Hi. I am a junior who is finishing up the school year. I would like people’s advice for my change at Penn or Duke ED. I am still trying to decide between the two.
ACT : 34 Composite (E 33, M 36, R 32, S 34)
UW GPA : 3.97
AP : (These are all my estimates) Calc BC : 5, Lang : 4, Physics 1: 4 or 5, Psych : 5
Awards : various math and computer competitions and AP Scholar
Extracurriculars : Varsity Soccer (9-12, JV Captain freshman year), Varsity Football (9-12), Powerlifting (10, State Qualifier), Basketball (10), NHS (11-12, Officer), Spanish Honor Society (11-12), Math Club (10-12, Team Captain), IT Innovations Cup (11-12), Student Council (12, Position TBD), Big Brother (12)
Volunteers : About 500 hours from tutoring and helping out at a hospital. Also assitant coaches for a youth soccer team
I understand that I do not have the recommendations and the essays yet, but please give me your best estimate of my change!
Thanks!
P.S. Also I am an asian international student which probably will affect my admission lol
Int’l student admissions is always even tougher to chance, but basically all anyone here can say is that you’ve got the stats, and it’s a lottery after that point.
Do you need financial aid? Neither school is need blind for internationals
I won’t need financial aid and I noticed I misspelled chance for change twice hahaha
What is your intended major? Which college at each are you thinking of applying?
As of now, I will most likely go undecided but I know that I wanna major in STEM
Why definitely Duke?? What is so difficult abiut Penn??
^ Nothing is. Some of the ill-informed high school students on this website are very enamored by the “Ivy League”. They don’t make judgments based on objective data.
Your ACT scores are about the median of accepted students for Pratt Engineering at Duke. Your grades look fine, however it appears you only took 4 AP classes. Is this the maximum offered at your school? If not the admissions committee will want to know why you didn’t take more.
The other big weakness I see is your ECs are light. The athletics you participated in don’t really matter for much unless you are being recruited by a coach. Apart from this, you really need to have something that shows you are of international or national prominence.
No. My ECs are fine. They definitely valeu athletics as much as academics. Also, I am taking the most rigorous courses available at my school, so number of APs is not a problem either.