How does the University of Pennsylvania classify alumni from Wharton versus the College of Arts and Sciences?

1. How Penn organizes alumni publicly: school-by-school plus a university umbrella

Public-facing directories and lists tend to present alumni both under a University of Pennsylvania umbrella and under specific schools. Wikipedia’s “List of University of Pennsylvania people” treats Penn as the overarching institution while also pointing readers to separate lists for the Wharton School and other Penn schools; that page explicitly notes “For a more comprehensive list of notable alumni in the business world, see Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania” ^[1]. The Penn Alumni home and MyPenn directory function as centralized alumni services that let graduates from any Penn school connect with the broader alumni network ^{[3] [4]}. This shows a dual approach: a university-level identity plus school-specific categorizations for topical or functional purposes ^{[1] [3]}.

2. School-specific categories exist in public taxonomies

Category pages and directories created by outside compilers and by Wikipedia show discrete categories for School of Arts and Sciences alumni and other schools — for example, Wikimedia’s category structure lists “University of Pennsylvania School of Arts and Sciences alumni” separately ^[2]. Independent lists of notable alumni frequently tag individuals with their school (e.g., Wharton for business-degree alumni) or include them in school-specific lists to emphasize professional or disciplinary relevance ^{[5] [6]}. These categorizations are common in third-party reporting and reference work even when the university’s centralized alumni service covers all graduates together ^{[3] [1]}.

3. Practical implications: how alumni are described in stories and directories

Journalists, biographers, and university-affiliated pages typically identify a person’s Penn affiliation by naming the specific school and degree when relevant — for example, calling someone a Wharton graduate when referencing business education — while also acknowledging they are “Penn alumni” more generally ^{[6] [1]}. This practice serves readers’ need for precision (which school granted the degree) and brand recognition (Wharton’s business reputation versus the College’s liberal-arts identity) without implying that a Wharton graduate is not a Penn graduate ^{[1] [6]}.

4. Historical and institutional practice: alumni catalogues and archival listings

Historical archival work at Penn shows that alumni catalogues have sometimes been produced by individual schools (for instance, early catalogues of the College) rather than as a unified alumni catalogue, indicating a long-standing practice of school-level record-keeping alongside university-level records ^[7]. The archive description notes published catalogues that were “alumni catalogue of the College, not of the overall University,” signaling an institutional precedent for distinct school-based alumni lists while the broader university maintained its own records ^[7].

5. Gaps and limits in the available reporting

None of the provided sources supply a contemporary, formal university policy statement that defines exactly how Penn classifies or labels alumni for official purposes (e.g., for alumni dues, voting, chapters, or titles) or whether dual-school degrees (joint degrees, cross-registered students) are categorized in a particular way — “not found in current reporting” in these search results ^{[1] [3]}. The Penn Alumni site and MyPenn are referenced as the place for connecting and updating alumni records but the search snippets do not quote a policy document or FAQ that defines exclusive classification rules ^{[3] [4]}.

6. Competing viewpoints or editorial choices to expect

Third-party lists and media outlets emphasize different identities depending on their angle: business profiles or rankings stress Wharton credentials; historical or arts coverage highlights College of Arts and Sciences affiliations ^{[5] [8]}. That editorial choice reflects audience interest more than a strict institutional boundary; the university’s own alumni infrastructure supports both approaches by maintaining a central directory while acknowledging school identities ^{[3] [1]}.

Conclusion — what you can rely on from available sources: Penn treats alumni as both “University of Pennsylvania alumni” and as alumni of the specific school that granted their degree; public and archival listings frequently separate alumni by school for topical clarity, but the sources here do not include a single, explicit university policy document that prescribes an exclusive classification process ^{[1] [2] [7] [3]}.