How hard is it to get in. REALLY. ..?

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Pennsylvania
1

<p>i guess i’m just not sure as to how competitive getting into upenn really is. compared to harvard, princeton, yale…is it as selective?
i have heard that to schools like harvard, princeton, etc…you need to have done something amazing…like…go to africa and start an advocacy program or something extraordinary like that. i’ve heard that more than academics its the people who have done those amazing unique things that really get into schools like that. </p>

<p>is that true with upenn? is there no chance for me if i haven’t done something amazing and over the top like that ?</p>

2

<p>Penn is way up there in respect to the vast majority of universities. However there are a handful of schools that are clearly more selective than Penn, such as: Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, MIT/Caltech (different applicant pool) and Columbia. Other than those few schools I would say that Penn is just about as selective as it gets, yet you don't have to do anything extroardinary to gain admission.</p>

3

<p>umm I agree with nyjeff but I wouldn't put Columbia above Penn...</p>

4

<p>I would.
Columbia is insane.</p>

<p>...Even though Penn is always ranked higher. =)</p>

5

<p>I dunno about the college, but Columbia's SEAS Fu Foundation as reported by the Collegeboard has an acceptance rate of 68%, which is insanely high, even for early. </p>

<p><a href="http://apps.collegeboard.com/search/CollegeDetail.jsp?collegeId=3849&profileId=1%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://apps.collegeboard.com/search/CollegeDetail.jsp?collegeId=3849&profileId=1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

6

<p>68% for ED and 27% overall</p>

7

<p>Don't forget to put wharton on par with Harvard, Princeton, Yale</p>

8

<p>Columbia's low acceptance rate is deflated more by its location (and correspondingly high number of apps) moreso than its actual selectivity criteria.</p>

9

<p>
[quote]
i have heard that to schools like harvard, princeton, etc....you need to have done something amazing...like..go to africa and start an advocacy program or something extraordinary like that. i've heard that more than academics its the people who have done those amazing unique things that really get into schools like that.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I don't think that's true. Hence,</p>

<p>
[quote]
is there no chance for me if i haven't done something amazing and over the top like that ?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>There is a chance for you at all of them (Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Penn, etc).</p>

10

<p>Wharton is harder than HYPSM. For HYPSM you dont have to do something amazing, but for those who get in without that extra something, they are incredibly smart. So much so that it is a hook. Penn's college is at the next tier. It is almost as hard as HYPSM, but you will have more harvard rejects getting into penn than penn rejects getting into harvard. However, anything is possible so you could get rejected by WashU and accepted by Stanford. It is even more so that you could be rejected by Penn and accepted at Swarthmore (happened to a friend). LACs are the quirkiest because they are smalll and hand pick students even more than top colleges.</p>

11

<p>i know someone who got accepted to princeton and harvard, but got rejected from wash u.</p>

12

<p>ya COLUMBIA is a lot tougher than Penn.</p>

<p>look at the admissions rates.</p>

13

<p>i think you are building up the difficulty of getting into wharton...it is not much, if even at all, harder than hypsm and it is definitely not A LOT harder than the college.</p>

14

<p>yeah..wharton's not more selective than HYPSM...definitely not...It's not much easier, but it's definitely not harder</p>

15

<p>Wharton is insanely selective. So much so that there has not been any students admitted to Wharton the last five years.</p>

16

<p>Acceptance to wharton was 9% this year. I think people really put HYP up on another level because of the reputation when in fact wharton is every bit as hard to get into.</p>

17

<p>It's more like 12% overall.</p>

18

<p>Yeah, it's 12% overall..making it slightly less selective than HYPSM and columbia</p>

19

<p>Wharton is also a place for smarter recruited athletes to go to college and smarter legacies to go too (I'm talking your parents donated millions to Penn and you have 4.0 and 2300). My friend, recruited tennis player, was offered admission to Wharton. He did not have the grades for Wharton, but adjusting to the fact that he leaves school for many weeks during the school year, he may have had the stats to compete for the college at Penn. Also, there is a lot of self selection for applying to Wharton becasue not all top students want to go into business.</p>

20

<p>"ya COLUMBIA is a lot tougher than Penn.</p>

<p>look at the admissions rates."</p>

<p>How near-sighted (re: stupid) do you have to be to directly correlate acceptance rates with selectivity?</p>

<p>And I agree with the majority of comments about Wharton. It may have a really low acceptance rate, but that's mainly due to the fact that it has a very small class to fill. I know a lot of Wharton kids, and they don't seem any more accomplished or any smarter than most of the College kids here. Oh yes, it also seems as if many of the male athletes are in Wharton.</p>