ED Chances for Wharton?

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Pennsylvania
1

<p>Hey everyone,</p>

<p>I'm wrapping up my junior year in high school and wanted to get some input of my chances at Wharton, preferably from people who have first hand experience. My stats are below:</p>

<p>GRADES
Freshman Year
All on level classes... About 50/50 As and Bs, all "borderline"
Sophomore Year
2 honors, 2 APs... Again, about 50/50 As and Bs & "borderline"
3 on AP World, 4 on APCS
Junior Year
2 honors, 4 APs, 2 AP Self Studies
All As, in the 92-98 range
Expecting 5 on AP Stat, Macro, US History, Env. Science (Self Study)
Expecting 4 on Micro, Human Geo (self study)
Senior Year
Will be applying ED, so I don't think they will see any of my senior grades... my schedule for next year is: AP BC Calc, AP Lang, AP Comp. Gov., AP US Gov., AP Physics B (highest physics that school offers), Honors Spanish 4, and AP Psychology</p>

<p>TESTS
34 ACT
780 SAT Math II
740 SAT Physics
760 SAT US History</p>

<p>ECs
Varsity track, XC freshman and sophomore years
President of Investment Club Junior Year (member all 4 years)
Elected SGA Treasurer senior year
Elected to Student Leadership Council senior year
Active member in INTERACT Club (community service)
Eagle Scout
Going to Wharton's LBW summer program this summer (between junior and senior years)
Started a business (more on this below)
In the beginning process of creating a charity with dozens of other high school students from around the world
Will be inducted into 3 honor societies senior year (mu alpha theta, NHS, national history honors society)</p>

<p>ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Started tech company in 8th grade (iPhone apps)
Daily revenue has exceeded $4,000
Apps used by over 40k people daily
One app peaked at #2 in the entire Apple App Store (above Facebook, Groupon, etc.)
Over 4,000,000 downloads
Backed out of a 6-figure venture round for another company I was working on to focus more time on school
Company has been featured in New York Times and on the front page of my local newspaper
I had 2 full time employees at company's peak (have since scaled down to focus on school)
Recruited ex-CFO of major internet gaming company to sit on my board of directors
Recruited ex-SVP of business dev. at XBox Live to manage day-to-day operations of company while I was at school</p>

<p>OTHER
Teacher recs will be awesome
Essays should be great too
Will probably get the ex-CFO that I recruited for my board to write a rec letter as well
School does not report rank/percentile (they do report mean standardized test scores though and number of APs, both of which I am in the top percentile in)
AP Scholar w/ Distinction
Received University of Rochester Xerox Award
Received $2000 Discus Scholarship for Outstanding achievement outside of the classroom
Going to Apple's Worldwide Developer's Conference this summer for a week</p>

<p>I know my grades the 1st 2 years were below average. However, and this is by no means an excuse, my company <em>was</em> taking up an incredible portion of my time then and interfered with school sometimes when I had to fly across the country to talk to CEOs of game studios about partnerships. </p>

<p>Just some additional info: a person from my school (small private school... 100ish per grade) got accepted to Wharton last year (she/he also got rejected to LBW). Although their ECs weren't as good, their grades were higher (presumably nearly all As all throughout hs)</p>

<p>What do you think my chances are?</p>

2

<p>Bump?
10char</p>

3

<p>It’s hard to tell how good your grades are. Any idea what ranking you are in your school?</p>

<p>Honestly though, I think if you can write a great essay about your company, you have a good shot. Your test scores are probably good enough, and your entrepreneurial activity seems like something Wharton values a lot. Best of luck; I’d accept you if I were making the decision :D</p>

4

<p>^ My school doesn’t rank.</p>

<p>I was able to figure out that the person who got accepted from my school last year had all As, except for one B and they had the highest GPA in their grade (they only give the salutatorian and valedictorian… no other ranking besides that).</p>

<p>I obviously have significantly more Bs, but they were all freshman and sophomore years. Will they take into account my strong upward trend and the fact that I was managing a six-figure business during my freshman and sophomore years?</p>

<p>Like I said in the 1st post, I actually got accepted to Wharton’s LBW program this summer while the person from my school who got accepted to Wharton actually was rejected to LBW. Does this mean anything?</p>

5

<p>Why are you asking? You are in if all that is true!</p>

6

<p>^ What…</p>

<p>LBW and Penn itself have different admissions criteria. Getting accepted to LBW might mean you have a good application, but it certainly doesn’t mean you will get accepted to Penn. That other student you talked about could’ve written incredible essays wich may have gotten him accepted.</p>

7

<p>Yes, everything is true or is expected to occur (like getting my Eagle Scout, some test scores, etc… I only listed them if I was almost positive they would come true though).</p>

<p>I know that LBW and Wharton have different admissions criteria which is what I am worried about. Sure, my ECs are probably above average and my test scores are probably average, but I am afraid that my freshman and sophomore grades might ruin everything. I haven’t seen anyone post on CC that they got in with less than like a 3.8 UW… Mine is like a 3.7 if you include the 1st 2 years.</p>

<p>I would love to hear more opinions…</p>

<p>Also, what would you recommend me doing to increase my chances? I think that there isn’t much I can really do about my grades or test scores, but what else can give me that extra edge? I will be gone nearly the entire summer at the LBW program and Apple’s conference, so I can’t do anything too time consuming.</p>

8

<p>If it makes you feel any better if I was a Wharton adcom I would take you in a heartbeat because of your EC’s. I find it much more impressive that you started substantial business over some cookie cutter 4.0/2300 kid.</p>

9

<p>^Thanks haha. I really tried to go overboard with my academics this year though to show them that I <em>am</em> smart and not just some lucky kid with a business.</p>

<p>Also, I taught myself Objective-C (programing language) from watching Stanford’s online lectures when I was in 9th grade… Should I include this on my application? I don’t think that they would care that it was from another school, especially since I am applying ED.</p>

<p>Lastly, does anyone think that they <em>wouldn’t</em> accept me or that my odds are not good? I really do want to hear from everyone and not just people who say what I want to hear.</p>

10

<p>Bump      </p>

11

<p>Oh, and if it matters, more than 6% of US teens use the product that I developed (probably more than 7.5% by the time I apply)…</p>

12

<p>There was one kid who went to LBW but didn’t get into Wharton this year. I seem to remember his post about transferring to Wharton.
His stats are here.
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-pennsylvania/1323641-worth-trying-sophomore-transfer-wharton.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-pennsylvania/1323641-worth-trying-sophomore-transfer-wharton.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

13

<p>Sorry for bumping it again, but I would love to hear some more opinions.</p>

<p>About the person above who gave the link to the guy who went to lbw but got rejected, it looks like he didn’t have too many ECs and just decent grades. Is that correct or did I miss something?</p>