before I jump, can anyone please chance me?

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Pennsylvania
1

<p>I am applying for 2009 entrance. And I am living in China and am a Chinese so a lot of stuff doesn’t apply to me. But still I am dying to know my chance of getting in. </p>

<p>Early’s that I’ll probably do: Brown, Yale, Dartmouth,Columbia, Northwestern University, Washington University in St. Louis…( and those you suggest)</p>

<p>Rank: top 1% in a 720 class.
Ethnicity: Chinese male
GPA: 95/100
SAT: 2310 Cr 710, W 800, Math, 800
SATII: 2400 Math2 800, Physics 800, Chemistry 800.
TOEFL: 116/120
PSAT: n/a
ACT: n/a
AP: n/a (but our courses are actually about the same difficulty)
Self-conducted more than 10 researches on economy, psychology, cinematography and Chinese medicine </p>

<p>EC:

  1. The Peasant Association (Creative Drama Club) since 9th
    Founder
    President
    Very active member</p>

<li><p>Chinese medicine 2003-2008 </p></li>
<li><p>The Floating Flame Editor Association since 9th
English Editor
Staff Writer
Art Designer
Senior Editor </p></li>
<li><p>The Literature Art Association since 9th
Co-founder
President
Active member</p></li>
<li><p>School Representative since 9th
Presenter
Guest speaker
First receptor</p></li>
</ol>

<p>6.Bike Ride Association 11th
Founder
Organizer</p>

<p>7.English Debate Team 10th
team leader</p>

<p>8.Volunteer in International Affairs 2003-2008
Receptor
Guide
Activity organizer </p>

<p>9.Free English Assistant 2003-2008
Adviser
Activity organizer </p>

<li><p>Free psychological therapy 2003-2008<br>
Founder
Activities organizer </p></li>
<li><p>Business advice for stores on campus. since 9th</p></li>
</ol>

<p>Awards: most are school competition.
800 meter champion </p>

<p>Winter Around The City Long Run champion</p>

<p>Centenarian Celebration 1st receptor </p>

<p>Student Association Contest(SAC) champion</p>

<p>Debate Contest best debater </p>

<p>Art Festival Best film editing</p>

<p>BMX World Championship 1st receptor</p>

<p>Creative Writing Contest (CWC) 1st for 5 times</p>

<p>Volunteer in International Affairs 1st organizer/guide</p>

<p>Model Student model student </p>

<p>1500 meters 1st </p>

<p>Shot put 1st </p>

<p>pulications: about 13 poems and prose</p>

<p>my biggest concern is my financial status. Since I almost need a full ride, how much will my FA amount affect my app?</p>

2

<p>uh this is the penn thread, not the general chance me thread.</p>

3

<p>sorry about that. ok then I would like to know my chance getting into wharton please.</p>

4

<p>i think u did a great job in taking a lot of leadership positions..(very important at wharton) ur sat scores are great and i think u have a pretty good chance of getting in. altho i heard from my regional director that penn limits its financial aid to intl students, i would say that u should definately apply. </p>

<p>i dont know about the full ride tho.. maybe u shouldnt apply early (binding!!!!)</p>

<p>but great job and never give up!!!!!!!!</p>

5

<p>Thanks a lot for that. Altho I heard that if I ask for a very general scholarship from schools like Wharton or Chicago... they will directly skip my other files...</p>

6

<p>I doubt it because the admissions office isn't connected to the finance office.
Hence, after you get reviewed, and should you get in, the finance office will then see your request, and probably limit it, and make you pay the rest. If you apply Early and cannot pay for it, you can get out. Otherwise, tough luck and you'll have to pay somehow, loans I guess.</p>

7

<p>I have serious concerns about how your EC's will be viewed. Your list currently makes you look undecided, whimsical, and arrogant (very few people can say they do 3 things noteworthy). I would cut out all the extraneous EC's except for track and maybe debate. Extracurricular activities without substance can quickly deny you admission at a top level school.</p>

8

<p>Thanks. But I have a lot of detailed activities to back up each in my resume. would that be ok? I didn't just write a lot to make me look good and I really have quite many experience in each EC I listed.</p>

9

<p>The Common App only has like room for 7 ECs.
If you send in a resume, Penn WILL kill you. They would probably just scrap your whole application. I'm going with what Rferns said because seriously, even I have 9 clubs I attend. I fit them into my schedule, go to events, etc. But colleges want to see PASSION, i.e. actually spending 50% of your time in that club.
Hence, I'm only going to list down 3 ECs + Track. Not even gonna bother mentioning National Honor Society since colleges know it's BS.</p>

<p>I also forgot to mention that your ECs do sound very arrogant and flowery, no offense.
Like Volunteer in International Affairs 2003-2008. So you've obviously been volunteering in the field of international affairs since 6th grade? Going to Darfur I assume?
Same with Free psychological therapy 2003-2008. You're a kid. You're not licensed to give psychological therapy. Hence, I doubt that club actually does that, and that leads back to the main point that it sounds arrogant and misleading, and adcoms easily pick that stuff out.
But you can do what you want, just giving you my $.02 on how it sounds just by the looks of it after you scrutinize it.</p>

10

<p>that does start to sound arrogant to me too. so what should i do? Should I pick just two or three or should I fill in all seven EC? By the way, what do you mean by "If you send in a resume, Penn WILL kill you"? it doesn't like resume? why? I put a lot of stuff in that resume because they can't be expressed in common app.</p>

11

<p>^
They don't ask for a resume, they don't want it. If anything is important, it'll be in your ECs. They don't like people who just say they did this and that. I'm sure the Adcoms have enough trouble going through 3000 people's multiple essays and application without a whole laundry list of ECs and stuff you did. They're seen it all before.
But they do want PASSION. I'm writing my essay on one of my ECs because I was really passionate in it and learned a lot from it.
Penn weighs a lot on essays; and ECs, from what I understand, are a tipping factor.</p>

<p>Personally, I would list 7, but don't make it sound superfluous.
Your SAT scores are already amazing so if you just work on the essay, I'm sure you have a great shot.</p>

12

<p>I'm not sure what you really beant by "early's i will probably do"... but it could get you in trouble. i'm not positive about all of your schools, but i recognize a few as being binding ED... unless they've switched over since last year (for example yale you can only apply early to yale if you are not aplying to any other school until RD, dartmouth and brown are traditional ED). so make sure you're not getting yourself in trouble with the contracts of various schools' early decision/action contracts.</p>

13

<p>slim2none. I am not apply to all of those schools at the same time, I am just saying that one of them might be the early application I might do. By the way, is it ture that there are about 3 thousand American students with perfect SAT(2400) applying Ivy?</p>

14

<p>Your school has some pretty kick @$$ names for its organizations (The Floating Flame)...need I say more?</p>

<p>It's highly unlikely you'll get any FA...sucks I know.</p>

<p>ECs= LAUNDRY LIST. What are you passionate about? Where is the love?</p>

<p>I'm curious to know where 'seraph' came from? The Matrix? The OT?</p>

<p>You have some pretty badass scores. You posted in the Penn forum...hope you can write great essays! You have a really good shot if you can!</p>

15

<p>Scorpions? Try it out. It's a bit obscure...but it could work!</p>

<p>I'm sure the adcoms wouldn't be disgusted unless you were inappropriately descriptive in some parts ;).</p>

<p>I'd be glad to read it once you've finished. And don't worry, I won't take your essay; I'm not into eating scorpions anyways.</p>

16

<p>DON'T APPLY EARLY!!!!!</p>

<p>if you need financial aid (esp. a full-ride), wait until april to compare your packages -- you will have a lot to choose from because you seem like a very competitive applicant, so you'll get into a lot of schools. i know penn doesn't offer financial aid to internationals, so you should probably wait until the spring.</p>

<p>^^^Zester, i'm thinking about sending a resume to penn of my music accomplishments and detailing some clubs...they'd actually kill me?</p>

17

<p>^
If you send in a music CD, thats fine.
But ANY resume, to ANY COLLEGE, is a death sentence to your application. They'll either ignore it or get ****ed that you listed every single thing you did (don't you think everyone does this. What's so great about being in National Honor Society, French Honor Society, French Club, Honor guard etc when they all sound the same, get my point?)
They'd rather see your top 7 MAIN clubs than everything you did, regardless of how much time you spent in it.
If your music accomplishments were awesome, cite it on the Common App and explain in the little box they give you for every EC.</p>

18

<p>
[quote]
If you send in a music CD, thats fine.
But ANY resume, to ANY COLLEGE, is a death sentence to your application. They'll either ignore it or get ****ed that you listed every single thing you did (don't you think everyone does this. What's so great about being in National Honor Society, French Honor Society, French Club, Honor guard etc when they all sound the same, get my point?)
They'd rather see your top 7 MAIN clubs than everything you did, regardless of how much time you spent in it.
If your music accomplishments were awesome, cite it on the Common App and explain in the little box they give you for every EC.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>That is false on so many levels. </p>

<ol>
<li><p>Any resume on any college is not a death sentence, what the heck are you talking about. The majority of the colleges in the US select mainly based off of grades/test scores, and weigh ECs very lightly, so a resume would have little effect to begin with. Only the top tier colleges weigh in ECs due to their already strong applicant pool with high grades and such. Saying that every person who sends in a resume gets rejected is just absurd. </p></li>
<li><p>You do know on the common application, there is a specific section that asks you to attach a resume if you would like to? If that hurt your application why would Common App just not have that section and just leave the additional information there? </p></li>
<li><p>Countless colleges, including top tier colleges such as MIT say that it would be beneficial to send in a resume if the application itself can't cover all that you have done. A lot of activities does NOT correlate to lack of passion. </p></li>
<li><p>Especially in an international student's case, where many activities in his country are unheard of in the US, there is no way he could explain all his activities and what they are about in just the application itself, and the additional information section is limited to 5000 characters. Maybe some of his activities are very prestigious in his country, but if an adcom has never heard of it, he can't know how to weigh it in regards to his whole application. </p></li>
<li><p>Sure, NHS is not that great, but it doesn't have a negative effect on you either. You can list it, it won't help, but they won't look down on your application just because you have it.</p></li>
</ol>

19

<p>
[quote]
The Common App only has like room for 7 ECs.
If you send in a resume, Penn WILL kill you. They would probably just scrap your whole application. I'm going with what Rferns said because seriously, even I have 9 clubs I attend. I fit them into my schedule, go to events, etc. But colleges want to see PASSION, i.e. actually spending 50% of your time in that club.
Hence, I'm only going to list down 3 ECs + Track. Not even gonna bother mentioning National Honor Society since colleges know it's BS.</p>

<p>I also forgot to mention that your ECs do sound very arrogant and flowery, no offense.
Like Volunteer in International Affairs 2003-2008. So you've obviously been volunteering in the field of international affairs since 6th grade? Going to Darfur I assume?
Same with Free psychological therapy 2003-2008. You're a kid. You're not licensed to give psychological therapy. Hence, I doubt that club actually does that, and that leads back to the main point that it sounds arrogant and misleading, and adcoms easily pick that stuff out.
But you can do what you want, just giving you my $.02 on how it sounds just by the looks of it after you scrutinize it.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>And just to add on, if hes applying for admissions in 2009, meaning he is a senior, in 2003 he wasn't in 6th grade. </p>

<p>Now I can see what you are saying when you say his resume is slightly pretentious, although I cannot 100% agree, but look: </p>

<p>
[quote]
Going to Darfur I assume?

[/quote]

[quote]
You're a kid. You're not licensed to give psychological therapy. Hence, I doubt that club actually does that

[/quote]
</p>

<p>You ASSUME and you DOUBT. This is EXACTLY why he needs a resume, to EXPLAIN what he did, so the adcoms don't make the same assumptions you did. Maybe he only assisted a therapist, who's to say he is actually giving people medical help. And even if he were, maybe he has some sort of license for it because he is just really smart. The adcoms would need clarification on what he does and how he does it.</p>

20

<p>Of course I exaggerated the death sentence, but it's frowned down upon, and I never said it'd get you rejected. There was a similar thread in another section pertaining to this question, and the basic answer was don't send a resume unless it's absolutely critical (like your SATs fail, so you need ECs to back you up).
But since you're being like that, I guess I need to quote from my adcom's e-mail.</p>

<p>"As for the resume, I would not submit it unless you feel there is something absolutely critical which we need to see in an additional submission--something we would not know about you from any other part of your application. "</p>

<p>I asked if sending in resumes was okay, and who I'd need to send it to (Penn admission or to my regional adcom), and that's what he said.</p>

<p>The point here is that a resume should be sent only if it's CRITICAL. Most kids in the US would use it to put down anything to boost their application - space fillers like conventions, honor roll, NHS etc)
That is why you should tread with caution. Sure, you'd think there would be no downside to adding this, but do realize they might get a bit mad to have to waste their time reading it, and have a small subconscious bias against it.</p>