Calling all Wharton Fall 09 Applicants

yeah im checking email in my bberry at 6AM.. i need to learn to chill i guess
good luck on the waiting.. just watch some more of franklin and gob

Update about Wharton Loans..

Positive Progress: The Current Status of Student Loan Programs for Wharton MBA's
February 3, 2009

Dear applicants,

Though the matter is still under discussion, we wanted to give you an update on the current status of student loan programs.

The turmoil in the capital markets has had a significant effect on the availability and cost of funding for graduate education, especially for international students. As you know, the main provider of loans to international students at all major US b-schools, Citibank, decided last fall to stop lending altogether to international students (and also terminated its custom-priced programs for domestic students at major universities). Many other lenders have also stopped lending to international students without a domestic co-signer. This problem is affecting all graduate programs at UPenn and all graduate programs across the country.

This issue has engaged University administration at the highest levels. The University issued a Request for Proposal (RFP) to identify alternative loan providers and has been reviewing a number of options with the goal of keeping adequate loan financing available to all students, and to international students without domestic co-signers.

Though we don’t yet have a program to announce, we wanted to let you know that we are in active discussions with several lenders. We are pursuing any and all funding options for international students, and Wharton hopes to announce a new loan program towards the end of February. The new loan product will not require a domestic co-signer, but is likely to have significantly higher interest rates and origination fees than the discontinued Citibank product. In addition, there will be a risk-sharing arrangement with the University whereby Wharton will be financially responsible for a percentage of loan defaults. The increased costs of loan financing to all MBA students and potentially to Wharton are an unfortunate necessity given the current market conditions. It is our hope that the loan pricing will improve over time.

We have also been in discussions with some overseas financial institutions to explore loan programs for students from their respective regions, but it is premature to say whether these discussions will result in special loan programs for Wharton students and under what pricing/repayment conditions.

With respect to domestic students (and those with domestic co-signers), Citibank and other private lenders have indicated their interest in continuing to offer loan programs. We do not know their pricing parameters yet, but it is likely that their interest rates, too, will be substantially higher than in the past. It behooves all our students to explore all possible funding options for the coming academic year.

We will keep you informed of our progress and announce more details as they emerge.

With best regards,
Peter Degnan; CFO, Senior Associate Dean, The Wharton School
Anjani Jain; Vice Dean, Director of Wharton Graduate Division

It is a scary situation. I am afraid that I may not be able to matriculate if financial aid is not sufficient. I already owe about 90K from another professional program.

Sorry to hear about that.

I wish I can bankroll all of yall, just pay me back when you become ceo's.

I have just got my interview invitation from Wharton!

In case anyone is interested, I submitted my application a few hours before the deadline, and my status changed from submitted to complete the very next day. Is there any difference between off-campus and on-campus interviews I should know about?

Good luck to all those who are still waiting, I know it's excruciating.

Beyond the obvious (e.g., Adcom vs. alum), there is no difference.

Congratulations!!! Good luck!

One more interview invite from US.

Submitted on Jan 8 (20 mins to deadline). Went to complete on Jan 15.

Good luck to all!

Congratulations to people who got interview invites!!

Good luck for the interview.

As an aside, this waiting thing blows

Just wanted to say a big congrats to everybody who got an interview invite so far!

Waiting in agony for another 2 weeks isn't going to be fun. Good luck to all of us still waiting!

I don't remember where I read this (maybe Clear Admit), that interviewing on Campus may be to ones advantage. (Each interviewer will have a good # of interviews under their belts) which will aid the adcom in knowing the interviewers tendencies (is he/she a tough interviewer, gives everyone excellent reviews, etc.). This can possibly be helpful in the process, as opposed to interviewing with an alum who Wharton has very few data points on... Just a thought.

The few Wharton alumni I spoke to (including a former student admissions committee member) all advocated the alumni interview, but noted that it probably wouldn't move the needle either way. As one counter-example to the above logic, my alumni interviewer did close to 10 interviews (and this was just for Round 1.)

congrats hardestadt and davidbrent on the invites..

guys dont worry too much. i received my R1 invite on the second to last day and was accepted. So don't read too much into a late invite

+1

Just look back in this thread and you'll see that most people got their invites only a few days before the deadline.

RF

I got an interview invite today. I submitted 6 hours before the deadline and my app went complete Jan 16th.

Likewise, an early interview invite doesn't mean anything anything , right?