Competitions · Business and economics · WGHS
WGHS, the Wharton Global High School Investment Competition.
Ten weeks trading a simulated hundred thousand dollars for a real client - and you are judged on your strategy, not your returns. Free to enter, and your teacher has to register you.
Read this first
Wharton prohibits paid coaching for this competition.
This is unusual, it is unambiguous, and it changes what any outside provider - including us - can properly do. It comes before everything else on this page.
No paid advisors, consultants or agents
The rules prohibit the use of paid advisors, educational consultants or other agents in any form.
And no courses that claim to teach the competition
No entrant or team may enrol in any non-Wharton extracurricular course, online or in person, that claims to teach the investment competition. Wharton states that discovery results in disqualification, to protect fair competition between teams.
The advisor must be a teacher at your school
Teams must have an advisor who is a teacher or educator at the students’ own high school. The advisor registers the team - students may not register themselves. One advisor may supervise up to five teams, and a school may enter any number.
What that means in practice
A team enters through its own school and prepares with its own advisor. Anyone offering to coach a team through this competition for a fee is describing something that would put the team out of it.
At a glance
What the competition is.
WGHS is run by the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and has operated since 2012, drawing students from 127 countries. In one recent season it attracted 1,374 teams and 7,558 students from 53 countries, supported by 967 advisors.
- Organiser
- The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania
- Since
- 2012, formerly known as KWHS
- Cost
- Free to enter
- Who can enter
- Students in grades 9 to 12 worldwide, in principle aged 14 to 18. A student who is 19 may compete provided they do not yet hold a high-school diploma
- Team
- Four to seven students, all from the same high school. One is named captain and handles all communication with Wharton
- Advisor
- A teacher or educator at the students’ own school, who registers the team. A parent or industry professional with investment experience may act as deputy advisor - unpaid
- Changing advisor
- Only with prior written approval from the competition team. Attempting to change without it eliminates the team
- The task
- A short case featuring a potential client - a real Wharton graduate working in business. The team must meet the client’s long-term investment goals and win their business
- Capital
- USD 100,000 of simulated money on the Wharton Investment Simulator, over ten weeks
- The universe
- Around 400 approved stocks and ETFs across eleven categories, domestic and international, mostly American. Nothing outside the approved list may be traded or recommended
- How it is judged
- On the team’s overall investment strategy, not on how much the portfolio grew
The rule that defines it
Returns do not decide this competition.
Wharton is explicit that judging concentrates on the strategy rather than the result, and every other rule follows from that.
Strategy over growth
The organisers state that judging focuses not on the outcome of investment growth but on the team’s overall investment strategy. A team that got lucky does not beat a team that reasoned well.
Every trade needs a written note
Each trade on the simulator must carry an explanation of its purpose and how it fits the overall strategy. The system prompts for it before the trade executes, so the reasoning is recorded as it happens rather than reconstructed later.
Diversification is compulsory
The portfolio must hold stocks from at least as many distinct sectors as the team has members - five members means five sectors - and must maintain that throughout. Selling out of a sector means buying back into it or into a sector not yet held.
And at least one ETF
Every portfolio must include at least one exchange-traded fund alongside the individual holdings.
The season
Ten months, of which ten weeks are trading.
The trading window is a small part of a long year. The reports and the presentations are where the competition is decided.
| Stage | When | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| Registration | Late June to mid-September | The advisor registers the team. Students cannot register themselves |
| Trading opens | Late September | Teams can see the simulator beforehand but cannot trade until the window opens at 09:30 Eastern |
| First trade deadline | Mid-October | Every team must have completed at least one trade before the US market close to stay eligible for the semi-final or global final |
| Trading closes | Early December | The ten-week window ends |
| Final report | Early December | A comprehensive statement of the investment strategy, following the mid-term review submitted earlier |
| Semi-finalists announced | Late January | Judges select 50 teams. Every student who submitted both pieces of work receives a certificate |
| Virtual semi-final | March | The fifty teams present their strategy to a panel of expert judges |
| Global final | Late April | The top ten teams attend a learning day and the final at Wharton in Philadelphia |
Travel to Philadelphia is not funded. Teams for whom the cost is prohibitive may take part in the global final by video conference instead, so qualifying does not depend on being able to afford the trip.
What you submit
Two reports, a presentation, and strict formatting.
The written requirements are precise, and two of them catch teams out every year.
A mid-term review and a final report
The final report is addressed to the portfolio manager at Wharton Global Asset Management - in practice, the team’s own advisor. Every team member must take responsibility for the analysis and strategy write-up of at least one stock category.
Cite everything, including AI
All sources, images and other media - explicitly including any use of generative artificial intelligence - must be cited in APA style, with a separate works cited page. Wharton publishes its own AI policy and expects entrants to read it.
No external links
Judges are instructed not to open any link inside a report, so anything behind a link is simply not read. Everything that matters has to be in the document.
And exact formatting
12-point Times New Roman, double spaced, one-inch margins, submitted as a document or PDF under 5MB. Plus a ten-minute presentation covering the ten weeks of strategy, analysis and what the team learned.
For schools
What it takes to run a team properly.
Because the entry has to come from a school, this is really a question for a teacher rather than for a family.
One teacher, up to five teams
An advisor may supervise five teams, and a school may enter as many teams as it can staff. For a school starting out, one advisor and one or two teams is a realistic first season.
Four to seven students from your own school
The same-school requirement is a recent rule and is worth noting - teams cannot be assembled across schools as they can in several other business competitions.
Ten weeks is the commitment
Trading runs from late September to early December, with a mid-term review in between. It fits inside one term.
And it costs nothing to enter
Registration is free. The only cost that can arise is travel to Philadelphia, and a qualifying team may attend virtually instead.
Student results
What Hanlin students got.
Taken from Hanlin's published record of student honours and rewritten in English. Figures are as the organisers reported them.
WGHS
- 2018-19Advanced to the China regional final
The full record, across every subject and year, is on the student honours page.
Talk to an advisor
Hanlin does not coach WGHS. Ask what it does coach.
The services below are real, but not for this competition. An advisor will say plainly whether there is a route here and what is worth entering instead.
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Competition coaching
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International curriculum tutoring
IB, AP, A-Level, IGCSE and the US high school curriculum, taught alongside school and timed around the exam calendar.
Competition past papers, free
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WGHS, briefly answered.
What students, teachers and families ask before entering.
Can I get coaching for this competition?
Not from a paid provider. Wharton prohibits paid advisors, educational consultants and agents, and prohibits entrants from enrolling in any non-Wharton course that claims to teach the investment competition. Doing so results in disqualification.
Who registers the team?
The advisor, who must be a teacher or educator at the students’ own high school. Students may not register themselves or their team.
Can a parent help?
A parent, industry professional or other adult with investment experience may act as a deputy advisor, provided the arrangement is unpaid. Paid coaching of any form is never permitted.
Who can enter?
Students in grades 9 to 12 worldwide, in principle aged 14 to 18, in teams of four to seven who all attend the same high school.
What does it cost?
Registration is free. Travel to the global final in Philadelphia is not funded, but qualifying teams may attend by video conference instead.
How is it judged?
On the team’s overall investment strategy rather than on how much the portfolio grew. Every trade must carry a written note explaining its purpose and how it fits that strategy.
What can we invest in?
Around 400 approved stocks and ETFs across eleven categories, domestic and international and mostly American. Nothing outside the approved list may be traded, recommended to the client or included in the strategy.
Are there portfolio rules?
Yes. The portfolio must hold stocks from at least as many distinct sectors as the team has members, must maintain that diversification throughout, and must include at least one ETF.
What are the report requirements?
A mid-term review and a final report addressed to the portfolio manager at Wharton Global Asset Management. Twelve-point Times New Roman, double spaced, one-inch margins, under 5MB. All sources including any use of generative AI must be cited in APA style, and no external links may be included - judges are told not to open them.
How far does it go?
Fifty teams reach a virtual semi-final in March, and the top ten attend a learning day and the global final at Wharton in Philadelphia in late April.
Related
Other business and economics competitions.
What students enter alongside WGHS.
About this page
This page is here to explain the competition, not to sell anything.
Wharton prohibits paid advisors and any outside course that claims to teach this competition, so nothing is offered here. Entries are made by a teacher at the student’s own school, and the rules, the approved securities list and the submission requirements all come from Wharton directly. Read them there before planning a season.