hi! I'm a current first year student who wrestled with the decision of whether to choose wharton (or the other schools I'd been admitted to) right up to the last moment. it was a tough decision because many schools have great things to offer, but I think it came down to a number of key things.
• alumni - any wharton alum I encountered on the way could not stop raving about his or her years at wharton
• the proactiveness of the students/administration/faculty - everyone here is constantly striving to make things better - whether through open discussions about the curriculum and recruiting or through official feedback to professors mid-quarter - nobody seems to be resting on past accomplishments or reputations - the school has a sense of humility but also an intense drive to be the best possible program
• people - it's been said before, but the people I met at wharton's admit weekend were the most international, the most well rounded, and came from some of the most interesting backgrounds - not to mention, everyone was so excited to be here - there's something contageous about that feeling
• size - I was looking for a large school, wharton fit the bill
• location - I was also looking to be back on the east coast
• faculty - I was blown away by the courses I attended when I visited campus - some stunning professors
• case and lecture - I think both are valuable and wanted a place where I could learn by each method
• reputation, particularly in quantitative subjects - wharton's reputation is stunning and will open as many doors as an mba from one of the other schools you're considering, but I was particularly drawn to the known strength of the quant background I'd receive - coming from a softer liberal arts background, the strength of wharton's program is a great complement to my experiences
so those are the top reasons that led me to make my decision. that's not to say I didn't struggle with it up until the day the checks were due. but in hindsight, after speaking with friends who are first years at each of the schools you mentioned, I'm glad to be here and feel I made the right decision.
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OK, here's a run-down. We have started the course out by talking about a few theories of entrepreneurship. We have talked about the entrepreneurial mindset and how it typically differs from the venture capitalist mindset. I think that one of the main ways that Wharton can add value is by showing entrepreneurs how their ideas will be evaluated by venture capitalists, angel investors, and lendors.
The last couple of days, we have evaluated businesses that are currently being incubated in the Wharton Venture Initiation Program. The WVIP is an incubator that provides students with access to professors, corporate advisors, and the use of certain Wharton facilities to a select number of ideas by Wharton students each year. Another cool program, called the Whartom Small Business Development Center, allows current students to provide consulting to small businesses and start-ups in the Philly area. (I just thought I'd throw that in there).
I saw a presentation on an idea that I thought was really cool today, and I am actually going to go through my personal contacts to try to get it funded.
Anyway, we are also breaking up into groups this week to write business plans. Over the course of the semester, we will draft business plans that will receive criticism from our classmates. The final product should be a high-quality business plan capable of being funded, or in certain cases, a conclusion that the original idea was not feasible... this is really equally as valuable as an entrpreneur, though much more frustrating.
There are other cool entrepreneurship classes at Wharton. One of them, called "Entrepreneurship through Acquisition" focuses on acquiring small business and either repositioning them, accumulating them, or operating them more efficiently to add value. It is a really cool concept. You start the course off by going to a real business and asking what they would like to sell it for, then ask them for financials to see if you thought you could buy the business and make it more valuable than what you bought it for.
Another favorite is Entrepreneurial Marketing, which is really all about using advanced market research techniques with a limited budget. It also covers a little bit about getting over and building barriers to entry... not sure about that, though.
Wharton is very supportive of entrepreneurship. If you tack on the number of Wharton graduates who end up going into venture capital, private equity, and finance, and you will find that entrepreneurs at Wharton also have an incredible advantage in terms of getting their ideas financed through their own personal network. For entrepreneurs hesitant about getting an MBA, that is really a deciding factor.
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Sorry for taking me a while to get to this one. Why I think that Wharton is good fro entrepreneurs is a separate question from what I think of Wharton's Entrepreneurship program as a whole. I know a lot of people who plan on starting their own companies who do not focus on Entrepreneurship here at Wharton.
If you look at the qualities that make Entrepreneurs successful: leadership, willingness to get your hands dirty, and well-roundedness, I think that Wharton excels in developing those skills.
Leadership. In terms of leadership, Wharton offers about 100 active clubs on campus. Most of the initiatives on campus are student-driven, and even the curriculum is, to a large extent, shaped by the students. For those who wish, the opportunity exists to lead a club or to start a new program at Wharton. The skills developed in this process far exceed anything you can learn from a book. For me, one of my major developmental needs has been that I don't like cold-calling people and I don't really like using the telephone. This semester, I am managing relationships with 13 consulting firms and am managing 5 first year students to be in touch with 50 more firms. A book won't teach you how to be successful in that endeavor, you must experience success and failure to grow this skill.
Getting your hands dirty. Yeah, sometimes people make fun of Whartonites for being "quant-jocks" and knowing obscure details about short-cuts in Excel. While I enjoy debating strategy while discussing a case, at some point, the rubber has to hit the road. If you sit in a marketing class and say that "Company A should do this" without having numbers to back you up, you can expect to be criticized. Strategic issues are seldom "soft." Wharton demands that you do your homework before jumping to conclusions. Similarly, in an entrepreneurial environment, you need to have the discipline to objectively analyze your ideas and be sure that they make sense from a profitibility point-of-view.
Well-roundedness. Wharton has a very large set of core classes in the curriculum. Core classes are required of everyone (unless you can waive them through a placement test or by credential) who attends Wharton. The drawback here is that you don't get to take a lot of the "fun" classes. On the bright side, you end up with a very strong business foundation in a variety of subjects that always comes in handy as an entrepreneur. During the summer, I would do strategic planning some days, delve into cost accounting on other days, and at times, I was conducting operations management. Had you allowed me to take the classes I really wanted to take at Wharton, I probably would have skipped out on OPIM (operations and information management) and I might have skipped over cost accounting altogether. As an entrepreneur, you must be a jack-of-all-trades and I think that the Wharton education ensures that you don't have any "holes" in your education. In a small business, you can't always play to your strengths.
I hope this answers your questions as to why I think that Wharton is a good place for entrepreneurs. I imagine that you are shopping around at other schools, so I would keep these sort of questions in mind when asking about other programs and how they would help to develop the skills an entrepreneur needs.
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