<p>Hey everyone, this question is really for people who were accepted to UPenn (Wharton) or an equivalently amazing school for business. How does UPenn weigh extracurricular? I've won three State championships: one for a History competition, one for a Literature competition, and the other for a Current Events competition. Does any of that REALLY matter if say, I made a stupid decision to take non-advanced classes my Freshman year and that killed my rank to 49/500? I mean, I intend to take 7 AP classes next year and 8 Senior year to attempt to rectify that, but will it be enough?
Thanks.</p>
<p>Eh I don’t personally think ranking plays as heavy a role as people often assume it does, especially at Penn. A classmate and I were both accepted to Wharton/CAS ED despite being lower ranked than our valedictorian who was rejected from Wharton during the RD round. I think Penn cares more about a strong junior/senior year transcript with a good upward trend if you didn’t do too well as an underclassmen.</p>
<p>Those are still academic, extracurriculars in other areas such as sports or music would stand out more. And 7 and 8 AP classes? Aren’t you required to take gym and electives?</p>
<p>Our local high school, which is in the top 5% of our state rankings (and our state is in the top three in the US), frowns upon more than 5 AP and honors classes overall. If you can ace them and get 4 or 5 on each AP exam, they probably would not care if you were a felon.</p>