White male senior applying for mechanical engineering
1470 SAT (one sitting, 740M 730R)
Taking Math I and II in November, it isn’t too late for ED (I was signed up for October but I got really sick and couldn’t make it)
3.99 UW 4.16 W GPA
45 out of 330
6 APs, 8 Honors
My school is a public school in PA, ranked as one of the top in America
ECs:
FBLA President, 2x state qualifier, 1x state champion & national qualifier. Currently running the biggest FBLA fundraiser in my school history, involves me presenting (alone) at local businesses and receiving total donations in the thousands.
Finance Club President: we manage and invest a $30000 fund and donate profits to charity
Yearbook academic editor
German Activity Club Vice President
NHS
Robotics chassis/animation engineer (school team was a national champion last year)
Student Council
Club Council (one rep from each club meets with principal monthly, plans club events)
Leadership Course (had to apply for an extracurricular course taught on top of our existing course loads, monthly after school, by the head principal. Relatively high honor within my school)
Academic team/quizbowl Varsity
Total ECs: 10
I know my academic stats are a far reach for Penn, but I think my LORs and essays are good and my finance club investing and FBLA fundraising set me apart from a lot of applicants. For the record, here’s my full list
UPenn ED
Cornell
Carnegie Mellon
Northwestern
Michigan (Ann Arbor)
Pitt
Penn State (Schreyer’s + main campus)
@bigbrewer299 I thought Penn engineering required (or recommended) Math level 2 and a science sat subject test? Why would you take SAT 2 Math level 1? IMO, the SAT is on the lower end for Penn engineering and I think Top 13% may not be good enough unless you have great Sat 2 subject tests to offset. Your ECs are good…but I am not sure about the numbers (GPA, Test scores).
i’ve been thinking about changing math 1 to physics on test day but the problem is i’ve only taken two months of AP Physics. I’ll probably end up doing that since i didn’t take AP chem or bio (i wouldnt be able to take physics at my school if i opted to take either of them) and I’ll just study hard. Penn doesn’t require subject tests but they recommend them for all applicants. I have a question: Can I switch my subject test on test day at the site or should I pay the fee to change it now? Thanks for the response
@bigbrewer299 I think you should discuss this approach with your college counselor. The other issue is that you have other colleges you are applying to that may require or recommend subject tests also. I know you are focusing on PENN right now, but you have some other great schools too. Taking math 2 is a great idea if you can score well. I see that you didn’t take AP chem or bio so may not feel ready for the subject tests in those areas, BUT the physics subject test covers both Physics 1 and 2. If you haven’t even completed the first class yet, this seems silly IMO. I am curious if you couldnt take AP chem or AP bio and are in AP physics 1 - what other science classes did you take?
AND, i believe you can pick any of the subject tests you want to on the day of - as long as you have paid for the correct number of tests. You can probably find this easily on the College Board website.