I’ve seen people asking for others to “chance” them, and while I think it’s sorta silly I’m also intrigued! Would anybody be willing to look at my profile? I know ED has already passed, and my app is already in, but I’m still curious as to what everybody thinks!
Personal info:
Gender: Female
Race: White
Location: Delaware, United States
LGBT status: Transgender, bisexual
Visited Penn
Applying ED to College of Arts and Sciences
Academics:
SAT I: 2090 Superscore (Rdng 760 Math 680 Wtng 650)
SAT II: Bio E 660, Physics 530, Lit 710, Math I 740
ACT: 33 (Eng 32 Math 27 Rdng 36 Sci 35) - Took a second one Oct2015
Class Rank: UnWgt 13th, Wgt 12th
GPA: UnWgt 3.913, Wgt 4.239
Extracurricular activities:
Gay/Straight Alliance, Vice President (10th, 11th, 12th) (2h/w, 34w/y) - Organized and directed activities, aided in fundraising opportunities and attended LGBT+ summits and events on club's behalf.
Robotics Club (12th) (4h/w, 34w/y) - Wrote grant requests, organized funds, attended competitions. Team won Duel on the Delaware off-season competition.
Public Library, Volunteer (10th, 11th, 12th) (2h/w, 9w/y) - Assisted with the annual summer reading programs, shelved books and organized library, assisted patrons with technical and computer issues.
School Library, Aide (11th, 12th) (11h/w, 36w/y) - Shelved books, organized library, assisted patrons with technology issues. Personally overseeing the reorganization of the fiction section.
Choir, Baritone (9th) (2h/w, 36w/y) - Participated in two seasonal concerts. Choir earned a Superior Ranking at the ACSI High School Fine Arts Festival.
Choir, Bass II (12th) (4h/w, 36w/y) - Participating in three seasonal concerts. Will attend a competition at Six Flags in Spring 2016.
German Saengerbund, Day Camp Assistant (9th, 10th, 11th) (15h/w, 2w/y) - Worked with and was responsible for children, teaching German language and culture.
Recommendations: One from an AP English teacher now administrator) highlighting my character and personality; one from an Honors Anatomy and Physiology teacher highlighting my work ethic, efficiency, and efficacy. An Other recommendation from a respected University professor who I took a class with over the summer.
Essays: Common App essay taking the first prompt (the “key aspect of your identity” one), discussing how I am a transgender female and how this aspect of my life has affected and continues to affect my life. [http://tinyurl.com/o9owhey] Penn Supplementary essay discussing how my involvement in Penn will focus on the LGBT community, and I will be involved with the Penn LGBT center, and take Psychology classes in order to become a therapist or counselor for LGBT youth. [http://tinyurl.com/nnn3z7o]
I think your essays are decent are expose a truly imperative part of who you are, especially your personal statement. I would say the writing quality of your essays are decent overall, especially in the personal statement. I think the Penn supplementary essay lacks a little bit (but that is just my opinion), but you certainly accomplished what you set out to do. In the end, I don’t think your essays will get you in or keep you out. The one (or maybe two) concerns I have about your application are that a) your test scores are on the lower side and b) outside of GSA, a few of your extracurriculars seem trivial/irrelevant that to me suggest a bit of resume padding (e.g. Robotics you joined in 12th grade … was it for the resume or because you are generally interested? Even if you are, it comes off to me as resume padding since you started in 12th grade.) One of the biggest things you have going for you actually is that you are from Delaware, an underrepresented state where there can’t be that many people you are competing against. Nonetheless, I think you are, for the most part, a competitive applicant. I can’t say for sure that you will get in or out. I think it will be a close call. But you should be proud of what you have accomplished. Good luck, and I hope we both get in!
@jarrett211 Thank you! I don’t know if it was in my College Essay.docx, but in my Additional Information I said that my activity in senior year isn’t resume building - my mental state in Sophmore/Junior year prevented me from being involved in a wide range of activities, but it has now improved. I don’t know if that’s believable or helpful at all, but it’s the truth.
I did read that. I believe you, but it still appears that way and will still be a bit skeptical in my opinion. I think your situation is fair to a good extent though, so it should make up for most of it.
I think you have an excellent shot at acceptance to Penn! The “understanding transgender issues” is hot hot hot in LGBT/civil rights circles and especially at Penn. When we visited there was a huge outdoor display for family week ((they hung bloody (painted) dresses on trees lining the main walk with signs saying black trans lives matter) there are many articles that they are looking for advocates to reach out to the community and elevate trans issues from an insiders point of view. They are trying to build a diverse class and that means including transgender identifying individuals and lets be honest I don’t the there is a large applicant pool of transgender youth with high stats like yours to compete with… I could be wrong … but Your test scores are high as I have heard Penn mainly looks at cr and math so 1440 is right there and so is a 3.9 UW gpa IMO I think you are in…
Interestingly- just read an article about Upenn and there are a lot more trans identifying students than I thought -Fifty-four Penn students who responded to the report identified as TGQN (transgender, genderqueer, questioning or non-conforming), 29 of them undergraduates.
The difference between a 33 and 34 is negligible and will not change the Penn AdCom’s minds. If they are going to accept, defer, or reject you, the one point increase won’t change that. With that said, I think that you have a very good chance! Good luck!
@thewaffleman149 True, the difference between any score above 30 is a mere 3-4 questions wrong on the whole test. Difference between a 35 and 36 is 2-3 questions.
@TheWaffleMan149@toffys Oh wow, I had no idea! How’s the ACT even graded then, I wonder…
Thank you for the input, but I still hope the increased score will have /some/ weight in my application.
@stellacastor Do you have an official ACT practice book (the red one)? The scoring chart on the back shows that for each section, every question pretty much drops you one point for scores 28-36. Example: One wrong on the English section (75 questions!) gives you a 35; 3 wrong is about a 33. The same goes with every section. However, getting 20 wrong is only about a 25-26. There’s a crazy curve.
@toffys No, I don’t. Holy crap though, that is pretty ridiculous… And here I thought I improved a good bit! (I actually did in Math, but overall not as much as I could have hoped!)
