Hi I’m Ron and a freshman in high school. U Penn is my dream school and every day I worry I wont get accepted.
Here are my current stats:
Weighted GPA: 4.3
Unweighted GPA: 4.0
I am taking the hardest possible courses that my school offers, and plan to take 2 AP’s next year.
I took the ACT in 8th grade and got a 28.
Class Rank: School doesn’t do rank
EC’s:
World Schools Debate National Qualifier
DECA International Qualifier
JETS State champ in Freshman Sophomore Division
JV Tennis
I also volunteer at a local hospital
I skipped kindergarten but I don’t know if this helps anything!
These are the main ones but I am also in a bunch of other clubs.
Thanks, Ron
I also forgot to mention that I plan to do Pre-Med and will be given the Award of Excellence by the National Association of Future Medical Leaders.
It is way too early to think about specific colleges (especially the hyper-competitive ones). You don’t even have one full full year’s GPA and it is hard to extrapolate what your standardized testing will be from an 8th grade score.
HS should be an experience in and of itself – a time of learning and growth and not just a 4 year college application prep experience.
From what I have seen over the years the students who get most hurt in the college process are the ones who select a super competitive dream school and then don’t get in. I don’t want to discourage you from aiming high – you should aim high – but no matter what you do in HS, acceptance to Penn is not assured. With under a 10% acceptance rate the school cannot accept all of the qualified applicants. I would urge you when the time comes to seek out a group of reach (including Penn), match, and safety schools that appear affordable and that you would be happy to attend. Often finding those great safety schools is the hardest part of the process.
It is good to take school seriously and know that college will be on your horizon, but it is too early to start planning for specific colleges. I would highly recommend that you get off of CC until your junior year. Also it is best to not put your real name of CC in the future.
For now you should focus on:
–Working hard, learning, and doing as well as you can in the most challenging curriculum you can manage.
–When the time comes study for standardized tests.
–Continue your involvement in activities you care about and work towards making meaningful contributions to those activities.
–Enjoying spending time with your family and friends.
You’re just a freshman and “every day I worry I wont get accepted”??? Does this sound right to you? I sure hope you do things that you truly care about as opposed to doing things just to get accepted at UPenn.