by having longer classroom hours during residential periods and running full terms during summers (when full-time students are interning). Wharton admits only one class with a single entry point every year.

In July 2009 Wharton School announced that they would also accept the Graduate Record Exam (GRE) for future admission to its MBA program in addition to GMAT scores.[29]

Academic honors for MBA program

William L. Mack Plaza

Though Wharton MBA students receive grades, students have for years enacted a policy of grade non-disclosure whereby such grades are not disclosed to or discussed with others. The school, however, does recognize students at the very top of the class. The top academic honor in the Wharton MBA Program is the Palmer Scholar designation, given to the top 5% of the graduating MBA class. Students who rank in the top 20% of the graduating class after both their first and second years are awarded Graduation with Honors. Students who rank in the top 20% of their class after the first year are awarded First Year Honors. The student or students with the top cumulative GPA at the end of the first year of the MBA program is awarded the Ford Fellowship.

Wharton doctoral program

Wharton offers Ph.D. degrees in applied economics and managerial science (as opposed to some schools, which grant DBAs.) However, unlike other programs at Wharton, "the Wharton School name will not appear on your diploma", as "the University of Pennsylvania awards all research Ph.D. and master's degrees."[30] It takes approximately four to six years to complete the doctoral program.

The admissions process for the Wharton doctoral program is extremely competitive. In 2010 the Ph.D. program received nearly 1,300 applicants for about 35 spots. Applicants are expected to demonstrate exceptional quantitative abilities and most matriculants have perfect or near perfect GRE Quantitative scores. Although verbal skills are somewhat less emphasized, matriculants average close to the 90th percentile on GRE Verbal scores. Most graduates of the Wharton doctoral program pursue academic careers after graduation, though some graduates choose to work in public or private sectors as well.[31]

Nine fields of specialization are offered by the program: Accounting, Applied Economics, Ethics & Legal Studies, Finance, Health Care Management & Economics, Management, Marketing, Operations & Information Management, and Statistics. The entering class of 2009 contained 37 students, three fourths of whom were U.S. citizens. The average age of the entering student was 26. Two thirds of the 2009 class were men.[32] All Wharton doctoral students are fully funded.[33]

Recent Wharton doctoral placements include the following:[34]

International study

Options for international study and experience include Wharton's Lauder Institute, the Global Immersion Program, Leadership Ventures, Global Consulting Practicum, and exchange programs with schools in 11 countries, including the alliance with the leading international business school, INSEAD.

Dual and joint degrees

Silverman Hall, Penn Law School

Wharton MBA students may pursue a dual degree with the Lauder Institute, Johns Hopkins University's Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, or in one of the graduate schools at the University of Pennsylvania:

Wharton undergraduates may pursue joint degrees in engineering through the Jerome Fisher Program in Management and Technology, international business through the Huntsman Program in International Studies and Business, Nursing & Health Care Management, and a joint program in life sciences and business through the Roy and Diana Vagelos Program in Life Sciences and Management. Undergraduates may also, independent from these programs, pursue dual degrees with any of Penn's three other undergraduate schools.

Wharton lists three types of degrees on their interdisciplinary lineup: Undergraduate programs, MBA programs and the Executive Masters in Technology Management Program. Wharton co-sponsors the EMTM Program with SEAS. This degree prepares engineers and scientists for leadership roles in technology-based organizations. Graduates receive a master's of science in engineering (MSE) in the management of technology from Penn Engineering.

General academics

Cohen Hall, former home of The Wharton School

The school has 304 standing and associated faculty, 11 academic departments and 20 research centers and initiatives. The institutional mission of the Wharton School is to apply unparalleled intellectual resources to prepare business leaders who fuel the growth of industries and economies throughout the world.

Academic departments

  • Accounting
  • Business and Public Policy
  • Finance
  • Health Care Systems
  • Insurance and Risk Management
  • Legal Studies
  • Management
  • Marketing
  • Operations and Information Management
  • Real Estate
  • Statistics

Research centers

Business school rankings

Undergraduate
BusinessWeek[35] 4
U.S. News & World Report[36] 1

Graduate
BusinessWeek[35] 4
Economist†[37] 9
Financial Times†[38] 1
Forbes[39] 5
U.S. News & World Report[40] 5
Wall Street Journal[41] 11

†Indicates worldwide ranking
  • Jay H. Baker Retailing Initiative
  • Pension Research Council
  • Center for Human Resources
  • Council on Employee Relations
  • Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics
  • S.S. Huebner Foundation for Insurance
  • Small Business Development Center
  • Wharton Financial Institutions Center
  • Wharton e-Business Initiative
  • Wharton Sports Business Initiative
  • Wharton Center for Health Management
  • Wharton Center for Leadership
  • Wharton-SMU Research Center
  • Reginald Jones Center for Management, Strategy, and Organization
  • Fishman-Davidson Center for Service and Operations Management
  • William and Phyllis Mack Center for Technological Innovation
  • Emerging Technologies Management Research Program
  • Risk Management and Decision Processes Center
  • SEI Center for Advanced Studies in Management
  • Sol C. Snider Entrepreneurial Research Center
  • Weiss Center for International Financial Research
  • Boettner Center for Pensions and Retirement Research
  • Rodney L. White Center for Financial Research
  • Samuel Zell and Robert Lurie Real Estate Center
  • Zicklin Center for Business Ethics Research

Rankings

Main article: Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania rankings

On December 5, 2003, Wharton enacted a policy of declining to actively participate in the rankings of business school programs,[42] citing concerns for alumni and students' privacy.[43]

Aresty Institute

The Wharton School operates the Aresty Institute of Executive Education, a highly regarded center for post-graduate and professional advancement.[44] Sharing its faculty with the full-time Wharton degree programs, the institute offers open-enrollment, semester, and custom programs in Executive Development, Advanced Management, Financial Wealth Management, and a wide variety of evolving fields.[45]

Founded in 1987,[46] the Aresty Institute has expanded its reach from the Wharton campus to a worldwide network of programs offered under its "Global Wharton" umbrella in Asia, India, Europe, and the Middle East.[47]

Alumni network

Wharton alumni network has 81,000+ members in 142 countries around the world. Eighty-two alumni clubs provide support to the school. In addition to the annual campus-based Wharton reunion, Wharton partners with its alumni clubs to mount three annual Global Alumni Forums around the world.

See also

References

  1. ↑ The school does not grant Ph.D. degrees. These are granted exclusively by the Graduate Division of the School of Arts and Sciences at the university. See http://phd.wharton.upenn.edu/
  2. ↑ Elective information; "The Wharton School", 23.06.2008
  3. ↑ Business school rankings; Business Week, 16.10.2000
  4. ↑ Business school rankings; Financial Times, 22.01.2007
  5. ↑ Best Graduate Schools; U.S.News & World Report, 27.04.2006
  6. ↑ Forbes: Billionaire Clusters.
  7. ↑ Faculty and Research; The Wharton School; 23.06.2008
  8. ↑ Trieschmann, James S.; Dennis, Alan R.; Northcraft, Gregory B. and Niemi, Albert W., Jr. "Serving Multiple Constituencies in Business Schools: M.B.A. Program Versus Research Performance." Academy of Management Journal, 2000, 43(6), pp. 1130-41
  9. ↑ Research Productivity; The Chronicle of Higher Education, 15.10.2006
  10. ↑ Experience Wharton: The Finest Faculty; The Wharton School, 29.05.2008
  11. ↑ Business-school rankings; The Economist, 22.09.2005
  12. ↑ WRDS FAQ; WRDS Website, 23.06.2008
  13. ↑ About Wharton; The Wharton School, 03.05.2008
  14. ↑ http://books.google.com/books?id=ATDuA-p2vSUC&pg=PA206&lpg=PA206&dq=%22wharton+school+of+finance+and+economy%22&source=bl&ots=8QFx79XBTg&sig=rDUdWnkGR0uNnZnfvPSzAaRRtpA&hl=en&ei=ayBoSpHGDs-UkAXC0pCVCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3
  15. ↑ [1]; Wharton School, 01.09.2006
  16. ↑ [2]
  17. ↑ [3]
  18. ↑ [4]; Wharton School, 01.09.2006
  19. ↑ http://www.wikicu.com/Investment_banking#Compensation
  20. ↑ [5], 04.18.2009
  21. ↑ [6]; Wharton School, 01.09.2006
  22. ↑ http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/07/business/07wall.html?scp=2&sq=investment%20banking%20first%20year%20analyst%20compensation&st=cse
  23. ↑ http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aJ5z5JLM4JP8&refer=news
  24. ↑ In 2008, Goldman Sachs was the top employer at Wharton with about 36 accepted offers.
  25. ↑ [7]; Wharton School, 01.09.2006
  26. ↑ http://www.wharton.upenn.edu/mbaexecutive/admissions/choosing/compare.cfm
  27. ↑ http://www.wharton.upenn.edu/mbaresource/curriculum/core/
  28. ↑ http://www.wharton.upenn.edu/mbaresource/courseindex/index.cfm
  29. ↑ MBA Channel: "Wharton joins the club", July 31, 2009
  30. ↑ http://phd.wharton.upenn.edu/
  31. ↑ http://www.wharton.upenn.edu/doctoral/admissions/faq.cfm
  32. ↑ http://www.wharton.upenn.edu/doctoral/community/class_profile.cfm
  33. ↑ Doctoral Program Quick Facts; Wharton School, 01.09.2006
  34. ↑ "Wharton Doctoral Program Placements". Wharton School. http://www.wharton.upenn.edu/doctoral/placement/placement.cfm. Retrieved 2010-04-23. 
  35. ↑ 35.0 35.1 "Business School Rankings and Profiles". BusinessWeek. 2009. http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/rankings/. Retrieved 2009-12-23. 
  36. ↑ "Best Undergraduate Business Programs". U.S. News & World Report. 2010. http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/spec-business. Retrieved 2009-12-23. 
  37. ↑ "Which MBA". The Economist. 2009. http://www.economist.com/business-education/whichmba/. Retrieved 2009-12-23. 
  38. ↑ "Global MBA Rankings". Financial Times. 2009. http://rankings.ft.com/businessschoolrankings/global-mba-rankings. Retrieved 2009-12-23. 
  39. ↑ "Best Business Schools". Forbes. 2009. http://www.forbes.com/lists/2009/95/best-business-schools-09_Best-Business-Schools_Rank.html. Retrieved 2009-12-23. 
  40. ↑ "Best Business Schools". U.S. News & World Report. 2010. http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-business-schools/rankings. Retrieved 2009-12-23. 
  41. ↑ "MBA Rankings". The Wall Street Journal. 2007. http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/MB_07_Scoreboard.pdf. Retrieved 2009-12-23. 
  42. ↑ Why Harvard And Wharton Are Wrong; Business Week, 19.04.2004
  43. ↑ Why Wharton and Harvard Are Missing; Business Week, 29.09.2005
  44. ↑ http://executiveeducation.wharton.upenn.edu/
  45. ↑ http://executiveeducation.wharton.upenn.edu/
  46. ↑ http://www.upenn.edu/almanac/v34pdf/n01/071487.pdf
  47. ↑ http://executiveeducation.wharton.upenn.edu/global-Wharton/index.cfm

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