In @ Wharton 纠结中，请教

Mimi_Beijing

我申请了4所，前3名（H/S/W）和Yale。R1拿了Y；R2拿了W。
一般应该不会在Y和W之间纠结的吧，毕竟W明显“高”一个档次。我的纠结有特殊原因，诚心向对这两所学校了解的同学请教。

当时申请Y是因为我将来的目标很清楚，想做nonprofit，Y就是以这个著称的；而在前3名中，H/S在这方面也比较强；W嘛，虽然所有学校都会宣称自己也注重社会领袖，但对W的主要印象还是一堆finance people。和Wharton学生里面nonprofit背景的也聊过，大部分也注重于公益领域的经济发展、投资类。而且也告诉我，在Wharton，也会觉得有点“寂寞”。

个人背景是复旦本科、北大研究生，研究生期间在World Bank/IFC做了2年项目、Top咨询5年，中间停薪留职出去做nonprofit半年，觉得国内做公益的环境不理想，自己没有ready，又回了公司。回到咨询公司以后，也做了不少政府和公益领域的项目，例如为慈善基金会制订战略啊，受公司资助带领项目组在四川地震灾区做重建规划和筹款等。能够感受到国内做公益挑战重重，我现在没有答案，要怎样做才能真的有impact。真心地想去国外看看，学习一下，而且network对做公益慈善非常有帮助。于是虽然已经年纪一大把了，已经post MBA的职位和收入，还是下定决心申请了。

当时犹豫过要不要申Wharton，一方面对Wharton人总体印象很好，比起H更符和我的性格，比起S整体年龄也偏大，人偏成熟；另一方面也确实因为我R1只申了Yale，在W deadline之后才拿到offer，所以没有把握的情况下，多申了一所。

多年工作的感受是，在一个地方是否有learning，是否愉快，全在于周围的“人”是否inspirational，是否契和。面试时选了一个北京的GG，corporate背景，google一下名字发现也业余做志愿者，个人觉得比起finance的同学，可能更为认同我的经历和想法，果然聊得挺好。我很坦诚地谈了我的想法，后来变成他assure我，在Wharton也对social cause有很多支持的program，学生也很diversify等等。

所以现在很纠结。恐怕没有亲身经历，很难做选择吧。
诚心听听大家意见。

Seraph1980

楼主去yale吧，您这么高的境界，又是post-mba的档次了，就不要去wharton追求铜臭了。

asap

支持去YALE,更符合LZ的目标~~

big cong~

online2w

支持LZ选Y，无他原因，就是我读完LZ自我描述后的感觉。

jingyinan

to have the impact, you need the capacity; yale teaches you how to have the impact, but wharton gives you the capacity. Ideally, I hope you will get in H/S and achieve the best of both worlds. I wish there are more ppl like you in china. God bless u.

Btw, Wharton is good with not only finance; check out its annual mba career report, and compare it with H/S's. no school gets into Top 3 by being good with only finance.

moregel

to have the impact, you need the capacity; yale teaches you how to have the impact, but wharton gives you the capacity. Ideally, I hope you will get in H/S and achieve the best of both worlds. I wish there are more ppl like you in china. God bless u.

Btw, Wharton is not only good with only finance; check out its annual mba career report, and compare it with H/S's. no school gets into Top 3 by being good with only finance.

-- by 会员 jingyinan (2010/3/28 2:58:35)

I love jingyinan's first line.

You might learn "how to impact" via many other ways; but building up your capacity might be a more efficient use of your two years' time.

david50gray

在只以top consulting, IB, PE, HF论英雄的商学院里，LZ的确是比较另类了。相信LZ做出什么决定都不会有错的。

driftysnail

忠实读者来顶一顶。

freer

wharton抑或Yale，没有一个是错误的选择。Big Cong!

cannedpineapple

I know exactly what you're talking about. It can sometimes get 'quite lonely' if you want to do non-profit, and many business-school students (I'll be surprised if this is limited to Wharton) are focused on very corporate (investing, etc) areas of social impact.

I also don't think that it's as simple as impact vs capacity. Many business school students worry too much about capacity, but they forget that capacity seldom has the power to inspire others. So they become very competent at crunching numbers and implementing frameworks and deciding who to help, but become very poor at becoming ambassadors of social impact, and inspiring others to follow their path.

Because of this, I don't generally think the business school environment is very suitable for those looking to do non-profit. It's even less so, I think, for a Chinese student going to business school. I have met very, very few Chinese business school students looking to go into non-profit (regardless of school), so you might find yourself with very little environment support in this case.

In case it isn't clear yet, I think environment support is crucial. Before you can inspire others, you often need first to surround yourself with people who can inspire you too. For this, I've looked outside of business school. After all, let's not forget that Wharton is a part of UPenn, an amazing ivy league institution.

... And at UPenn, I've found an AMAZING non-profit leadership program. It is basically a 'professional school' for non-profit professionals. You need two years minimum work experience to apply. There are students from Penn, Princeton, etc (very good undergraduate institutions) there, and they've come from jobs like teaching, social venturing, and so on. Yes, they know how to have an impact, and they know how to inspire each other.

(The person who started the programme, btw, is a former Wharton professor, who decided that he did not have the support he needed at Wharton, and so he left the school, took a job that paid about 70% less, and is now educating the next generation of non-profit leaders (including, ironically, Wharton students like me!), in a building right next door to Wharton. Yes, he surely understands the importance of having an environment that suits you, even when you earn less to do the exact same thing.)

http://www.sp2.upenn.edu/npl/

So essentially what I've done is to tap on the resources of this other programme, and especially of the amazing students in this other programme, to inspire myself. I've taken two classes there so far, and would have taken more had I discovered both the programme, and my interest in non-profit, sooner. This is something you can consider. If you come here, perhaps you can take 3-4 classes at this other programme, and interact more with the students from there, while also positioning yourself in other ways with the Wharton degree. It's not perfect, I know, but it's probably better than trying to do non-profit purely in a business school setting, where many of your classmates (and again, particularly those of your classmates who share your background in terms of nationality, profession, and so on) will not be able to provide you any support at all for your dreams.

Feel free to contact me if you want to chat more offline. I know most of the time I ask people to post online if they have questions, but when you truly have an issue that is so unique and in my opinion so worthy of support, I'm happy to talk to you offline too.

Good luck,
Jason