Inside look into Penn Admissions

<p>Uhm... Im intl and my school always send 1-2 students to Penn who applied regular decision. So if Im the first student applying ED and no one else is applying ED... is that an advantage? (ceteris paribus)</p>

<p>tentatively, i think it sounds like it would be.</p>

<p>I can't believe users on this thread are insinuating that having "some B's" on the transcript are killer for any applicant. The application process is so holistic that I doubt even an applicant with a 3.5 UW GPA(half A's and half B's) would be rejected outright if all of the rest of his/her credentials were stellar like having amazing essays, powerful letters of recommendation, the most rigorous curriculum in the high school ever, strong extracurriculars, etc. No, I am not talking about athletes, URM's, legacies, or any other sort of developmental candidate either but rather a middle-class White or Asian. From what I've heard, unless you have MULTIPLE red flags in your application with academics included, it's the essays that truly make or break your decision.</p>

<p>certainly, but that's why i said that even if you do have some Bs you should work extra hard on your essays to make them shine. it's definitely worth a shot. penn especially likes people who can give really strong answers for why they want to go to penn and why they would be a good fit. early admissions is kinda a big thing here so that's a great opportunity.</p>

<p>also, as i said earlier, my observations about the people around me who had Bs aren't statistically a big part of the whole penn population. it's just that the people that i know who had some B/B+s and got in were legacies or athletes (and one extremely, extremely talented music major). i also didn't mention URMs. please interpret my posts accordingly. i am trying to help and give my own perspective from the reality and small population that i've interacted with on campus.</p>

<p>I think something sounds wrong. I find it really hard to believe that a student with a few B's is almost automatically rejected unless he or she saved drowning victims of Katrina or the like. Students who take AP classes in subjects they are not best in, should not be shunned because they earned a B. Also, I do not believe the average Penn student had an unweighted GPA of 4.</p>

<p>
[quote]
Also, I do not believe the average Penn student had an unweighted GPA of 4.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>You are definately right. According to the data provided by Collegeboard, only "60% had h.s. GPA of 3.75 and higher". Even considering athletes, legacies and URMs, that figure would still have to be higher if every normal applicant would need a close to 4.0 GPA to be admitted.</p>

<p>That article was from 1998 (they are discussing the class of 2002), quite awhile ago by today's standards.</p>

<p>a "sprinkling of Bs" ? i think it was only a factor because she had a "rigorous curriculum" as opposed to the "most rigorous" one possible. </p>

<p>taking madd difficult IB/AP classes and remaining val would be a difficult thing to do if i tried to keep a 4.0 - i hope the rest of my app makes up for my "sprinkling of Bs". i almost feel like i have to apologize. lol</p>

<p>Lol, that article is so disconcerting...</p>

<p>agreed MadHatter hah ^^; even though it was from almost a decade ago...</p>

<p>but then, shouldn't this all be 10x worse now? because acceptance rates have dropped and applicant numbers just keep going up... </p>

<p>I wonder if decisions for RD are hashed out that quickly.. well, probably not because they have a lot longer to consider things but.. goodness o_o</p>

<p>wow that makes me SO nervous....</p>

<p>as if I weren't already....</p>

<p>Don't worry too much about the B's, unless you have more B's/C's than A's. Then there's a problem. But your GPA would probably be floating in the 3.3 range anyway, which isn't good. </p>

<p>The best thing to take away from this article is how absolutely random the entire process is.</p>