Chances for BE

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Pennsylvania
1

<p>I like the research of the BE faculty at Upenn, and was wondering if i could get in. </p>

<p>My Stats:</p>

<p>GPA: 4.13/4.33 Unweighted
PSAT (11th grade): 240
SAT Math Level 2: 800
SAT Biology: 790
SAT U.S. History: 800
SAT I: 2320 superscored (800 CR, 760 M, 760 W (12 essay))</p>

<p>School sends maybe 15-20 kids/yr to pretty banging schools</p>

<p>6 AP Exams taken, 4 APs senior year, A+s in all but 1 AP Class, all 3 science APs school offers will be taken</p>

<p>Math and Science APs: Calc BC, Bio. Physics and Chem sr year. All 5s on the 6 i have taken. And statistics at Rutgers. </p>

<p>Extracurricular Activities:</p>

<p>Scientific Research:
• Selected for and participated in 2005 Waksman Student Scholars program at Waksman Institute at Rutgers University, involved in genome analysis of the brine shrimp Artemia Fransciscana.
• Summer 2005: Internship in lab of Dr. Joachim Messing, Director of Waksman Insitute, comparative genomics of cereal genomes, analysis of the maize and rice genomes.
• Currently working on research project for potential submission to both Siemens-Westinghouse/Intel Science Talent Search competitions.</p>

<p>Science Related Activities:
• Member of Science League Team for 2 years: Chemistry I team (grade 10) and Biology II team (grade 11)
• Member of Science Olympiad Team, qualified for state Science Olympiad tournament in Designer Genes, Vice President 2007-2008.
• Member of Science and Math Honors Societies, tutoring responsibilities.
• In-school Waksman Student Scholars Research—continue research during school year/yearly poster presentation. (grades 9/10/11).</p>

<p>Other Activities:
• Member of Forensics (Speech and Debate) Team since 9th grade. Captain of Debate team.
• Accomplishments:<br>
o Public Forum Debate: 10th place 2005 State Tournament, 8th Place 2006 State Tournament, State Champion 2007. National Tournament Qualifier 2006, at Nationals ranked in top 30 out of 216. Harvard Invitational 2007 Octafinalist.
o Extemporaneous Speaking: 6th place at 2006 New Jersey District Tournament, 3rd place at 2007 State Tournament.
o In 2007, only New Jersey qualifier to the Tournament of Champions based on national circuit performance.
• Vice President of Model United Nations Club, member since 9th grade, selected to serve on Crisis Committee at 2006 Boston University/MIT conference.
• Member of National Honors Society and German Honors Society.
• Member of school Symphony Orchestra, passed Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music (London, UK) Grade 5 exam in violin and Grade 5 exam in Music Theory, private lessons since age 8.
• Member of Boy Scouts since age 6, currently Life rank, working on Eagle Scout project involving installation of bird boxes and irrigation system at outdoor nature classroom at local elementary school. </p>

<p>Community Service
• 60 Volunteer Hours at Hospital
• Member of Rescue Squad since 2004—working on EMT certification, on call 4 hours weekly, 36 hours every 6th weekend (rotating duty weekends). </p>

<p>Summer Programs/Courses/Jobs/Activities</p>

<p>o Summer 2005-research at Waksman Institute
o Summer 2006
o Attended National Debate Tournament
o Macroeconomics credit course at Rutgers University (Grade: A)
o Employed 3hr/day at Somerset County Tennis Camp, 15 hr/week
o Summer 2007
o Attended New Jersey Governor’s School in the Sciences at Drew University.
o Rutgers University Statistics credit course
o Summer 2007- Extensive research for Intel Science Talent Search/Siemens-Westinghouse project</p>

<p>Awards/Honors</p>

<p>o 3-year consecutive medalist in AATG National German Examination. Grade 10 ranked 4th, Grade 11 ranked 1st.
o Recipient of New Jersey Governor’s Award for Arts Education for State Championship in Public Forum Debate.
o Attended National Youth Leadership Conference in Washington DC, November 2006</p>

<p>What I think could help:</p>

<p>Will have a paper in the American Journal of Undergraduate Research, and a provisional patent application. Both will be submitted with app because caltech evaluates papers. This is in addition to potential siemens/intel success</p>

2

<p>assuming you can write a GREAT essay (and thats a pretty big assumption), you have an awesome chance. u look great on paper (except dunno how u ended up with a 4.13 UW GPA). and your good not only for penn, but all the schools you mentioned in the engineering forum. write a killer application, and you're pretty much good.</p>

<hr>

<p>since i bet that there are a lot of schools on your "list" that you may chose over penn, i'm gonna spend the rest of this post trying to convince you that penn bioengineering (BE) is the best ;)</p>

<p>we just got a new BE building, and there are mad research dollars flowing to the BE program. there's a (quite flattering) article here about penn BE (<a href="http://www.seas.upenn.edu/alumni/PennEngNews_F06.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.seas.upenn.edu/alumni/PennEngNews_F06.pdf&lt;/a&gt;) that gives you a good idea of where the department is going.</p>

<p>one of the benefits of choosing penn BE is that u can get an interdisciplinary academic experience. since you have a clear interest in debate, economics, statistics, leadership, math in addition to biomed engineering, you shud def consider the Jerome Fisher Management and Technology program at penn. its a joint-degree program where u can get a Bachelors in Bioengineering AND a business degree from the Wharton school in four years. we have pretty similar stats/extracurrics (research, debate, music), except you seem even better :) i also had no true business experience, but they're not looking for that - just leadership and dedicated involvement in activities beyond the realm of school. also the job placement after graduation is amazing, regardless of whether you're looking for a career in technical work (r&d management), biotech/pharma/med device consulting, or banking.</p>

<p>check the website out for more info: <a href="http://www.upenn.edu/fisher%5B/url%5D"&gt;www.upenn.edu/fisher&lt;/a>. feel free to PM me if u have any questions, and good luck on college apps man.</p>

3

<p>I actually want to do chemistry at Penn SAS or biomedical science at Penn SEAS, but I'd need to take physics at a community college to even stand a chance at Penn SEAS. My school is very biology and chemistry oriented, the first more than the latter. Our AP Physics class got canceled, and honors physics doesn't fit into my schedule.</p>

4

<p>so abhim89 you are in the jerome fischer program? also, I can then but BE as my fallback major right? also, my school goes on a 4.33=A+ so that's how i have 4.13 UW. it's not weighted on rigor at all.</p>

5

<p>niceilike, colleges don't calculate unweighted like that. More importantly, most colleges gives As and A+s the same point value. Calculate your unweighted like this, no +s or -s:</p>

<p>A=4
B=3</p>

6

<p>ok..then it's like 3.99 or 4 because i have all As and A+s in my academic subjects 9-11, with one A- frosh year. But i do think that having A+s helps because obviously there is a difference in your performance between a 97 or higher (A+) and a 92 or higher (A). 10/11 my gpa is 4.245=almost all A+s. I'm sure it counts for something, especially since they look comparatively in your school and almost 30 kids from my school apply to Penn yearly.</p>

7

<p>yes, having the stellar grades helps (obviously); the use of unweighted and weighted gpas simultaneously allows for a balanced performance evaluation that can be used for students from different schools.</p>

<p>for example, my dear old high school gave me a gpa out of 7.0; due to weighting factors (and grades given numerically), the top kids all had a gpa difference of 0.001 or so between ranks; the use of the unweighted gpa showed how we all had a perfect 4.0.</p>

<p>penn bioengineering was just ranked #1 for faculty productivity here:</p>

<p><a href="http://chronicle.com/stats/productivity/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://chronicle.com/stats/productivity/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>if you apply to m&t, you can list seas and bioengineering as your second choice school.</p>

8

<p>At my schools, it's just way too hard to get A+s in the higher level classes, let alone As for that matter. So, almost everyone high up has unweighted GPAs that are in the high 3.8X range.</p>

9

<p>at mine too- there's prbly just 2 or 3 of us who manage it not to brag or anything b/c thats not my thing</p>

10

<p>yeah niceilike, i'm an incoming m&t (obviously majoring in bioengineering on my engineering side). when i applied to penn i listed bioengineering as my second choice, but i know that a number of people listed wharton as their second choice instead. the decision is really up to you.</p>

<p>i know that "stats" are a terrible metric for judging people, but from looking at your "stats" it seems to me that the m&t program is an awesome fit for you.</p>

11

<p>yea i'm definitely going to apply to it. i was actually considering the vagelos program when my interest was bio not bioengineering. And also, my non-science extracurriculars will help for this too then. applying RD doesn't hurt too much right? because i'm not sure it's my absolute first choice</p>

12

<p>i did ED. i think it helped me a lot because about i think half or so of the M&T class of '11 were EDers (the ED pool was obviously smaller). they don't release any statistics tho</p>

<p>def visit campus before u make the decision. also when you visit, make sure you schedule a meeting with the M&T office to get a better idea of the program.</p>

13

<p>just out of curiousity, what does the program add besides the dual degrees-like at MIT it's common enough for people to get a business degree from Sloan, and an engineering degree (sloan is definitely up there with wharton)-is there some added benefit to doing M&T over a double major, esp at a school with a similar caliber b-school and potentially better engineering?</p>

14

<p>yes, the joint degree is easier to complete than a dual degree, because the total number of credits is just a tiny bit less...</p>

<p>that, and the joint degree acceptance assures you of the joint degree, while dual degrees must be applied for after the first year, in which acceptance is based solely on gpa (internal transfer / dual to wharton)</p>

15

<p>i remember investigating the possibility of doing a sloan+engineering program at MIT, and i remember hearing that you cannot graduate in less than five years (and most likely six). college is fun and all, but at the same time i'd like to get on with my life (and remember an extra year of college is another 50 grand). M&T also has a bunch of crossover classes that connect engineering+business, and the program cross-eliminates a few requirements rather than forcing you to complete each and every course requirement for both concurrent degree programs. </p>

<p>there are also a whole bunch of reasons why i chose M&T over MIT - PM me your email address because the list is just waay too long.</p>

16

<p>i'll prbly visit this summer and talk to some people. my dad has some connections through his former PHD advisor so maybe i'll meet some profs too. for some reason i just can't see myself doing ed anywhere because i want to have the options before i make a choice. the main thing that would prevent me from committing ed to penn is that i'm really more focused on the engineering part, and the business thing was just something that came to mind after you mentioned it. if i really consider that, then i'll definitely give penn more consideration. thanks for all your help though, and i'll contact you if i end up at the point where i need to make a decision!</p>