<p>Hey everyone. Please let me know what my chances would be through RD next year. Also, any advice would be appreciated too. Thanks!</p>
<p>** Stats: ** [ul]
[<em>] ACT: 33 (35 E, 32 M, 33 R, 31 S, 10 W) - will retake
[</em>] SAT: 2240 (770M, 670R, 800W) - will retake
[<em>] APs: Euro (4), Chem (4 - educated guess), Calc BC (4 - educated guess, 5 AB - educated guess), Lang & Comp (4 - educated guess), * </em>school limits # of AP's, taken max possible, gotten A's in all so far* *
[<em>] GPA: 3.98 UW, 4.06 W (1 B+, freshman year)
[</em>] Rank: school doesn't rank [/ul]
** Subjective: ** [ul]
[li] ECs: [list][/li][li]* Forensics <a href="my%20main%20thing">/i</a> - 1x state champ in individual event 9; 1x state runner-up in individual event 10; 3x district champ in individual event 9, 10, 11; 3x conference champ in individual event 9, 10, 11; 1x state runner-up in duet event 9; 2x state bronze in duet event 10, 11; 3x district champ in duet event 9, 10, 11; Novice of the Year Award 9; about 20 other medals earned </p>[/li]
<p>[li] * Academic Decathlon * - 1st at state in Math and Economics 11; 1st at regionals in Math 11; 2nd at regional in Economics 11; 2nd as team at Conference Quiz Bowl 11</p>[/li]
<p>[li] * Math Competition * - 1st as team at UNL statewide math contest 9, 10, 11; competed on 1st place quiz bowl team at UNL contest; 2nd as team at NW Missouri State math olympiad 11; 5th place individually at NW Missouri State math olympiad 11 </p>[/li]
<p>[li] * Golf * - Most Improved Player Award 10; Best Sportsmanship Award 10; Varsity Letter 10</p>[/li]
<p>[li] * Tennis * - Varsity Letter 9, 10, 11; academic-all state 11</p>[/li]
<p>[<em>] * eCybermission Nat'l Science Fair 9 * - NW winner in Application of Science, Math, and Tech [/ul]
[li] Job/Work Experience: none[/li][</em>] Teacher Recs: should be great
[<em>] Counselor Rec: should be great
[</em>] Hook: state champion/numerous medals in forensics? from Iowa? [/list]
** Location/Person: ** [ul]
[<em>] State: Iowa
[</em>] School Type: Private
[<em>] Ethnicity: Vietnamese
[</em>] Gender: Male
[li] Intended Major: Bio or Neuroscience (pre-med) [/ul]</p>[/li]
<p>P.S. I am a Dual Citizen... but I've lived here my entire life except for my 6 months... hope that doesn't hurt. Please let me know about this. Also, how much will being an Asian male hurt me?</p>
<p>So your AP exams combined with your grades suggest that your school is not very competitive. How big is your school? Varsity Letters don’t mean much if your class is 80 people. Is forensics big in Iowa? Otherwise, that’s not much of a hook.</p>
<p>Honestly, I’d say your chance is about 40%. BTW being an asian male doesn’t hurt you, that’s a stereotype invented by asians to explain why they don’t get into top schools as much as they want. You don’t see Jews complaining about how being a white male hurts, do you?</p>
<p>@OP: I wouldn’t retake. All your scores are in between the 50 percentile ranges. I think that focusing on your Extra Curriculars is more important, as is essay.</p>
<p>Thanks! I’m trying to help a professor with some biomedical research this summer on neurodegenerative disorders at Creighton Med, so hopefully that helps. But, btw, I go to school in Nebraska, and forensics is * pretty * important there. Nothing like California or NJ, but we have some schools that I compete against that go to National meets and stuff.</p>
<p>Oh, and this goes without saying, but complete honesty is appreciated. I just want to know my realistic chances. I don’t need any coddling haha</p>
<p>P.S.: @hardworking21 - don’t you think i should retake my SAT? because, although i’ve taken it twice, my CR looks pretty bad compared to my other 2 sections. just wondering</p>
<p>@OP: I’m not sure what advice to give, to be honest. I’ve heard people say that at Penn, transcript is most important (in admissions), then everything else is a “tie for #2” but test scores are “2-b”. I’m not sure if that implies that they aren’t stressed extremely or not.</p>
<p>I would say, however, that remember that this is the range for accepted students. Since all 3 categories fall in that range, I think you will be fine. Especially since you have taken it twice. You don’t want your score to seem “coached”.</p>
<p>Noted. Thanks for the help. I’m pretty worried about next year… this year’s acceptance rate was 12.9??? And it’ll just keep going down haha… great.</p>
<p>@OP: Factor in that they accept the same # of people every year. It’s just that there were more applicants so the percentage (# accepted/# of applicants * 100) just went down logically. Had their have been 1/2 the # of applicants, the percentage would’ve “skyrocketed”–yet note: they only accept the same # of people annually.</p>
<p>670 CR get this up to a 700 or higher, 670 is a solid score and yes the SAT’s don’t matter as much anymore, but it’s recommended for an applicant seeking admission to have a score of atleast 700 on each section.</p>
<p>Eh, from what I can gather Penn REALLY cares that you maximized all of the most challenging course options available at your high school. If you aren’t well within the top 5% at your high school, it does not matter how high your test scores are – you will not get in (unless your school is extremely competitive, in which case just being in the top 10% might be OK). </p>
<p>I have noticed this trend more with Penn than with any other “lower Ivy.” For example, Dartmouth is more scores oriented than Penn is, however Penn is more nit-picky when it comes to maximizing high school rigor.</p>
<p>“Eh, from what I can gather Penn REALLY cares that you maximized all of the most challenging course options available at your high school.”</p>
<p>I completely agree with this, though my high school only offers 4 AP courses, I took all of them. Make sure you take the hardest course load that you can handle. Top schools want too see that you made the best out of the opportunity you were given.</p>
<p>But how can you define most rigorous? My counselor says my course load will be checked off as “most rigorous” on the Common App; I have taken 10 AP’s, self-studied 1 AP, and almost everything else non-AP is “Honors”. However, there are kids who have taken 11 or 12 APs. Am I at a disadvantage? Or rather, is the rigor of the course load more focused on GPA? As in, a challenging course load (10 APs) with a high GPA looks better than 11 or 12 APs with a lower GPA (difference of 0.2-0.3 GPA points between these two individuals)?</p>
<p>Also–do they cross compare applicants? That is, 2, 3, 4, or even 5 applicants all from the same school applying ED (or RD)?</p>
<p>@shaheirunderdog: Thanks for the feedback! I’m just afraid that another student from my school may have taken 1 or 2 more AP’s and I really love Penn where as he is shopping between all the Ivy’s.</p>