Hello, I am currently and senior and looking to apple to Upenn CAS ED. I am a first generation college student. My parents are from israel and I was born the US. My first language was Hebrew so to this day I have an accent and have trouble with English. My school is a dual curriculum school that also includes Jewish and Hebrew classes. I do not take a third language though like others in my school. During my freshman year I was not a good student and had a low gpa of about 3.3. Since then I started to improve my grades. I attend a rigorous private school so it is pretty hard to achieve good scores. I probably have around a 3.5 gpa. The reason why I say around is because we aren’t given gpas. I took the sats once and got a 1390; 740 math 650 English. I’m thinking about taking it again to raise my English score. I took calculus at a community college outside of school and received an A. Our school only offers APs in 12th grade and I am taking AP computer science, AP Bio, and AP stat. I tend though not to do as well in English and history class. In English I am modified which is a thing at my school that just acknoledges that the student needs some extra help with the course. I usually end up with Bs in those classes. I have been very hard working over the past few years.
Extra curricular:
Upenn internship/shadow/research assistant for 3 years. I worked with cardiovascular doctors and pulmonariologists and was able to watch numberous surgeries, meet with patients, and work on some projects. I built and designed for a thoracic surgeon a prototype 3D hologram that can make organs show up in 3D. (It would be used for lungs) I also was able to help out on a research project that involved treating heart failures with pre operative techniques that can distinguish the groups that will benefit most from one type of surgery than the other. I did this a lot over my 2 summers and during the school year too.
School EC:
Science in topics club- 10,11,12 co president in 12
Engineering club -11,12 Vice President in 11 president in 12
Deca- business club. 11,12. I won first place in ASM sector at regionals.
Soccer- Jv 11, manager of varsity 12
Lacrosse - 11
Track- 10
Community service at my synogogue
JRA community service for 4 years. It’s a food packaging and delivery thing for people in need.
In my 9th grade summer I worked at a waiter at a restaurant.
I’m also a car mechanic and fix iPhones.
I’m planning on taking sat 2. Math 2 and biom.
I don’t think I will do that well.
Despite my English / history grades, low snglish sat score, and not that many EC i think other things are fine. Is there anything I should improve. Sorry it’s long. I’m just anxious and really don’t want to go to any other college. I want to major in biology.
Thank you
Being first gen and a child of immigrant parents, and a second language speaker, I am not sure. I have no idea how to adjust for that.
If you spoke English as a first language, I would say that your gpa and SAT are too low to have a very good chance at Penn. Hopefully someone else can comment who is more familiar with that situation.
You have important hooks. It may make up your low GPA. You still have a shot. Good Luck!