Wharton’s Trick-Or-Treat Ding Day

The Wharton School

The Wharton School

Thousands of hopeful round one applicants to the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School got a trick-or-treat experience from the school today. On Halloween, Wharton told its early bird candidates whether they would be given a treat–an invitation to interview with the school–or a trick and were dinged.

Wharton is the second highly selective school to render first round cuts after Harvard Business School did so earlier this month on Oct. 15th. Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business is expected to announce its round one invite and initial rejections on Dec. 10th. Northwestern University’s Kellogg School–which has an open interview policy for all applicants–will announce its first round decisions on Dec. 17th, while the University of Chicago’s Booth School will dispatch its round one notices the following day, Dec. 18th.

Already, Wharton applicants were either celebrating their invites or expressing disappointment over rejection. Over at the GMATClub forums by 7 p.m., some 34 candidates claimed they were denied while only one claimed to get an invitation to interview. “As Lil Wayne said, “I’m going in. One spot less in Wharton’s MBA Class of 2017!!” Of course, the applicant didn’t yet get an admit because the candidate still must get over the interview hurdle.

A 730 GMAT SCORING SALES MANAGER WHO GRADUATED SUMMA CUM LAUDE GETS TURNED DOWN

In any case, given the self selection that often goes into applying to an elite MBA program, many of the dinged applicants have superb stats and profiles. Some of them are already writing into Poets&Quants for a ding report.

One 28-year-male rejected today from Wharton said he boasted a 730 GMAT, graduating summa cum laude with both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electronic engineering from the top three schools in Italy. He has worked in sales as a U.S. export manager for an Italian manufacturing company, handling 70% of the company’s sales in the U.S. The young professional works out of New York and took 180 flints in the first two years of his job.

Sandy Kreisberg, founder of HBSGuru and a prominent MBA admissions consultant, thought the person got a rejection from Wharton for a number of reasons. “Sales is not a feeder job in general,” Kreisberg concluded, “and my fear is, you work for a no-name company–that would do it. I like you, but your work history, and prestige of company, especially for an international guy like you, could be critical. Sorry, you got a raw deal.”

ROUND ONE INTERVIEWS WILL TAKE PLACE DURING THE MONTH OF NOVEMBER

Of course, he’t not alone on Halloween.

Wharton’s round one interviews will take place in November either on its Philadelphia campus or at off-campus interview locations in Dubai, London, Mumbai, San Francisco, Sao Paulo, Seoul, Shanghai, Singapore, and Tokyo. All invited candidates are encouraged to interview on-campus or in the off-campus location that is most convenient for them, according to the school.

Wharton’s deadline for its second round–generally the round with the largest application volume–is Jan. 5.

DON’T MISS: WHO HBS DINGED IN THE FIRST ROUND or 2014-2015 MBA APPLICATIONS DEADLINES AT TOP BUSINESS SCHOOLS

Questions about this article? Email us or leave a comment below.