help me decide whether to risk it or play it safe

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Hello!
I am a rising senior and one of my dream schools is Penn or the University of Pennsylvania.
I know I am not a strong candidate but I always wanted to give it a shot.
I am aware that Penn requires the entire testing history, however I did not know that meant subject tests too. In a nutshell, my ACT scores are superior to my SAT and SAT II scores.
I have taken the ACT 3 times. I scored a 25, a 27 and then a 30. I will be taking it again in the fall and will focus primarily on math because that is my weakness. My writing scores were 9,10, and 11 respectively.
I have taken the SAT two times. I scored a 1780 (610 CR, 590 M, 610 W) and then a 1700 (590 CR, 550 M, 560 W)
I have taken 3 SAT II’s- Biology E (590) and Math 2 twice (490 sophomore year and 550 this year). I made the dumb mistake by not studying for any of my SAT II’s.

So now with my scores, is it worth even applying to Penn? It would be expensive just for testing history alone but it would be doable if I had a chance

Thank you for your time!

2

It seems your scores are too low for UPenn.

3

The way admissions work, officers find reasons to argue FOR you to their colleagues on the board of admissions, not against you, and if there’s enough evidence for you being a competitive applicant, you stand a chance for admission. That being said, I’m not sure if Penn requires Subject tests. If it does, you need to prioritize that and get them to generally competitive levels (which would be ballpark 700 on each of them). However they’re not likely to even put your existing bad scores into consideration (unless they do require them after all and you haven’t bumped up your scores). Assuming you’re fine for the subject tests, your ACT is still in the lower range of their admit pool, so you have to be realistic about your expectations.