In this video, I share my personal experience of getting into one of the most prestigious Ivy League universities, Wharton Business School. Was the journey worth it? What challenges did I face, and how has it shaped my career? Watch to find out the highs, the lows, and whether attending an Ivy League business school like Wharton truly provides the value you expect. From admissions to networking, discover insights into the process and the impact on my professional growth.
If you're considering a graduate degree from an Ivy League school, or simply curious about the Wharton MBA experience, this video offers an honest, in-depth perspective on what it takes to succeed and whether the investment is worth it
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If you're considering a graduate degree from an Ivy League school, or simply curious about the Wharton MBA experience, this video offers an honest, in-depth perspective on what it takes to succeed and whether the investment is worth it
#IvyLeague
#WhartonMBA
#BusinessSchool
#WhartonBusinessSchool
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#MBAExperience
#TopBusinessSchools
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#CareerJourney
#BusinessLeadership
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#Graduate School Admissions
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#Wharton MBA
#Top Business Schools
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#Ivy League Success Stories
#High ROI Education
#Graduate School Journey
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#Business Leadership Programs
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LearningTranscript
00:00Wharton Business School. My experience and was it worth it? What is up guys? My name is Taylor Bell
00:05if you're new here and this is a video I've been meaning to make for a minute now. I've gotten many
00:09many questions about my experience at Wharton and whether it was worth it since I started my
00:14YouTube channel and especially since I gained an audience that is very interested in finance.
00:18So I am here to talk about all things Wharton today. Wharton. So let's not waste time and jump
00:24right in. First though, you know the drill. Please gently tap that like button below because it's
00:28free and because it's satisfying to watch it turn a nice crisp shade of blue. All right guys, so I'm
00:32going to break this down into categories. First I'll do kind of a background on Wharton for those
00:36who don't know. Then we'll jump into things that are more based around my personal experience. So
00:40classes I took, classes I found most helpful and which ones are my favorite because that's what
00:44you guys requested. We'll do some general Q&A based off of frequently asked questions. And then finally
00:50I will answer was it worth it? And I would recommend saying until the end for the was it worth it portion
00:55because that is what I think the juiciest part of the video where of course I go over
00:59was it worth going to Wharton slash getting an Ivy League degree. But first chapter one,
01:04some background on Wharton. All right, smooth little transition there. I am indeed in my car now. I'm
01:09trying to switch up my surroundings a little bit more in my videos. So I hope you enjoy car Taylor.
01:14And yes, I treated myself to a little starves this morning and it's delicious. It's been a great day.
01:20Like forced me to get out of the house and you don't care. Let's uh, let's get back to the Wharton
01:23stuff. All right, let's begin with some background on Wharton for those who don't know, or for those
01:27who do know, a little refresher. But I want to say in this video, I will be describing some things
01:31in very simple terms. For instance, I'll go over kind of the difference between an undergrad degree
01:35versus a graduate degree. And I'm sure that a lot of you guys watching this already know that
01:38difference. But for those who clicked on this video to learn something new or who just might not
01:42know. So I'm not trying to be patronizing if I sound like I'm really breaking it down. That's just how
01:46I like to learn new things. So, all right, cool. So background, I went to the Wharton School of
01:50Business, which is the business school that's associated with the University of Pennsylvania,
01:54which is one of the eight Ivy League universities here in the U.S. So if you hear me kind of
01:58interchangeably use Wharton and Penn, I'm referring to University of Pennsylvania. Wharton is part of
02:03Penn, UPenn. In Philadelphia, you'll get it.
02:10So I graduated from the undergrad program at Wharton this past May, May 18th, 2020, to be exact.
02:16So the structure of Wharton, which by the way, if someone wants to tally up how many times I say
02:20Wharton in this video, be my guest. I apologize in advance. But Wharton has both an undergraduate
02:25business program, which is where you earn your bachelor's degree. And this is typically the
02:29college that you go to right out of high school. And it also has a graduate business program,
02:33which is where you earn your master's degree or your MBA, master's in business administration in
02:38this case. And the graduate program is for people who have usually already earned their bachelor's
02:42degree and they've already been working for a couple of years. These people are usually in
02:45their late twenties, mid to late twenties. All right. So this next part, I'm really not saying
02:49to brag. I'm just saying it to give you some more background on Wharton and what it is for
02:53those who don't know, for anyone interested in applying. And I guess to give myself some
02:57credibility as the person making this video. So Wharton undergrad business school is the best
03:01undergrad business school in the country as far as rankings go. Wharton undergrad is usually
03:06regarded as a undergrad business program, kind of in a league of its own. Again, that's based off
03:10rankings. If you care about that kind of thing, I will give a more nuanced view on rankings and if
03:14they really matter at the end of this video, so stay until then. And for the Wharton graduate
03:18school, it is pretty much always ranked in the top three, usually behind Harvard and Stanford
03:23graduate business schools. Although I saw this year, Wharton grad school is also ranked number
03:26one. Some notable alumni you may have heard of, of Wharton school of business include
03:30elongated muskrat, Warren buffet, and Sundar pitch deck. All right. Now I'll say their names for real.
03:36So that way the closed captioning can actually pick it up and maybe the algorithm will also,
03:39I of course mean Elon Musk, Warren Buffett, and Sundar Pichai. All right. So now let's jump into
03:44the, my experience portion of the video. And I'm going to be answering questions that you guys
03:48most frequently asked me first, what classes did I take? Well, specifically at Penn, I was actually
03:53in a dual degree program called the Huntsman program in international studies in business.
03:57This program admits about 45 students per year, usually around half of them from the U S and the
04:02other half from countries all around the world. So if you're in this program, you earn both a bachelor's
04:06in science and economics from the Wharton school of business, as well as a bachelor in arts and
04:11international studies from the college of arts and sciences. I've explained this on my channel
04:14before one other time. So if this is second time hearing it, my apologies. Realistically,
04:18most students that are in the Huntsman program go for pretty much the same jobs that students who
04:23are only in Wharton go for AKA mostly jobs in finance, consulting, tech, things like that. But the
04:29Huntsman program is designed to give students a more global education. So in theory, you should be able
04:33to conduct business in other countries as well by the time you graduate. So why do I tell you this
04:38speech? Well, I'm about to show you every single class I ever took at Penn. And you might notice that
04:42one, there are quite a few of them, which is partially because I was in this dual degree program,
04:46which just required more credits. And two, you will notice some Spanish history, international studies
04:51classes, things like that, which is where the international studies portion of my education comes in.
04:55All right, now let's look at the classes. So I went on my transcript and these are all of the classes I took
05:01my four full years at Penn. I'll leave these up on the screen. You can pause it, refer back to it if
05:06you want. I will include them in the description down below as well. But I'm going to highlight just
05:09a few of these classes to answer my next question that I got quite a bit. And that was which classes
05:13were my favorite that I took at Penn and which classes that I find the most useful for the real
05:18business world. And I'm going to do this quick because I realized listening to what classes I took
05:21might be quite boring for some of you. So my favorite classes out of this whole list include
05:26leadership and communication in groups, intro to marketing, intro to management,
05:30decision processes, negotiations, management, business strategy, business statistics, too,
05:35and my senior capstone thesis. So out of these classes, you can kind of notice a trend. And that
05:40is that I typically enjoy the classes that were more based on business and strategy rather than
05:45classes that were pretty solely based around quantitative analysis, with the exception of
05:49business statistics, too. I very much enjoyed that class. And as for the most useful classes that I
05:54think carry over best into the real business world, I chose these more so based off the general
05:58concepts and kind of themes that I learned in these classes rather than, you know, if I don't use a
06:02specific formula that I learned in one of these classes on a day to day basis, I'm just basing it
06:06off of the broader concepts. I hope that makes sense. And you'll notice a lot of these are intro or
06:10101 classes. So I guess Wharton did their job in that sense. All right. So the most useful ones,
06:14I think, are intro to economics for business, intro to marketing, intro to operations and information
06:20management, corporate finance, intro to management, decision processes, principles of accounting,
06:25negotiations, and business statistics, too. So you'll notice that there's a little bit of overlap
06:29with a few of those there. And I would say those are the best classes I took if you had to really
06:33put a grade on it. So I could give you guys a little synopsis of each of these classes, like a little
06:38module. Someone actually requested that, but I don't want to bore you more than I have to. But I guess in
06:42the comments, let me know if in the future you would like to see like a little lesson that sounds
06:46silly, but like a little overview of the most important concepts and kind of things that came out of
06:50these classes. If you want to see it, I can make it. All right. Now a couple more fun questions I got
06:54about living in Philly, dorm life, stuff like that. Did I live in the dorms and were they nice?
06:59Someone asked me. So yes, all freshmen or first years at Penn live in the dorms on campus. And my
07:04experience, I would say, was a little extra special because all the freshmen in the Huntsman program
07:08actually live together on the same floor for your whole first year. So it's a pretty fun setup from
07:13the very beginning. And were the dorms nice? No, not particularly. But, you know, I know that a couple
07:17years after I was a freshman, they actually installed air conditioning. So maybe they're nicer now,
07:20but suffering through it was part of the experience. So it was a fun time. Next question was,
07:24what was my favorite part about going to school in Philadelphia? So my favorite part was the
07:28walking, which sounds kind of weird, but so Philly is a big city, but it's not as huge as New York
07:33City feels if you had to compare the two. I think Philly is honestly more homey. It feels more homey
07:38than New York. But anyway, most weekends in college, I would do a lot of walking if I didn't have to
07:42study for something. So I would walk from Penn, which is in West Philadelphia. So I'd walk from Penn to
07:48Center City, Philadelphia. And I had a favorite brunch spot in Center City called Continental Midtown.
07:52And I also had a favorite dog park that was along the Schuylkill River. I would go to the dog park
07:57and play with other people's dogs on my walk back to school. So I found like some favorite spots of
08:01mine. And I really did come to love Philly as a city quite a bit. I am super grateful for the four
08:05years that I had there. And I actually can't wait to go back and visit when the time comes. Some
08:09others asked me about adjustments from living in LA and then living in Philly. So the obvious low
08:13hanging fruit answer there is the weather, but like you just get a big jacket, you get used to the cold
08:17weather. The biggest adjustment for me was definitely being away from my family all the way across the
08:21country because that's something I had never done before. So I remember sometime my freshman year,
08:26I think in November, I would say, I started to feel this kind of weird feeling where I was like,
08:30okay, I've been here for a few months. It's been fun. Time to go home. Like it hadn't quite sunken in
08:34for me that I was in it for the long haul yet. Thankfully though, I did make some really, really
08:38good friends at Penn, partially because I was in this tight knit program. And I think that if I hadn't
08:42had that, it would have been a lot more difficult adjusting to life so far away from my family.
08:46All right. The next question was, which city do I like more after having gone to college in
08:51Philadelphia, Philadelphia or where I'm from, Los Angeles. So I don't like when people say Los
08:56Angelino or California girl in the least cringey terms. I am a Californian through and through. I
09:02always will be in no matter where I'm living. So California always, it's the best, not for taxes,
09:07but for weather and many, many, many other things. All right. So now before I answer, was it worth it?
09:12I should say that the question I got or kind of theme that I got the most besides, was it worth
09:16it? Was what did I do in high school? What were the kind of things I did leading up to college in
09:20order to get into an Ivy league university or to be prepared to go to a competitive school like this?
09:25And I'm going to save those answers for a different video because I really could expand on just my
09:30thoughts about preparing in high school and how to like best set yourself up for success. So I'll
09:34probably make a dedicated video on that. If you guys are still interested in that, probably title it
09:38something like how to get into an Ivy league or something kind of cringey like that. So
09:42keep an eye out. All right guys. So now for what I consider the juicy part, was it worth it? This
09:47is the number one question that I got. So people asked me this in various ways. One of them, of
09:51course, being, was it worth the cost? The thousand, well, we'll go over the price tag that it costs
09:55because private university in the U S is very expensive. And then two, most people actually
09:59asked more so in terms of, was it worth the knowledge that I gained? Was it worth four years of
10:04my life? When in theory, I could have found a job right out of high school and started working right
10:07away. And then a few people asked me if I could have in theory learned the same things that I learned
10:11at Wharton online. If I took an online business course or maybe something on Skillshare, could I
10:15have learned the same things without having to go to a private university for four years?
10:19All right. So let's start with the monetary cost. So instead of me going off of like my gut feeling
10:24saying yes or no, whether I thought it was worth it, let's actually look at the data. Let's,
10:27let's look at some numbers here. Penn is expensive and not just Penn, private universities in the United
10:33States charge exorbitant rates. It is so unbelievably expensive. So the full sticker price to attend
10:39Penn every year, according to Penn, including tuition, fees, housing, dining, books and supplies,
10:46et cetera, personal expenses. It is estimated to come out right to around $79,000 per year. I don't
10:53have to tell you guys that that's a lot of money to go to school. Of course, though, that is the
10:57sticker price, the full asking price. That doesn't include financial aid that Penn awards to its
11:02students on a need basis. So just some very quick stats here. Penn stats show that nine out of 10
11:07first gen students are awarded over $50,000 average per year at Penn. Additionally, students
11:12that come from families with household incomes that are less than $75,000 per year pay no tuition or fees
11:18at all. And there are other financial aid stats I could throw at you guys, but that was probably
11:22already kind of boring. But my point is that that $79,000 is a lot, but not everyone at Penn pays that
11:28full price. In fact, most do not. So that is, of course, just one piece of the puzzle. The other obvious
11:33piece that we have to look at is how much I, a Wharton grad or the average Wharton undergraduate
11:38business student, will make once they graduate. So some more stats, shall we? The average first year
11:44out of college compensation for an undergrad at Wharton is $109,811. This includes salary, sign-on
11:52bonus, and the end-of-the-year bonuses that most students get. I actually found another source showing
11:57that it was around $90,300. So the data varies a bit year to year, it seems, but let's say it's right
12:02around that $100,000 mark. Compare this number to the average starting salary for most college
12:08graduates in the U.S., which is right around $50,000. So you can do the math. We, we on average
12:13make twice what the average college graduate in the U.S. makes right out of college. So you have the
12:18numbers on the costs and the expected first year salary of a Wharton undergrad student. But what
12:22about the other factors? For me, what made Wharton so valuable had so much more to do with the
12:27connections I made over my four years, rather than the things that I actually learned in my classes or
12:32what my first year salary is going to be. So a quick anecdote to kind of illustrate this, when I first
12:36started looking at companies to reach out to for my very first internships, I went on this thing
12:40called QuakerNet because we're the Quakers. The QuakerNet is Penn's online directory that shows the phone
12:45numbers and emails of just about every person who has ever graduated from there. Very quickly, I realized
12:50how unusual it is to have something that valuable at my fingertips. As you can imagine, executives upon
12:56executives at the top companies in the U.S. and countries beyond, founders of some of the coolest
13:01startups you know. You guys, Elon Musk is in that directory. I'm not saying his personal cell phone
13:05numbers there, but he's in there. And not to mention all of the personal connections that I made with
13:09some of my professors and all my friends at the school. I mean, just to be surrounded by the most
13:13interesting and intelligent people I've ever met for four years straight. And then by the time you're
13:17looking for your big internship, the biggest and best finance consulting tech companies are basically
13:22lining up to give students interviews. That's not to say it's not competitive because you basically have
13:26a thousand students going for the same handful of jobs. But I would say that going to a top school
13:30definitely helps give you a foot in the door. Now, with all of that said, which might have sounded
13:34like me aggressively patting myself on the back, do I think you need to go to Wharton? Do I think you
13:38need to go to an Ivy League university to be successful? Absolutely not. I mean, you already know
13:43the answer. What if I got up here and said, yes, that's what I think. But for example, let's look at our
13:47finance guy and YouTube god, Graham Stephan. He talks all the time about how much he hated high school,
13:53how he got horrible grades and just couldn't stand being there every single day. It didn't stop him
13:57from hustling right out of high school until he got recognized for his hard work and got promoted
14:01and started eventually making hundreds of thousands every single year, let alone what he's doing now as
14:05a full-time YouTuber. And that's taking Graham Stephan as an example, someone who didn't go to college.
14:09What about someone who went to college, but maybe didn't go to an Ivy League university or what rankings
14:13would consider a top university? Same thing. While I admit that going to a prestigious university and what I
14:19mean by prestigious, again, is really based off rankings and acceptance rates. While I admit that
14:23going to those schools does give you a hell of a foot in the door, it is not necessary. I guess my
14:27point is it really more so comes down to hard work, elbow grease, jumping at the opportunities that you
14:32have in front of you, and of course, some luck, much more so than what school you go to. So I never
14:36answered whether I thought Wharton was worth it or not. I think you guys can tell by the way I talk
14:41about it that I think for me Wharton was a billion percent worth it. Not only did I have an excellent
14:46full-time job lined up eight months before I even graduated, it was also just honestly the best four
14:51years of my life. I really, really, really enjoyed Penn. But just because I think it made sense for me
14:56for a variety of factors doesn't mean it makes sense for everyone. I know people at Penn who really didn't
15:00like it, or at least who got really fed up by the pre-professionalism that Penn definitely emanates from
15:05pretty much day one that you're on campus. And I definitely do admit that there is quite a bit of
15:09pressure to feel like you have to get a certain type of job if you go to Wharton, specifically within
15:14finance, consulting, or tech, as I keep mentioning. And if you are looking for a more liberal arts-esque
15:19education, I would say that Wharton is not the place to go. And while a degree from Wharton or
15:23really any degree in any STEM field is a very marketable degree, if you hate it or really just
15:28have no interest in those fields, then I would say it's not worth it because you've got to love what
15:31you're doing. To some extent, you have to be interested in what you're doing for it to be
15:34sustainable. Plus, it might just make a lot more sense for someone to take a course online or to learn
15:39a trade instead of spending hundreds of thousands to go to an overpriced private university. I would
15:44obviously say that it really varies person to person. And to answer this question, pretty much
15:47all the things that I learned in my classes, you could probably find some online business courses
15:51that teach principally very similar things. It might be hard to find it in as nicely of a package format
15:56as I got. And of course, it was taught to me by great professors, which definitely helps. It also helps
16:01to have it on my resume that I learned those things at Wharton. But as far as the actual material that I
16:05learned, like I said, if you look hard enough on the internet, you could probably find
16:08just about anything you want. So no matter where you go to college, if you go at all,
16:12I would say that my biggest piece of advice, if you care, is to put yourself out there and make
16:16those genuine connections. Those connections with other people, especially, like I said,
16:20the genuine connections. I mean, I'm not advocating to go out and be annoying and ask your senator to
16:24lunch. Although it really is those genuine connections that are the most valuable things,
16:28in my opinion. All right, guys. Well, I hope that didn't get too preachy. It sounded a little
16:31preachy in my head, but I really tried to show both sides of things and how something that might make
16:35sense for one person really just might not make sense for another person. And
16:38that is totally okay. So I'll probably be making some more Wharton slash IV slash college videos
16:43in the future. So let me know in the comments down below what you would like to see in those videos,
16:46or if you guys have any remaining questions that I didn't get to in this video. Y'all know I answer
16:50just about all my comments. So go ahead and leave me one, ask a question, whatever. I will be
16:54responding. All right, guys. I'll see you soon. Thanks so much for watching. If you made it this far,
16:58peace. I hate when people say Los Angelinos. Do I have a hole there? Yeah, I do. How does that
17:04even happen? I mean, I know I've worn this shirt a lot, but like, how could that possibly get there?
17:09Did my voice crack? Am I a prefubescent 14-year-old boy? Interesting and intelligent purple.
17:14Uh, purple. Interesting and intelligent purple. In West Philadelphia, I can't bowl there.
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