<p>I have about a 3.4 GPA right now and a 3.77 GPA in my first trimester of senior year. Junior year I had a 3.405 because of bad grades in Alg2. My ecs are very close to my major. I started a business that has 10 clients at the moment generating XX,XXX in revenue. I have good letters of rec and my essays are good from what I have heard from UPENN and Berekely students. ACT scores are just in the middle for UPENN...basically all other aspects of my application are good except for my gpa. How much will it effect my chances? The explanation for the GPA is lack of knowledge on how college apps work but it's not really relevant.</p>
<p>You sound like you’re quite set on attending a school like Penn and you’re right in the ball park in most aspects. Honestly though I’ve talked to admissions officers at Penn and they all say the first thing they look at is the applicant’s transcript. It gives them the best long-term sense of how you perform academically (testing is only one instance). Your GPA is really out of range for a school like Penn. Provided your essays, scores and recs are as good as you say:</p>
<p>Penn: High Reach
Berkeley: Low Reach</p>
<p>Oh thanks for the post Whartondreamer. I wasn’t thinking about to Berkeley since I probably can’t afford OOS tuition. I mentioned Berkeley because a student I know helped revised my essay. Would applying to CAS for economics make it easier to get in? Any other school suggestions?</p>
<p>CAS is definitely the easiest school in Penn to get into - the other schools sometimes have acceptance rates on par with Stanford, Harvard, etc etc. Honestly if Penn is your passion, then apply but make sure you put a 110% of YOU into that application. With your stats I would look maybe a couple tiers down for other schools: UNC Chapel Hill, CMU, UMich, UT-Austin, NYU, Notre Dame. Just a few suggestions :)</p>
<p>I cant afford public Us cause its OOS and 50k a year with just FAFSA money wont be enough. I don’t think I will get much merit aid either, if I got in.</p>
<p>i think you still have a shot</p>
<p>Thanks guys. BUMP</p>
<p>CAS is not the easiest school at Penn to get into. The acceptance rate is a bit lower than engineering and nursing. Regardless, there is not that much difference between getting accepted into any of the four schools. Wharton might have a slightly lower acceptance, but the quality of students accepted is identical to those who get accepted to the other schools.</p>
<p>OP says “I cant afford public Us cause its OOS and 50k a year with just FAFSA money wont be enough. I don’t think I will get much merit aid either, if I got in.”</p>
<p>I think with your low-ish GPA that, baring some miracle or amazing hooks and truly amazing EC’s that Penn is likely out of reach unfortunately.</p>
<p>Re: your above quote, if you can’t afford out-of-state public with just FAFSA $, how would you afford Penn? It’s just as expensive, if not more expensive, than going to an out-of-state public university, and Penn + other Ivies don’t give merit scholarships either. They just meet FAFSA need with grants in most cases.</p>
<p>What Poeme said contradicts what I have said. If he/she does attend Penn, then please take that information to heart. My apologies if my information was off!</p>
<p>I’m very low income so the net price for me going to Penn in low. It’s on their website that if you income is <40k you will only pay X amount.</p>
<p>Thanks guys. BUMP</p>
<p>UPenn is a high reach with the GPA you have, unless you have some serious hooks (URM, first gen, athlete, multi-legacy, famous, patents, etc) that you haven’t mentioned.</p>
<p>Are you thinking of applying to Wharton? If so, then high high reach as you mentioned you had poor grades in Algebra 2. Trouble with math doesn’t bode well with Wharton applications. Are you taking AP calc AB or BC this year?</p>
<p>Can I ask what your “middle for UPenn” ACT score is? And you didn’t mention any AP classes. Did you take any of those, and what were your AP Scores? Any SAT2 subject test scores you can share?</p>
<p>Penn and other Ivies are looking for rigorous course loads, in addition to all the extras.</p>
<p>P.S. You’d mentioned “The explanation for the GPA is lack of knowledge on how college apps work”. Yeah — don’t use that as an explanation! You’re effectively saying that you didn’t know you needed really good grades to get into the best colleges.</p>
<p>P.P.S. Grade-wise there’s no fixing the low GPA given that you’re coming up on 2/3 through your senior year. While you haven’t shared your Freshman and Soph grades, the admissions reps will see those too. Backing it out, you say: Sr yr first 1/3 3.77 GPA; Jr year 3.405 GPA, and overall right now 3.4 GPA. That means freshman and soph years averaged less than a 3.4 GPA. So let’s say you went 3.3, 3.3, 3.4, and then a 3.77 in first trimester of final year — that’s an upward trend, but not hugely and not enough to likely get yourself into Penn. Sorry to be the bearer of likely bad news, but the logical conclusion to the info you’ve given us is to apply to one Ivy equivalent as a high reach and then apply to more likely matches.</p>
<p>5 AP classes, 6 honors. I have about the hardest course load my school allows. I didn’t take Ap tests cause I heard most schools don’t accept them. Freshman year 2.9, Soph 3.405, Junior 3.405, and senior is 3.77. I’m an URM and am currently in Honors Precalc. I think my excuse is a reasonable one. There are lots of kids who go into high school not knowing anything until it’s too late. Neither of my parents went through the process and I had to do all of it by myself. At my school it takes 2-3 days to even get an appointment with a counselor that usually lasts 10 minutes.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t use that excuse. If anything it will just reflect poorly on you. My parents didn’t go through the US school system either (both immigrants) but I found a way to figure it out, not to make you feel bad or anything but that’s just likely how they would expect people to handle that kind of situation. Upward trends are always a plus for students with lower-ish overall averages. If you have a letter of rec that could comment on how much you’ve improved and things like that, it could help too, especially if you had a teacher for more than one year/class and they were able to witness that growth in you. Starting your own business shows good initiative and highlights a good work ethic among other things so I can imagine that helping you as well. Good luck!</p>