Wharton implemented new guidelines about club recruitment for the 2025-26 academic year.
Credit: Chenyao Liu
As student groups begin welcoming new members for the 2025-26 academic year, the Wharton School has implemented new guidelines for affiliated clubs’ recruitment processes — including a ban on multiple rounds of interviews.
The update, first announced in an email to Wharton club leaders on July 30, will change the recruitment process for student organizations officially recognized by the University, which have previously been criticized as overly competitive. In the email, Mike Elias — the senior director of strategy & operations for the Wharton Undergraduate Division — described the need to stop “activities that create barriers to access or impose undue stress” upon students.
Elias cited the Stop Campus Hazing Act, which was first signed into law in 2024 by former Benjamin Franklin Professor of Presidential Practice and President Joe Biden. He wrote that activities that induce “physical, emotional, or psychological” stress are not permitted, as they “may be classified as hazing, even if they are traditional or longstanding club processes.”
In the event that a student files a report of on-campus hazing, Penn will be legally required to “prominently publish” a description of the report — including the club’s name — on its website, according to the email.
Student club leaders attended the Student Organization Summit on Aug. 25 and Club Leader Training on Sept. 6 for “further conversation and guidance” on the updated policies.
In the email, Elias encouraged club leaders to focus on “gauging student interest, goals, and willingness to satisfy the necessary time commitment or expectations associated with club participation” without requiring “prior experience or subject matter expertise.”
Wharton Undergraduate also recommended a shift toward engaging general body members as opposed to only student leaders. The email urged “first-year students to participate in the General Body Membership (GBM) as a pathway to committee engagement.” Potential committees, for example, should be determined based on “GBM engagement and demonstrated capacity observed during the Fall semester.”
Penn’s anti-hazing guidelines and resources currently include methods of reporting instances of hazing, training to improve overall club culture, and a description of the Rethink Hazing Campaign — which specifies how certain activities “do little to build a member’s skills” and may still qualify as hazing.
The Daily Pennsylvanian previously reported on student concerns that the Wharton club application process is stressful and unfair — falling under the definition of hazing, according to the Wharton Undergraduate Division and the Stop Campus Hazing Act.
At the time, students voiced frustration about clubs with single-digit acceptance rates and multi-stage application processes, particularly when looking to meet new people and learn more about chosen interests. Students also noted that most written applications precede one to two rounds of evaluative interviews before clubs notify applicants of their decisions.
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The Wharton Council — the student body that supports Wharton clubs — has made efforts to make the application process more equitable over the past several years. In 2016, for example, the organization included measures designed to make the recruiting process more transparent and casual.
Other proposed changes included a standardized application, uniform decision notification dates, and restrictions on conducting group interviews.
In 2017, Penn’s Undergraduate Assembly and the Student Activities Council partnered to revise club recruitment across the University. A survey from the UA at the time found that the club recruitment process is characterized by students as competitive and discouraging.
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