Chance a hot(?) swede for Wharton and other B-schools!

Chance Me / Match Me!
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<p>Howdy!
Do I have a shot at my schools? And importantly: What should I improve/change? Any tips?</p>

<p>Nationality: Swedish (went to a Swedish high school)
Gender: Male
Age: 18</p>

<p>Graduated high school? Yes, 2010
Applied & rejected last year to Upenn (Wharton), Duke and Cornell.
Applying for aid.</p>

<p>Major: Business/Marketing/Entrepreneurship/Communication</p>

<p>Schools:
- UPenn (Wharton)
- Stanford
- UMich
- NYU
- Cornell
- Duke
- UC Berkeley
- Brown
- UNC at Chapel Hill
- Northwestern
- Carnegie Mellon
- UVa</p>

<p>SAT I: 2190 (M:800 W:710 CR:680)(superscore, best sitting: same but with CR:610)
SAT II: MathI 710, MathII 730, French 510 (won’t send if possible)
TOEFL (iBT): 111</p>

<p>GPA: 19.66/20 (unweighted)</p>

<p>Rank: 2/151</p>

<p>Course load: 2950p (2500p was required)
”High levels”: History, Math (all available to me), Civics, English, French</p>

<p>ECs:</p>

<p>LjusExpressen: own company that imported/sold candles. Managed/hired a "sales team" (three of my friends). Nothing much, just made couple of hundred dollars.
- Position: founder & sales manager.
- Period: during fall of 9th grade
- Extent: 5-10hrs/week</p>

<p>Dfuser: own company that developed and sold the world’s first anti-stress drink.
- Position: founder, vice CEO and marketing director.
- Period: summer before 11th grade to middle of 12th grade
- Extent: around 20-25 hrs/week</p>

<p>10 min appearance on Dragons’ Den
- 400 000 viewers
- 2 week preparation
- No investment but amazing feedback/quotes from the dragons</p>

<p>Emax Sweden: one week event on entrepreneurship during summer after 11th grade
Emax Nordic: one week event on entrepreneurship during summer after 12th grade</p>

<p>Creative Youth (creativeyouth.se, will be translated): own advertising agency that does branding, strategy, social media, campaigns, graphic design, web design, etc.
- Position: founder, CEO and brand manager.
- Period: spring of 12th grade to (?)
- Extent: fulltime after graduation, 40 hrs/week</p>

<p>Honors/Awards:
- Regional silver medal in JA-YE (one-year entrepreneurship program), category ”Best Company” with my company Dfuser. More than 180 competing companies.
- National silver medal in JA-YE, category ”Best Company”, with my company Dfuser. Over 5500 competing companies.
- National bronze medal in Emax Business Simulation, 200 participants headhunted nationally.
- Scholarship to participate in Emax Nordic (entrepreneurship event). The top 200 young entrepreneurs from Scandinavia are head-hunted.
- Regional bronze medal in ”Entreprenorsjakten” (entrepreneurship competition)</p>

<p>Recs:
Math: super
History: good/great but not super (replace this with a rec from my business teacher?)
Principal: super
Additional: could probably get from one of the Dragons, should I?</p>

<p>Essay/supps: Not sure, but should be somewhere between OK to stellar</p>

<p>So? :)</p>

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<p>bumpbumpbump (already yeah :D)</p>

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<p>Btw have taken the SAT reasoning FOUR times (started with 1730) and subjects twice. Don’t know how this will affect my app</p>

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<p>chances seem good…best of luck for your application.</p>

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<p>@techfreak could you be more specific? :stuck_out_tongue: Any tips??</p>

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<p>bump
I’ll chance back!</p>

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<p>bumpbumbump</p>

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<p>I think you have a good shot at all those schools (especially with those extraordinary EC’s) but I think your chance at UNC isn’t so good - not because you’re lacking but because it is very difficult considering how few internationals get accepted. NC residents are given the most priority. Good luck with Wharton! I’m sure they would be very lucky to have you!</p>

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<p>Thanks for the encouragement AudreyH! :slight_smile:
But still, don’t you have any tips? Anything I should change/retake?
I’m feeling a bit insecure about my SAT IIs, have heard that like 90% av whartonites have 800 om Math II… Should I retake?
Any tips for my essays? Would be grateful for any tips/strategies :)</p>

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<p>I think the most you can do is to increase your SAT scores…you could also try applying ED but if financial aid is an issue that might not be the best idea.</p>

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<p>@powerbomb
Do you mean both reasoning and subjects? But I’ve taken reasoning 4 times, won’t that seem obsessive? And subjects two times…</p>

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<p>Awaiting tips an chances… Bump</p>

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<p>Bumpbumpbump</p>

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<p>Come on people :stuck_out_tongue: BUMP!</p>

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<p>I think there’s a lot to be said for your extracurriculars. You have a really stellar front on those, which I personally think will make up for a slight imbalance in your test scores. I think you have a great chance with all of them, except maybe the ones who appear to place more emphasis on those, such as UNC or Penn. Although I think if you did a great job with your essays, your chances of getting in would grow. You might want to think about improving your scores/taking some other subject test, just in case they don’t accept both Math I and Math II. Good luck! :slight_smile: You seem like a strong candidate.</p>

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<p>Your ECs are awesome, especially all those business ones! But, what bothers me is the time you spent. Correct me if I’m wrong, but none of your ECs seem to show a strong devotion throughout 3 or 4 years of high school. You’ve jumped from business to business and I personally would be more impressed if you stuck with about 2 businesses for 4 years. Are your companies successful? If so, do you really need to go to college? I mean, you’re making money already, so what’s the sense in using 4 years for college when you could be working in your own company?</p>

<p>But, your ECs are unique and outstanding to say the least. It definitely isn’t a weakness. The only thing holding you back is your SAT scores, which are a bit low for Wharton. I’m sure a great essay and your ECs can make adcoms ignore this fact, so I’d say your chances at all those schools are great. I think Wharton would be happy to have you.</p>

<p>Chance me back?</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/1023716-chances-upenn-cornell-rice-uc-berkeley-cmu-nyu-boston-c-rd.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/1023716-chances-upenn-cornell-rice-uc-berkeley-cmu-nyu-boston-c-rd.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>Thanks for chance Sakari!
When you say imbalance in tests do you mean me taking them too many times or my good SAT I vs my average SAT IIs? (800 reasoning math vs. 730/710 subjects math)
Could probably raise Math 1/2. But that would be the third time taking subjects. Wouldn’t that be overkill? :stuck_out_tongue: But I could maybe raise Math II to 800 and Math I to 750…
About taking other subject tests… hmm… I don’t think thats an option… :stuck_out_tongue: Could probably try french again but don’t think I’ll get above 650.</p>

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<p>@R3d3mpti0n - Thanks for response! :)</p>

<p>And to your questions about ECs:

  • Is three companies really much for four years? Have in mind that the first one wasn’t really a “company” - only a small business project. So what I really did was run one company (Dfuser) for about 1.5 years and another (Creative Youth) for about 0.5-1 year.
  • Regarding Dfuser: we barely made no money since we had high costs developing the beverage and producing the first “batch”. We gave up after a failed investment oppurtunity to be honest. Although - it looks like we’ve made some progress recently so we might pick it up again :smiley: (this would ofcourse mean that I only would run Creative Youth part-time).
  • Regarding money/ not going to college: I’ll probably make between $10-20k during the second half of this year from Creative Youth. I could probably keep the company growing and live on it, but the thing is I really want to go to the US and be inspired by the “entrepreneurial-everything-is-possible” spirit that is apparent over there. To say the least that spirit is absent in Sweden… I also want to gain more knowledge in marketing/business before I continue pursuing my entrepreneurial dreams. I also dream of meeting future business partners/clients at schools like those I am applying to. :)</p>

<p>But i understand the “contradiction”, if you can call it that, that my situation creates. But I hope I cleared some things up at least.</p>

<p>Thanks for encouragement and insights! :)</p>

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<p>bumpbumpbump</p>

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<p>Hightraffic(?)bump</p>