The fall is what I like to call “welcome season” at Wharton. Every day, it seems, I have the chance to meet a new student, faculty member or speaker. You might think I would get tired of saying, “Welcome to Wharton”—but I don’t. I never do. It is the best place in the world to study business and it is made better each year with the infusion of new minds, bringing with them new perspectives and ideas.
The additions to our community this year include 22 outstanding faculty from top-flight institutions and more than 1,600 accomplished new students across our MBA, MBA Executive, Undergraduate and Doctoral Programs. All of them the best and brightest, they come to us from across the nation and from 83 countries around the world. What’s more, the entering full-time MBA class is 45 percent women—a record for Wharton and across our peers—and women comprise more than 40 percent of the single-degree undergraduate class for the second year in a row.
Our new students join us knowing they have an extraordinary opportunity before them: to build relationships with exceptionally talented and motivated classmates, to explore diverse new avenues for professional and personal fulfillment, and, especially, to learn from the most knowledgeable and highly cited business faculty in the world. They know that this great research university offers them advantages that they could not get anywhere else, and that their time here will be as demanding as it is exhilarating.
I bet you remember the feeling.
For my part, it is a pleasure to watch them begin this next great chapter of their intellectual and professional development— perhaps the most formative chapter of their lives. They are ready, they are eager, and we are confident that they will make the most of all that Wharton has to offer.
Thomas S. Robertson
Dean and Reliance Professor of Management and Private Enterprise
