Low GPA (Below a 3.5, Do I have a shot at ED CAS?]

Colleges & Universities A-Z University of Pennsylvania
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<p>GPA: 3.4/4.00 6.4/7.0 W [Freshman-Junior year GPA can be explained somewhat]
Trend:
Freshman Year: 3.4 [6.4]
Sophomore Year: 2.6 [5.6] [killing me]
Junior Year: 3.2 [6.2]
Senior Year: 4.0 [7.0] [taking 6 AP and 2 Honors Classes [Multivariable is one of the honors] [Through 1 MP]</p>

<p>Class Rank: Top 10% out of 550 when senior year grades included
School Type: Public, Sends many students to top schools [7 went to Penn last year, 6 of them through ED]
State: NJ</p>

<p>Schedule: Most Rigorous (9 AP, 14 Honors)</p>

<p>Grade Breakdown:
AP classes 8 As, 1 B [Including Sr year 1st MP]
Honors Classes: 4 As, 8 Bs, 2 Cs [Including Sr year 1st MP]</p>

<p>Senior Year Schedule:
Physics AP - A
European History AP - A
World History AP - A
English AP - A
French AP - A
Multi-Variable - A
Psychology AP - A
Spanish AP - A
US History [Online] - 99</p>

<p>Scores</p>

<p>SAT: 2120/2400
760 Math
640 Critical Reading
720 Writing [11 Essay]</p>

<p>ACT: 36 [36 Science, 36 Math, 36 English, 35 Reading, 11 Essay]</p>

<p>Subject Tests:
Bio-E: 710 [got a b in spysics honors]
Math2: 780 [Got a C in precalc honors]
Chem: 800 [Got a C in honors chem]
Physics: 800 [got a b in physics honors]
US: 800 [got a b in us history ap]</p>

<p>AP Tests:
Calc BC: 5 [AB Subscore: 5]
Statistics: 4</p>

<p>ECs:</p>

<ul>
<li>Theater (Musical and Drama): Lead Roles in all but 1 show</li>
<li>Habitat for Humanity (President of local chapter): Have been on mission trips</li>
<li>Tutor an Autistic Child in Math [he's learning calculus right now]</li>
<li>Organized a concert in a third world country, raised $24,000 which was donated to charity [I sang 5 songs as well]</li>
<li>Helped special needs children at a school</li>
<li>Organized a cultural show [about my culture] in my area a few times to raise awareness [I was the MC, $10,000 raised to charity]</li>
<li>Also Organized a tolerance awareness thing concerning the Israel Palestine affairs [I was the main speaker]</li>
<li>Volunteer with MoveOn.org; I may do a run from New Jersey to Washington DC To raise money for a foundation
[I did the charity things on my own]</li>
</ul>

<p>Work Experience:</p>

<ul>
<li>Worked at Penn as a research assistant [influential professor in his department but I'm not applying to that one.]</li>
<li>Website Designer</li>
<li>Graphics Designer</li>
</ul>

<p>Other:</p>

<ul>
<li>Chemistry Club</li>
<li>Biology Club</li>
<li>Medical Club</li>
<li>Choir</li>
<li>Green Hope Ambassador</li>
<li>Gay Straight Alliance</li>
<li>Badmitten Club</li>
<li>AIME Qualifier</li>
<li>Honor Roll [lol]</li>
</ul>

<p>Misc
Teacher Recs: Great
Additional Rec [research mentor]: Excellent
Guidance Rec: Excellent
Essay: Amazing [if anybody wants to read them]. Probably the best part of my application.</p>

<p>I've worked at Penn all summer. I've spoken to students. I know exactly why I love Penn and how I could fit in.</p>

2

<p>i’ll read them</p>

3

<p>I certainly hope your 2 C’s won’t matter with those strong ECs and ACT score.</p>

4

<p>PM me your essays and i can even give u great feedback as my aunt is a career counsellor.</p>

5

<p>You have a shot (everyone does) but it’s always an uphill battle.</p>

<p>I suffer from the same problem of a low GPA but I have a very sharp upward trend working in my favor. You have something of the type but your soph/junior grades will hurt.</p>

6

<p>Seems unlikely.</p>

<p>Edit - your organization of various charity/tolerance functions may help, but I’m not sure how much they can offset your academic performance.</p>

<p>Your SAT IIs are also excellent - if you could just raise that Critical Reading SAT score to a 750+ (which would be a huge bump) you would have a shot, actually.</p>

<p>My thoughts - you may not get into Penn or any other Ivy, but you will get into a decent top 20 college. And when you do, work your butt off and transfer to an Ivy. Yale, Penn, Columbia, Stanford, Duke, et al. all accept transfers.</p>

7

<p>^You don’t have to work your butt off to transfer to an Ivy. A senior of mine left high school a year early to attend Boston U. A year later, she got accepted into Penn as a transfer. The most important thing is to be committed to and truly interested in what you’re studying. If you do that, then where you’re attending college or things like that will be secondary factors that fall into place.</p>

8

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<p>How do you know she didn’t work very hard to excel in her classes at BU? Do you know that she just slacked off and got Bs, yet somehow transferred to Penn successfully?</p>

9

<ol>
<li>It’s hard to transfer into Ivies.<br></li>
<li><p>Your GPA might have improved in 12th grade, but you had a blunder in 10th and 11th grade… and they really start cracking down after freshman year. Fine, maybe a few B’s in 9th grade, but you really need to up the level at 10th-12th. That’s absurd. Your tests grades are better than your grades, just saying.</p></li>
<li><p>And pablo, you say et al. a lot.</p></li>
</ol>

10

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<p>True. But this is a website, not a writing seminar, and it helps me communicate.</p>

11

<p>over the last 5 years [from the class of 05] Penn has accepted 26 students from my public school</p>

<p>i just thought it was important</p>

12

<p>^^ lashana tova! and btw, what was the avg gpa of thos accepted penn students?</p>

13

<p>I wasn’t criticizing your use of et al. I just pointed it out :P</p>