<p>Hi. I'm a junior applying to Penn next year ED SEAS. I come from a school with a not so great guidance department so I have a question. Note: I'm not trying to be a troll or anything, I just want some honest opinions. I got my May SAT scores back and they are preety good: 2120. CR 730 M740 W650. I know this is a good score. I have to take my subject test in the fall. Do you think that I should stick with these??</p>
<p>Also, Im a URM, 1st gen, immigrant with preety good grades and activities. If that matters </p>
<p>My D plans to apply to Penn in the fall and her SAT is 2080 (CR 720, M630, CW 730), with a GPA of 4.3 (w). She is taking the SAT subjects June 1 and then the SAT I again in the fall with the hope of improving her score, especially math, where she has a lot of room for improvement. Although she knows someone from her school who got into Penn last year with a 2030, she considers her score too low and figures she will have to improve it substantially to have a shot. You are a bit ahead of her with a 2120, but I don’t think you should rest on your laurels if you really want to go to Penn. There are plenty of kids with 2200’s and up who were denied or wait-listed. Check out the admissions thread.</p>
<p>@DGDzDad I’m not trying to settle with these scores; if it was up to me, I would retake. But I will be in a time crunch since I will only have two opportunities to test in the fall and I have to take the subject tests.
I just don’t know if its worth it to spend time worrying about this and spend less time on my subject tests!</p>
<p>if you have time to take it again, i would. the first time i took it i got around that (2110) and i took it again and got a 2250, which is still like around the middle of Penn. but its not a score that would 100% prevent you from getting in. i wouldn’t worry about it TOO much. but if you think you could maybe give it another try in november if you feel prepared, i would do that. but if you don’t have time its not something you should worry about too much.</p>
<p>I was accepted to Penn this year regular decision. My two cents: you have a shot.</p>
<p>You don’t need a 2400 SAT to get into Penn, or even Harvard. I got into Penn with a 2100, but I had really, and I mean really, great recommendations from my teachers and counselor. A girl from my school got into Harvard with something around 2100 (I forget exact score).</p>
<p>That being said we were both in top 5 in our school. My school is in Philly, and has a reputation for being a real crappy school (academically). The average SAT score in my school is like 1400, so a 2100 here is an outlier of outliers. I didn’t get a 2400 not because I’m intellectually weaker, but because my teahers are legit crap. Penn admissions looks at that stuff. Oh, and I was first generation college applicant.</p>
<p>I know a girl from a good high school, where the average SAT was 1800, and she had a 2370. However, her class rank was like 60. She got rejected. Penn does this because they know that she had tutors for 2 years, and went to a expensive private school. She did better because she had better resources. Penn wants to take the top students from each school, because they know that you are the smartest given your environment.</p>
<p>Again, make sure your class rank is way up there, and keep your GPA nice.</p>
<p>So the admissions folks will look at your SAT scores in relationship to your high school average scores? What if they are not familiar with the school? I am pretty sure our high school (Average SAT score of 1420) has never had a student attend Penn, but my son is interested and got 940 points over the average…Should the GC mention this in his recommendation letter? </p>
<p>disneydebk- When we visited Penn a few weeks ago, the admissions guy who ran the info session (who was very, very good, BTW - best of all the schools we visited) got a question along these lines during Q&A. He said they have a huge database of high schools. They know which ones offer AP and honor classes and which ones don’t, etc. They probably know more about your son’s HS than you think. He also said they look at each applicant in the context of their own academic environment - did he/she challenge himself and succeed.</p>
<p>All this is true. I go to a high school with a 1390 avg three part SAT score (there about) but I scored a 2010. My high school isn’t the best blue ribbon high school, and I’m sure Penn saw this. I was the only kid to pass my AP exams with a 4 or higher (the other 5 kids who passed ANY AP exam got threes). Don’t sweat it if that’s what you’re worried about.</p>
<p>Thanks for all your advice. I come from a school with not the best stellar record and I think they’ve had one kid attend Penn before. I think that I’m going to focus on killing my essays and the subject tests and leave the rest of them. Also I’m applying early decision so I hope that helps in addition to being a first in the family and a person who has an interesting backstory as an immigrant. Also I read one of my reccomendation letters and its amazing if I may say so myself. Thanks again for all the advice; it really helped.</p>
<p>I think that it will be great if the Guidance Counselor mentions that your son is above average at his school by X amount of points. However, make sure that that isn’t the main idea of the recommendation. 1920+940=2360. That’s not just higher than the average at your school. It’s 95% and above nationally. It’s more than good enough for the top 10 school in the nation.</p>
<p>Once you have an SAT score that’s 95th percentile, you really don’t need to worry about your scores. It’s more important at that point to get wonderful recommendations that will make the reader cry and say “Wow, this kid is amazing.” (Not literally, but you get the idea). You can have a 2400 SAT but if you have recommendations that say “Yeah, Student X was smart and nice. I think he will be good in college.”, you’re pretty much guaranteed a rejection for the top schools.</p>
<p>When I had my interview with an alumni, I said that I wished I had some research at UPenn (Biomedical Research Summer Program) and make my application look nice and increase my chances. Her reply? “It wouldn’t help much.” At the end, I asked her what the admissions committee was looking for. She worked for the admissions committee before and she stated that they want to see students who WANT TO GO TO PENN. Tell them Penn is your dream school. Once your SATs are above a certain point, you just need a few decent ECs, and a good (legit) story.</p>
<p>We had two kids from our local public high school, which is probably lower tier top 10 in our state for publics, accepted at UPenn. Both applied ED round, and had ACT scores of 34 and 35 respectively (equiv to 2250-2350 SAT). I know one had 3.91 UW / 4.37 W GPA, and the other was higher.</p>
<p>Scores aren’t everything though, so I’d suggest:
—Apply during ED round to better your chances a bit
—Crush the essays and recommendations
—Show a passion for something in the essays
—Have activities you care about, and at least one that shows leadership…not bunches of activities here/there
—Lastly, how do you stand out?..what makes you shine some versus the thousands of other applicants with impressive credentials?</p>
<p>First gen and URM definitely help a bunch though as a starting point, or so I hear. The students from our HS were Caucasian and Asian Indian so not URM.</p>