Hi everyone, I’m a rising junior, but I know that I will be applying ED to UPenn’s Vagelos dual degree program in life sciences and management. It’s the dual degree for a BS from Wharton and BA from CAS. If I get in, I plan on majoring in neuroscience/BBB at CAS and concentrating finance+healthcare management at Wharton. Please give me feedback about whether I even have a shot! Thank you!
State: Missouri
School Type: Large Public High School (2400-2500 people)
Demographics: Indian Male, Middle Class
Test Scores:
ACT: 35 (E 36/M 36/R 33/S 35) with 10 on writing
PSAT/NMSQT: 1500 as a sophomore
SAT II: World History 800
APs: Calc BC (5), World History (5), Physics 1 (5), Comp Sci A (5)
Junior Year APs: Chemistry, Lang, Stats, Spanish, Physics 2
Senior Year APs: Bio, Physics C, Econ, Psych, Seminar
GPA: 4.0 UW/4.52 W (4.73 if all A’s junior year)
Rank: No rank, but top 1% of 600 person class
Clubs/Extracurriculars:
Outside school
- Student researcher in neuroimaging at Washington University in St. Louis under a major consortium for national project; writing paper (second author) and will be submitting by the end of this semester (around November/December) probably in Neuroimage.
- Current summer intern (and continuing into school year) at a neuro-opthalmalogy lab at the University of Pennsylvania on neuroimaging and retina's connections with brain; writing paper (first author) and will be submitting by end of semester (October/November) probably in Journal of Vision
Note: This is was my paid summer internship for this year, this was an independent project that I secured by emailing the PI and getting a rec from my professor at WashU. He doesn’t actually doesn’t take high school interns, but he made an exception for me. It’s also a great experience to be at Penn (alone) for the summer bc it’s my dream school!
- Founder and CEO of a global youth entrepreneur consulting agency that works with small-scale high-potential startups founded by younger individuals in emerging markets like West Africa, Southeast Asia, and parts of Latin America. Currently working on major deals with companies in countries across the world, and also have a 20-person team stationed in many different countries. We have already worked with and impacted 4 companies in Ghana, Nigeria, and Chile in our first 3-4 weeks of creation.
- Starting a research project (as a research assistant) at Wharton under one of the most renowned professors of neuroeconomics this fall. Working on the relationship between neural characteristics and advertising methods. He was a founder of the field in the late 1990s by writing some very interesting papers on them and is now pretty accredited at Penn.
- Taekwondo athlete for ~10 years. Instructor at my local Taekwondo school and state/national level competitor (gold medalist at Missouri and Illinois state, silver medalist at Kansas state)
- Started a small company that collaborates with STL startups to build partnership networks of biotech and medtech companies. This wasn't something I did for profit, more to help establish connections between companies in the community. I am no longer working on this as I began my other startup. Please let me know if I should put something I'm not doing anymore on my college app!
Inside School
- Founder/President of Students for the Advancement of Interdisciplinary Science (SAIS), an organization where we expand perspective on the field of science by investigating its applications in different fields like business/law (learn about fields like neuroeconomics). The main reason I founded this was to show people that there are more options than just pre-med if you are interested in science. The organization was actually based off a student society I learned about at Penn that focused on neuroscience in business. The president of the student society at Penn actually helped with founding this at my school.
- Founder/President of Investment and Economics Club, where we explore the nature of investing in different types of securities like different types of stocks, bonds, and cryptocurrencies. We do a lot of simulations and competitions like Wharton Investment Challenge.
- Regional chair of the STL Model UN. Administer 2 conferences every year with over 20 schools and 500+ students.
- Member of Science National Honor Society (SNHS) and Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA), also joining NHS. Will be officer for SNHS this year (don't know which one yet though).
Comments: My future goals are doing some healthcare consulting, then going to grad school for PhD, and then do R&D/administration in pharma or biotech.
I would also appreciate if you guys can let me know which school I should apply to as my alternate at Penn (if I don’t get into LSM, which school I should apply to, Wharton or CAS).
Will appreciate any feedback!