<p>A classmate of mine was accepted to UPenn with the following stats:
<1300 SAT (did not report)
31 ACT (superscored)
4.0 Unweighted, 4.5 weighted (5.0 scale)
No sports; in three clubs, president of one.
Hispanic (white), female.
Very wealthy.</p>
<p>Must've written some DARN GOOD essays to negate those test scores. I'm shocked after looking at the stats of some people who were rejected.</p>
<p>Not really. :UPenn did not see the 1300 SAT1. Therefore the 31 ACT score was used putting her into the mid 50% category of accepted students. GPAs are examined on an unweighted scale with weights attributable to advanced courses taken away and then added in to see what the difficulty of curriculum. The .5 bump is good that way. Being a URM would also swing the balance along with excellent recommendation and personal statements. ED also puts more odds on her side. Congrats to her!</p>
<p>Well, she didn’t report her SAT score. I got in with a 32 ACT, 31 is well within normal for Penn. She had ECs, took a leadership role, is Hispanic, and may have written good essays. She doesn’t sound like a shoe-in, but definitely within the range that Penn accepts.</p>
<p>Also, it’s always important to remember that no college compares students just based on their GPAs, or their scores, or even their essays. It’s a big mix of stuff, so while her scores may be lower than other peoples’, Penn wanted her for other reasons.</p>
<p>Also keep in mind that your friend isn’t obligated to tell her every last detail of her life. She probably has a hidden talent you know nothing about. She may have done something at a program at Penn one summer that set her apart, caught the right person’s attention. She got in there on her own merit. And also? The stats you posted are very good ones. The entire world isn’t made up of kids with 34 ACTs.</p>
<p>Penn would rather see a few ECs that she dedicated herself to. That she threw herself into, RATHER than somebody who did a million EC’s but didn’t put much into and didn’t show much passion for. They know that those types of kids do that just to do that.</p>
<p>And she may have done something that you don’t know about that set her apart. She may have expressed some passion, some real knowledge for penn, in her essays. Something stood out to them about her, and you shouldn’t be bitter. Her getting in wasn’t arbitrary. She was carefully selected.</p>
<p>Listen to yourself. you sound like an a-hole saying something like that. Look, it sucks not getting in but that sort of thinking is inexcusable and unjustified.</p>
<p>How much do you REALLY know about Penn? There are a lot of opportunities there as a high school student. SAAST, for one. She may have gone there and got noticed.</p>
<p>And again, hidden talents. </p>
<p>You are missing the point. There are reasons, and just because you don’t know them doesn’t mean that they’re not there. She has the right to privacy, and you on the other hand, sound extremely bitter. Her essays may have been phenomenal, as well.</p>
<p>I did not get rejected and I’m not bitter. Rather, I’m genuinely curious because I can tell you with 99.99% certainty that there is no hidden talent I’m unaware of. There are 80 students in my class and we know everything about everyone. We are an incredibly close knit group. Sorry you took offense at my joke.</p>
<p>And no, she did not attend SAAST.</p>
<p>Well you can thank AA for that one…</p>
<p>Sorry, it’s hard to tell online! </p>
<p>Look, I come from a small school too. Secrets exist. Rest assured that she earned getting in. There’s no point to conjecture.</p>
<p>I wonder if the she was thinking about the SAT on the old 1600 scale, but that doesn’t matter. Penn never saw it.</p>
<p>Your friend has a 4.0 GPA, and an ACT within the range for Penn. She has leadership and extracurricular involvement. You have no idea what was said in her recs or her essays, but they could have been instrumental in getting her in; in a sea full of comparable numbers (and ECs in most cases), those are going to be vitally important. And, yes, being Hispanic likely helps to a degree, but everything you presented leads me to believe that she is qualified. Congrats to her.</p>
<p>She most likely had some great essays. It’s probably that simple.</p>
<p>I sense envy. Remember that students are selected. Earning admission is a mirage. This is not to demean the efforts of students. All those years of hardworking and sacrifice and excellence put you on the radar, they get you noticed…then Penn does the rest by selecting who they feel will benefit the most and enrich the most the life of the student body for years to come. I think that essays that show that you get that matter vs essays about how you earned it. I’m no expert though…just sayin.</p>