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Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania

Wharton School
Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania:Image:Whartonlogo.gif
Motto Apply unparalleled intellectual resources to prepare business leaders who fuel the growth of industries and economies throughout the world
Established 1881
Type Private
Endowment $580.3 million
Dean Patrick T. Harker
Staff 304
Undergraduates 2,340
Postgraduates 1,671
Location Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
Campus Urban, 269 acres (1.1 km²)
Website www.wharton.upenn.edu

The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania is a business school founded in 1881 by Joseph Wharton, who hoped the School would produce graduates who would become "pillars of the state, whether in private or in public life." The School is considered one of the world's leading business schools.

Wharton offers undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral degrees, as well as executive education programs. The school offers majors in Accounting, Business and Public Policy, Finance, Health Care Systems, Insurance and Risk Management, Legal Studies and Business Ethics, Management, Marketing, Operations and Information Management, Real Estate, Retailing and Statistics.

The School owns Wharton School Publishing which publishes books, audio books, e-documents, CD-ROMs, and videos that have received what the publisher calls "the Wharton seal of approval."

Wharton has 2,340 undergraduate, 1,690 MBA and 200 doctoral students, and an alumni network of more than 81,000 in 140 countries around the world. The school has 304 standing and associated faculty, 11 academic departments and 20 research centers and initiatives.

The institutional mission of the Wharton School: to apply unparalleled intellectual resources to prepare business leaders who fuel the growth of industries and economies throughout the world.

Patrick T. Harker became the school’s 12th dean in February 2000. Patrick Harker is going to leave Wharton to join University of Delaware as its president.


Contents

History

The Wharton School, the world’s first collegiate business school, was founded in 1881 by Philadelphia industrialist and philanthropist Joseph Wharton. 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 (its original name) 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."

Setting an early standard for innovation, Wharton published the first business textbooks, established the first research center at a business school, created the first center for entrepreneurship, created the first program in international management, established the first MBA in health care and real estate, and developed the first executive education program. To this day, it is regarded as one of the world's leading business and management schools, and employs the world's largest, most cited faculty with 304 standing and associate members.

Academics

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
  • Actuarial

Research Centers

  • Jay H. Baker Retailing Initiative [1]
  • Pension Research Council
  • Center for Human Resources
  • Council on Employee Relations
  • Leonard Davis Center 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

Wharton MBA Program (MBA)

Eighteen majors are available to Wharton MBA students, who can also elect to pursue double majors or individualized majors. During their first year students pursue a required core curriculum. After completing the first year, electives are available. The MBA program offers nearly 200 electives within Wharton's 11 academic departments, the largest selection of any business school[2]. Thousands of other University electives are also offered through other Penn schools.

Wharton's required Pre-term 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.

Offered on a quarterly schedule throughout the first year, core courses cover traditional management disciplines finance, marketing, statistics, and strategy, as well as the leadership, ethics, and communication skills needed at senior levels of management.

Academic Honors for MBA Program

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.

Only grades earned from courses taken at Wharton qualify for academic honors. Courses taken Pass/Fail or electives taken outside of Wharton (i.e. other Penn schools or exchange programs) do not count towards the eligibility for academic honors, but do count towards the MBA degree.

Wharton MBA Program for Executives (WEMBA)

The Wharton MBA Program for Executives is a two-year, weekend residential program built on the same curriculum as Wharton's full-time MBA program, including the same application process, admissions criteria, and program services. Students from a diverse range of industries and organizations earn a full MBA degree from Wharton while continuing their careers. The program is offered in two locations: on the Wharton campus in Philadelphia and at Wharton West in San Francisco, where Wharton faculty travel to the West Coast to lead their courses. The program attracts students from throughout the U.S. and North America; some have also traveled from Europe, Asia, and South America.

Wharton Doctoral Programs

[3] The Wharton Doctoral Programs take approximately four to six years to complete. Wharton grants PhD degrees (as opposed to some programs, which grant DBAs.) Eleven fields of specialization are offered by the program: Accounting, Business & Public Policy, Ethics & Legal Studies, Finance, Health Care Systems, Insurance & Risk Management, Management, Marketing, Operations & Information Mgmt., Real Estate, and Statistics. The entering class of 2005 contained 34 students, half of which were U.S. citizens. The average age of an entering student is 26. All Wharton doctoral students are funded. [1]

International study

Options for international study and experience include Wharton's alliance with INSEAD, the Global Immersion Program, Wharton Leadership Ventures, Wharton's Global Consulting Practicum, and exchange programs with schools in 11 countries around the world.

Dual and joint degrees

Wharton Undergraduates may pursue joint degrees in engineering through the Jerome Fisher Program in Management and Technology (M&T), international business through the Huntsman Program in International Studies and Business (ISB), Nursing & Health Care Management (NHCM), and a joint program in life sciences and business through the The Roy and Diana Vagelos Program in Life Sciences & Management(LSM). Undergraduates may also, independent from these programs, pursue dual degrees with any of Penn's three other undergraduate schools.


Wharton MBA students may pursue a dual degree with Lauder Institute, Johns Hopkins' School of Advanced International Studies or in one of the 12 graduate and professional schools at the University of Pennsylvania:

Alumni network

Wharton alumni network has 81,000+ members in 142 countries around the world. There are eighty-two alumni clubs providing 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. Notable alumni include (source):

Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania:Jon M. Huntsman Hall
Enlarge
Jon M. Huntsman Hall

Industry

Finance

Eugene Garfield, Chairman Emeritus, Institute for Scientific Information (Thomson Scientific)

High Tech

Media:

Nonprofit, law and government

Real Estate

Consulting

Rankings

On December 5, 2003 Wharton enacted a policy of declining to actively participate in the rankings of business school programs. The School cited concerns for alumni and students' privacy as well as beliefs that the survey might interfere with the School's own efforts to survey them.

Some recent rankings were:

2006200520042003200220012000199919981997199619951994
Business Week (MBA/USA)2351111
Business Week (Undergraduate/USA)1
Financial Times (MBA/Worldwide)111111111
US News (MBA/USA)3222343222332
US News (Undergrad/USA)1111111111111
Wall Street Journal (MBA/USA)7641518


Books on Wharton

Official university sites

Wharton history

Student life

Publications

Campus Links


Ivy League business schools
Columbia Business School | Cornell (Johnson School) | Dartmouth (Tuck School)
Harvard Business School | Penn (Wharton School) | Yale School of Management

Categories


Association of American Universities | Business schools in the United States | Ivy League business schools | Universities and colleges in Philadelphia | University of Pennsylvania

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