So I am a legacy at UPenn. I could not apply ED because my test scores were not ready. Is there anyway I could tell the school through my app that this is the reason why I didn’t apply early?
You certainly may. I double that it would make any difference.
The Admissions Office website acknowledges that “children and grandchildren of alumni will receive the most consideration” for acceptance under ED.
There are plenty of students that couldn’t apply ED because their scores, grades, essays, or another part of the application wasn’t ready. I wouldn’t try to ‘explain’ the situation because admissions officers could – and frankly would – see it as an excuse.
I don’t know much about the application process at UPenn, but they do rely heavily on ED and admit a lot of legacies who apply that way. Perhaps you could submit a supplementary letter in which you explain the reason you didn’t apply ED, note that you’re a legacy and commit to enrolling if admitted. I doubt it could hurt, and it might help - but you’d better be prepared to live up to it. It’s unlikely but not impossible that if, say, Penn and Harvard admit you and you think you can turn down Penn for Harvard, that your college counselor or the Penn admissions office rats you out and both offers get rescinded.
When I went to an on-campus Penn info session a couple years ago, they were very clear that legacy status is only of minimal help (basically, it’s a tiebreaker), and even then that it’s only considered in the ED round—so if you’re applying RD, it doesn’t matter anyway.
There is no explanation to give that will help your application. Saying you didn’t have strong enough test scores in time to apply ED will not help your application. People choose to apply RD for many reasons. I would apply RD, make your interest in Penn very apparent in any supplemental essay, and hope for the best.
I’m in this camp. IMO, an explanation would just cause the AO to wonder why advance planning for earlier testing was not done if the applicant knows that Penn values ED for legacy. Getting scores/grades up should not be a reason, as a legacy bump would not help if the balance of the application were not already strong.