Penn Class of 2022 ED Results ONLY

[AnthonyZ]

[ color=red]Decision: Rejected - SEAS[ /color]

Objective:
SAT I (breakdown M/CR/W/Essay): 1480 (800 M, 680 CR/W, 17 Essay)
SAT I superscore (breakdown M/CR/W/Essay): Same as above
ACT (breakdown): 34 (33 M, 31 S, 35 E, 3 R, 8 Essay)
ACT superscore (breakdown): Same as above
SAT II (subject, score): 770 Math 2, 800 Chemistry
Unweighted/Weighted GPA: 3.91/4.61
Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): 9/570
AP/IB (place score in parentheses): Calc AB (5), Chem (5), Micro Econ (4), Physics 1 (4), APUSH (4), English Lang (4), American Gov (4)
Senior Year Course Load: AP- Calc BC, Biology, English Lit., Human Geo. Honors- Civil Engineering, Biochemistry.
Number of other ED applicants in your school: zero
Major Awards (USAMO, Intel, etc.): 5th Place Regional chem Olympiad, Bausch + Lomb Honorary Science Award, Rotary Club student of the month,
Common Awards (AP Scholar, honor roll, NM things, etc.): AP Scholar with distinction

Subjective:
Extracurriculars (name, grade levels, leadership, description): Treasurer of NHS (11-12), President + Founder of Russian club (11-12), Penn State Hershey Med School Pulse program (work with physicians and med school students. studied cadavers) (11-12), Shadowed a rheumatologist (summer 11-12, 25 hours), Member of Technology Student Association (11-12)
Job/Work Experience: (Unpaid) internship at a hospital in my area. (summer of 11-12 grade. 40 hours)
Volunteer/Community Service: Mission Trips to Maine repairing homes or elderly, impoverished, and disabled. (summer 10-11 and 11-12)
Summer Experience: see other
Teacher Recommendation #1: AP Chem. I was the second best student in the class. Asked tons of questions inside and out of the curriculum. Always participated. Teacher liked me (he would comment on my hard work and attention to detail). I came in before and after school all the time.
Teacher Recommendation #2: AP Calc AB. I had her as a freshman, so I showed great maturity and development from freshman to junior year. Participated and asked involving questions. Frequently came in before and after class. I was funny in that class and made her laugh.
Counselor Rec: Generic. I got a glimpse of it and it looked like a template.
Additional Info/Rec:
Interview: Went great. Interviewee told me I had a very good plan and a solid understanding of Penn and what it has to offer.

Writing (Subject, 1-10 rating, details):
Why Penn: 9/10. Wrote about my class sit in Intro to Biomechanics. I wrote about how much I liked my conversations with the students and the classroom/student environment. I also wrote about how a bought and built a 3D printer and how I am excited to apply my skills to class work and the research that a particular professor is performing.
Any dual-degree program essays: NA
CommonApp Essay: 9.5/10 wrote about my new years resolution to drink a gallon of water a day and how I’ve collected the cap from every single bottle of water that I’ve drank. It is a very unique essay. I showed dedication, persistence, and passion. Everyone who read it laughed a lot.

Other:
Date Submitted App: October 25ish
U.S. State/Territory or Country: Pennsylvania, USA
School Type: Large Public. Mid tier.
Ethnicity: White/ Russian
Gender: Male
Income Bracket Range: 100-150k
Hooks (URM, first generation, recruited athelete, development): first gen American, bilingual (idk if those are hooks)

Reflection
Strengths: I thought my essays stood out. The best english teacher in my school loved them. They were both very unique. Common app was funny. Recs should’ve been pretty good, but no way of knowing.
Weaknesses: I had 5 B’s (only during freshman and sophomore year). My ECs were focused, but none showed long term dedication or anything super (though I did list that I had to take care of my family due to a family member’s illness). 1480 on SAT is weak.

Were else were you accepted/deferred/rejected: Nowhere yet
What would you have done differently?: I wish I did scientific research during high school.

Other Factors: Concussion during freshman year caused softer grades. 10% increase in ED applicants definitely took its toll. 25% of admitted students were legacies. I’m a white guy applying to engineering. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time haha.

[peapod19]

[color=green]Decision:Accepted-CAS[ /color]

Objective:
ACT superscore (breakdown): (34,30,36,32) 33C
SAT II (subject, score): Forgot to submit!
Unweighted/Weighted GPA: 3.8/4 UW 4.05/4.5
Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): top 10% (my counselor’s estimate b/c my high school doesn’t rank)
AP/IB (place score in parentheses): APUSH (5), U.S. Gov (5)
Senior Year Course Load: AP Calc AB, AP Physics C, AP Bio, AP Independent Study French (online), Honors interdisciplinary Social Studies, Religion, and English course
Number of other ED applicants in your school: none that I know of
Major Awards (USAMO, Intel, etc.): Alliance Française Scholarship (The AF is the hub of French learning for the entire world)
Common Awards (AP Scholar, honor roll, NM things, etc.): My school’s Department Award in French and Business, School’s President’s List each trimester

Subjective:
Extracurriculars (name, grade levels, leadership, description): Mock Trial Attorney and District Champion (9-12), President of DECA went to DECA state in International Business and Marketing Management (11-12), Link Crew Leader (11), Hosted a French Exchange Student (6-10), NHS (11-12), went to French camps (5-10), Taken classes at the Alliance Française (since forever), Alliance Française Scholarship Student which includes a variety of responsibilities (11-12), Three year varsity tennis award winner and USTA player (9-12)
Job/Work Experience: Work at a country club as a tennis desk
Volunteer/Community Service: worked on a local mayoral campaign and volunteer at a primarily East African grade school
Summer Experience:
Teacher Recommendation #1: French Teacher. 10/10. He said that I was the only underclassmen to win the French department award in his 30+ years teaching there
Teacher Recommendation #2: English Teacher. 9.5/10. Stanard positive rec and attested to my live and knowledge of French language and culture
Counselor Rec: 8/10 probably rather generic but she seemed to really like me
Additional Info/Rec: N/A
Interview: My interviewer was pretty stoic but he seemed to like me. 9/10

Writing (Subject,details):
Why Penn: 10/10 wrote about my interest in the French department and how Penn has an amazing community. I also wrote about the terrible harassment event that happened to a couple of African American freshman and how penn responded to it.
Any dual-degree program essays: N/A
CommonApp Essay: About French again lol

Other:
Date Submitted App: November 30
U.S. State/Territory or Country: MN
School Type: Catholic
Ethnicity: White
Gender: Male
Income Bracket Range: 250k
Hooks (URM, first generation, recruited athelete, development): N/A

Reflection
Strengths: passion for French, depth and breadth of ecs
Weaknesses: uw gpa, neglected to submit SAT IIs
Where else were you accepted/deferred/rejected: Accepted: U of Minnesota Twin Cities
What would you have done differently?: submitted SAT IIs

Other Factors: wrote about my homeless brother and the struggles I’ve had and he’s had through his disposition. Also, it helped that my app was quite cohesive w/ the theme of French. I guess Ivies like the passion and cohesiveness.

[mardenj]

Decision: Rejected - CAS for Philosophy, Politics, and Economics major

Objective:
ACT: 33C
ACT superscore (breakdown): (Reading 36, English 35, Math 31, Science 30)
SAT II (subject, score): Literature: 760, US History: 720
Unweighted/Weighted GPA: 3.58 UW, 3.8W (attend incredibly competitive score where no student has a 4.0 UW, but still it’s incredibly low for Penn. I tend to get B+/Bs in Language and Science courses :/)
Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): N/A
AP/IB (place score in parentheses): Macroeconomics: 5, Microeconomics: 5, AP CS: 3 (school only really offers 2 APs to non-seniors; 3 APs is the average by the end of high school so I’ll have taken twice the average)
Senior Year Course Load: AP AB Calculus, AP Art History, AP Physics C, Data Structures and Shakespeare
Number of other ED applicants in your school: 2, both rejected
Common Awards (AP Scholar, honor roll, NM things, etc.): AP Scholar

Subjective:
Extracurriculars (name, grade levels, leadership, description): Women’s Affinity Club: President in 12th, biggest club at my school that focuses on conversations about gender; organized a large joint meeting with the school’s Conservative Club (11,12.) Elected to All School Student Council (12). Environmental Club: President in 12th, host discussions on environmental issues and work with administration for greener campus (10-12). Microfinance Club: microfinances loans on Kiva, President 12th (11, 12). Swim Team (9-11). School Plays (9-12). Gender Sexuality and Diversity Club (9-11). Developing iPhone app centered around making my school’s schedule accessible (12). Computer Science Club (11-12). Key Club: nominated by College Counselors to show college admissions people around (12).
Job/Work Experience: Babysitter
Volunteer/Community Service: Volunteered at local food bank, local public school and to repaint a house.
Summer Experience: Took a summer course through an academic talent program at UC Berkeley in AP Econ. Got an A in class, used to notes to study for APs 10 months later and included teacher eval in my application. Took Game Theory through Brown program, got an A as well. Attended a summer course hosted at Cambridge in Law.
Teacher Recommendation #1: 10/10: Euro. history teacher who I really connect to and who I’ve had extensive conversations on the material outside of class. She knows my love of and abilities in history and philosophy very well.
Teacher Recommendation #2: 9/10: Computer Science teacher, probably talked about my leadership roles and drive to learn?
Counselor Rec: 9/10. Evidently likes me as she nominated me for Key Club. Hoping she explained my academic history well, not sure.
Additional Info/Rec: Sent my teacher evaluation for my AP Econ class- he mentioned I had the highest class grade on all practice APs and was effusive about my ability to ask questions and help others.
Interview: Really impressed the alum when talking about my extracurriculars and he told me repeatedly I was a great fit for Penn. However, I think I got nervous and didn’t explain why I love politics and history as well as I could have.
Writing (Subject, 1-10 rating, details):
Why Penn: 10/10: got a friend at Wharton to look at it and I think it did a good job showing what kind of student I would be on campus, using very specific details about the school and my interest in PPE.
CommonApp Essay: 8/10: talked about theater’s influence on my ability to listen and connected it to my work as President of Women’s Affinity and the joint meeting with Conservative Club. I think it was a good idea with good anecdotes but could have used more editing. Also maybe not personal enough.

Other:
Date Submitted App: 11/1 (I’m not proud okay)
U.S. State/Territory or Country: California
School Type: Challenging liberal-arts focused K-12 private school
Ethnicity: White
Gender: Female
Income Bracket Range: ~250k
Hooks (URM, first generation, recruited athlete, development): lol nope

Reflection
Strengths: Extracurriculars and Why Penn essay. Also maybe recs.
Weaknesses: GPA. Dear god, that GPA.
Where else were you accepted/deferred/rejected: This is my first one!
What would you have done differently?: I really should have addressed my low GPA straightforwardly, but I had trouble admitting I’m terrible at rote memorization (and therefore tank tests in classes like Science and Spanish which are based on that) while highlighting my strengths at deep understanding.
Other Factors: Not a great combo for admittance to be both out of a school’s ranges for GPA and from an overrepresented group (upper-middle class white girls), no matter how good your extracurriculars or recs are. Oh well, I understood it was a long shot.

[Penngirll]

[ color=green]Decision: Accepted - CAS[ /color]

Objective:
SAT I (breakdown M/CR/W/Essay): N/A
SAT I superscore (breakdown M/CR/W/Essay): N/A
ACT (breakdown): 32C (36R, 35E, 29M, 30S)
ACT superscore (breakdown): (same as above)
SAT II (subject, score): None
Unweighted/Weighted GPA: 4.83W, 3.9UW
Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): N/A
AP/IB (place score in parentheses): IB (no exams taken yet), AP Stat (4)
Senior Year Course Load: IB English HL, IB HOA HL, IB Physics HL, IB Math SL, IB Spanish SL, IB TOK
Number of other ED applicants in your school: ~20
Major Awards (USAMO, Intel, etc.):
Common Awards (AP Scholar, honor roll, NM things, etc.): honor roll all years

Subjective:
Extracurriculars (name, grade levels, leadership, description): Orchestra lead violinist, Theater company costumes head, NHS member, Photography award winner
Job/Work Experience: Interned at a non profit, also interned at Fashion company
Volunteer/Community Service: volunteer at two animal shelters, as well as other small community service projects
Summer Experience: internships past two years
Teacher Recommendation #1: Physics teacher – very good
Teacher Recommendation #2: History teacher – pretty good
Counselor Rec: good, not super personal
Additional Info/Rec:
Interview: very good

Writing (Subject, 1-10 rating, details):
Why Penn: 7
Any dual-degree program essays: N/A
CommonApp Essay: 9

Other:
Date Submitted App: 10/22/17
Applied for Financial Aid? no
U.S. State/Territory or Country: Pennsylvania
School Type: Public
Ethnicity: White
Gender: Female
Income Bracket Range: middle class
Hooks (URM, first generation, recruited athelete, development): my dad works there, connections to the president

Reflection
Strengths: My writing, recommendations, interview, and connections definitely helped
Weaknesses: My scores and gpa could’ve been better
Were else were you accepted/deferred/rejected: have not received any other decisions yet
What would you have done differently?: nothing

[qwerty0901]

[ color=orange]Decision: Deferred - LSM[ /color]
I applied ED to LSM and RD to CAS

Objective: (Only what I put on my app)
SAT I (breakdown M/CR/W/Essay):
SAT I superscore (breakdown M/CR/W/Essay):
ACT (breakdown): 36
ACT superscore (breakdown):
SAT II (subject, score): Chem 800, Math II 800
Unweighted/Weighted GPA: 4.7 W 3.98 UW
Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable):
AP/IB (place score in parentheses): Chem (5) Gov (5) Lang (4) Bio (5) Phys 1 (5) Span (5) Studio (5) Calc BC (5)
Senior Year Course Load: MVC, Independent Research, AP Macro/Micro, Sports Med, APUSH, AP Stats, AP Lit
Number of other ED applicants in your school:
Major Awards (USAMO, Intel, etc.):
Common Awards (AP Scholar, honor roll, NM things, etc.): AP Scholar, Nat Merit Semi, American Vision Nom, Scholastics (6 Gold, 2 Silver, 1 Honorable mention), Exemplary Student Researcher

Subjective: (Only what I put on my app)
Extracurriculars (name, grade levels, leadership, description): BPA (CP, State VP, Nat Ambassador, State Finalist, Merit Scholar), Argonne Nat Lab research (presented at users meeting, world data contribution), Fermilab Research (international database work), Mu Alpha Theta (CP), Speech (Exec, Sectionals Finalist, a lot of other regional tournaments), Led. Scholar, Art stuff (online commissions), WYSE (state qualifier in chem and bio)
Job/Work Experience: Data entry at Oncology Office, marketing internship at a big futures exchange company, chem lab tutor
Volunteer/Community Service: Hospital Volunteer, English Tutor
Summer Experience: nothing special imo-- I got 4.0 in Orgo. I self studied Spanish and skipped a year. I worked, volunteered, etc
Teacher Recommendation #1: AP Bio 7/10; did well, but we weren’t super close (but also she wasn’t really close to anyone else?)
Teacher Recommendation #2: AP Phys 1 9/10; did well, told me he wrote a really good one
Counselor Rec: 8/10; liked me, but was new this year–idk if it put me at a disadvantage. I think my old counselor put in a good word for me.
Additional Info/Rec:
Interview: good! really enjoyable-- we had friendly and casual correspondences. Told me not to worry about his rec.

Writing (Subject, 1-10 rating, details):
Why Penn: 9/10; not perfect, but a decently clever extended metaphor
Any dual-degree program essays: 6/10; was original, but probably not what they were looking for.
CommonApp Essay: 9/10; again, not perfect, but genuinely reflected me.

Other:
Date Submitted App: a few days before deadline
Applied for Financial Aid?: yep
U.S. State/Territory or Country: IL
School Type: large public, class of 700+
Ethnicity: east asian
Gender: female
Income Bracket Range: 100k+
Hooks (URM, first generation, recruited athlete, development): ^ these don’t matter much for lsm since its 100% merit based, or so I hear… I did grow up with only 1 parent around though, idk if that makes a huge difference.

Reflection
Strengths: overall fit for the program… had strong leadership and decent research
Weaknesses: LSM Essay and letter of recs (compared to the other teachers I had in high school, my junior year teachers didn’t love me that much)
I never took any of the olympiad/other big tests. I just wasn’t super interested (LOL) which is totally my fault. I think they go a looong way if you do well… but that said, if I could go back, I probably wouldn’t change this part of my app. I only did the activities that mattered a lot to me, and I wasn’t really focused on what looked good on a college app until recently.
Were else were you accepted/deferred/rejected: haven’t heard back from anywhere else yet. If I remember to, I’ll update this post!
What would you have done differently?:
For my LSM essay, I would use a more global lens. I wrote about life science/business issues in the context of my experience at work (oncology office), but I think it would have been better if it was more far reaching (also more specific!!).
For the freshies/sophs/juniors that still have time, I would rec doing life sciences research. I was personally more interested in hard science for most of high school, so most of my research was tailored towards that. I don’t think it necessarily hurt me, but I’m sure if I had done more bio related activities, it would have made my app more cohesive.

My post probably isn’t super helpful since I didn’t get in, but I know there weren’t a ton of people applying to LSM ED on CC this year. Hopefully this info is at least slightly useful to those who are applying regular. Congrats to those who were accepted and best of luck to every one else!!

[FireLordAzula]

Decision: Accepted - SEAS

Decision: Rejected - M&T

Objective:

SAT I 1450 (breakdown 710/740/22/):
ACT (breakdown): did not take

SAT II (subject, score): did not take
Unweighted/Weighted GPA: 3.98 UW 4.41 W
Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): 1/74
AP/IB (place score in parentheses): N/A Dual-Enrolled HS
Senior Year Course Load: Intro to Calculus (H) Mechanics of Physics (H) College Trigonometry (DE) English Comp II (DE) Intermediate Spanish (DE) Intro Criminal Justice (DE) Microeconomics (DE) Calculus I (DE) Spanish Composition (DE) General Physics (DE) Electives in: (H) Bloodborne Pathogens, First Aid, Water Rescue, Infant and Adult CPR, AED
Number of other ED applicants in your school: Zero
Major Awards (USAMO, Intel, etc.): US Senate Youth Program Semifinalist, President’s List, Earning 60+ College Credits from the State University dual-enrolled while in HS.
Common Awards (AP Scholar, honor roll, NM things, etc.): High-Honor Roll, Commended National Merit, Principal’s Leadership Award, Scholar Athlete Award, iChange Nations Junior Statesman

Subjective:
Extracurriculars (name, grade levels, leadership, description): Cross Country (Captain) Softball (Captain) NHS (Executive Council) Class Vice President, Vocalist, Fine Artist,
Job/Work Experience: Dual-Certified Lifeguard, International and American Red Cross, Marina & Poolside.
Volunteer/Community Service: Tutor for Disadvantaged Students (9-12), Volunteer Note-Taker for Disabled College Students (11-12) VBS Teacher (9-12) Church Praise Team (9-12)
Summer Experience: Working as a Dual Certified Lifeguard. Saved the lives of two children with a water rescue and received Commendation from the City and their parents.

Teacher Recommendation #1: 10/10 - English Professor who liked my work. Did not see. She said it was her highest.
Teacher Recommendation #2: 10/10 - Math Professor I’ve had twice. Did not see. Said it was his best rec.
Counselor Rec: 7/10 - Knows me very well, but is not the most prosaic or eloquent writer.
Additional Info/Rec: 10/10 School Principal - Said how I positively impact the academic culture and environment of the entire school.
Interview: 8/10 - M&T graduate. 30-minutes via Skype. Seemed to go very well.

Writing (Subject, 1-10 rating, details):
Why Penn: 10/10 - I referenced Penn-specific current events, mentioned specific courses I would like to take, College Houses, and Clubs I wanted to join. And how I would positively impact them if accepted.
Any dual-degree program essays: Yes
10/10 - M&T Leadership Essay regarding how I involved and motived my Senior class to come together and secure a Prom location when we were starting with $0 in treasury.
7/10 - Intersection of Business & Technology Essay referenced current global events and companies doing it well. Have no personal accomplishments in this area, so that probably hurt.
CommonApp Essay:
10/10 - Worked on this for months. Riveting story of how I got help for a relative with severe mental illness and how I protected my younger siblings.
10/10 - Supplemental: included funny things about me that weren’t in my application. (Being left handed, winning a blue ribbon in the State Fair, that I have a 2.6 octave voice, and play ukulele, type 85-wpm, can run a 6-minute mile, and swim a mile under 30 minutes. Highlight was how I built the Millennium Falcon out of LEGOs with my little brother and sister in just three days. (idk, proof of my engineering and teamwork ability?) lol!

Other:
Date Submitted App: 10/30/2017
Applied for Financial Aid? Yes
U.S. State/Territory or Country: Delaware
School Type: Charter
Ethnicity: African American, Native American
Gender: F
Income Bracket Range: <$100,000
Hooks (URM, first generation, recruited athelete, development):
Speaks 4-languages, Female STEM, URM and idk, Small State?

Reflection
Strengths: GPA, Class Rank, Essays & Recommendations
Weaknesses: SAT scores, no subject tests taken, Unknown high school
Were else were you accepted/deferred/rejected: Regent University
What would you have done differently?: I would have insisted on taking more advanced level math courses as an underclassman in high school. And I would have practiced learning to work more quickly through the math section of the SAT. I also would have tried taking the ACT and I would have taken subject tests.

Other Factors: I toured Penn & attended their Info Session this summer. I spoke with one of their admissions counselors afterward for nearly an hour. I followed up with an email. This fall, I attended an “Exploring College Options” presentation, and I followed up with an email to the other AO too. I kept in touch with a SEAS Penn student I met while on campus. And I listed all three of them by name in the section of the app where you list the most influential reasons why you are applying. I suspect the two admissions officers probably remembered personally meeting me - or hearing from me. And it almost certainly was one of the tipping factors that got me in. It was not enough to overcome having no subject tests and relatively low test scores - which no doubt cost me M&T. But I had mostly applied for the dual-degree program for the chance to have more essays in my application, which are one of my strengths. I figured I would need to give the strength of my writing abilities as many chances as possible to overshadow my weaknesses. Congrats to all the others who got in, and wishing all the best to those who are continuing their college search!

[JonEilish]

Decision: Accepted - Huntsman, language Italian

Objective:

SAT I (breakdown M/CR/W/Essay): 1550 (780/770/16) single sitting

SAT I superscore (breakdown M/CR/W/Essay): N/A

ACT (breakdown): N/A

ACT superscore (breakdown): N/A

SAT II (subject, score): 800 math II, 770 chemistry

Unweighted/Weighted GPA: 3.94

Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): doesn’t rank…probably top 5%

AP/IB (place score in parentheses): IB: Math HL (prediction 7), Latin HL (prediction 7), Italian Lang B HL (prediction 7), Classical Greek and Roman Studies (prediction 6/7), English Literature and Performance SL (prediction 7), Chemistry SL (prediction 7); Italian Lang B SL (actual score 6, 1% away from a 7…), Musical perception (actual score 6)
Senior Year Course Load: Aforementioned
Number of other ED applicants in your school: Only one from school

Major Awards (USAMO, Intel, etc.):

1. National Latin Exam gold medals (Latin I, Latin II, and Latin III Poetry). Perfect score in Latin II
2. Medusa Mythology Exam: Two silver (9th and 11th grades); one gold (10th grade) - was school’s first gold medal in 10 years
3. Global Leadership Summit Innovation Village Winner: participated in the 2017 Global Leadership Summit with over 2000 other students from around the world. I was in a group with nine others whom I have never met before. My group developed a solar-powered drone to collect moisture from the air at the Innovation Village Session. Our prototype is currently displayed at the Nobel Museum in Stockholm
4. School nominee and winner to the Educational Collaborative for International Schools (ECIS) Award for International Understanding

Common Awards (AP Scholar, honor roll, NM things, etc.):
School-based math, Latin and music book awards given to one person every year
President’s Award for Educational Excellence
Scholastic Art & Writing Award: three Silver Keys (second-highest award) for short fiction.
Participated in International Schools Mathematics Teachers Foundation competition; placed 20th among hundreds of competitors from Europe and Asia.

Subjective:

Extracurriculars (name, grade levels, leadership, description):

1. Planned and organized for a school-based fundraising run approved by the city government; secured sponsors and purchased apparel. Raised circa $1,000
   2.Taught English to local children and refugees in a country in central-Africa (prefer not to disclose it); bought and distributed goats and health cards to impoverished families.
2. Playing clarinet since age 8. Performed in different cities with the school orchestra. Hold Grade 7 Associate Board of Royal School of Music certificate.
3. Served as director of projects and treasurer for a filmmaking and appreciation club; assisted with the production of three short films.
4. Student Council President
5. Leader of a club that trains current students to help new ones integrate into the school community; coordinate campaigns to promote stress reduction and well-being.
6. Ran music appreciation club; held biannual concerts to raise money for children in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
7. Leader of Math team
8. Member of SUN (student united for nature): club travels to parks throughout the city on weekends for cleaning and beautification; in charge of a public park, approved by the city government
9. Member of high school basketball team all four years; played in an international competition; leader of running club; run 6-10km (4-6mi) daily.
10. Member of MUN, won “Best Delegate” and awarded scholarship to travel to New York in March 2018; run fundraisers in school.
11. Adventura Centurionis (“The Adventure of a Centurion”)
    I wrote an 80-page historical-fiction novella about the travels of a Roman soldier from Rome to Mogontiacum (in modern-day Germany). I handcrafted a stamp for the book and drew several original illustrations. I did not pursue publication (only five copies made), but I sold one copy, and a copy is available in my school library.

Job/Work Experience: N/A
Volunteer/Community Service: See EC #2
Summer Experience: See EC #2; taught English to students in my ancestral village.
Teacher Recommendation #1: FERPA waived, probably 10/10 from Latin teacher. She likes me very much
Teacher Recommendation #2: FERPA waived, probably 9-10/10 from math teacher, who likes me as well.
Counselor Rec: 7-8/10, doesn’t know me that well.
Additional Info/Rec: FERPA waived, around 9-10/10 from music teacher as well
Interview: 10/10…ended up adding her on social medias…

Writing (Subject, 1-10 rating, details):
Why Penn: 7-8/10, explained how I would use the campus resources to fulfill my intellectual interest in Global Affairs.
Dual-degree program essays: 10/10, talked about socioeconomic differences between the north and south of Italy, and how Huntsman would help me contribute in finding a solution to the problem.
CommonApp Essay: 8-9/10. Talked about the struggles I had to overcome organizing the fundraising run

Other:
Date Submitted App: 26/10/17
Applied for Financial Aid? No
U.S. State/Territory or Country: Italy
School Type: Private
Ethnicity: Asian rip
Gender: M
Income Bracket Range: <$150,000
Hooks (URM, first generation, recruited athlete, development): N/A

Reflection: how the hell did I get in? I see a bunch of people who are way more qualified than I am getting rejected…
Strengths: Interview, essay
Weaknesses: SAT chem test, writing “your boy” at the end of an email to an AO…
Were else were you accepted/deferred/rejected: N/A
What would you have done differently?: Not writing “your boy” at the end of the email.

Other Factors: N/A

[soccergirl2900]

[ color=orange]Decision: Deferred - CAS[ /color]

Objective:
SAT I (breakdown M/CR/W/Essay): 720 math, 650 CR
Unweighted/Weighted GPA: 3.75/4 UW
Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): 3 out of 388
AP/IB (place score in parentheses): macro(5), lang(4), apush (4),
Senior Year Course Load: AP Calc AB&BC, AP Psych, AP Euro, AP CSP, SUPA Academic writing, SUPA presentational Speaking
Number of other ED applicants in your school: 0
Major Awards (USAMO, Intel, etc.):
Common Awards (AP Scholar, honor roll, NM things, etc.): AP Scholar(reg, Honor, and distinction), Honor roll, essay contest winner

Subjective:
Extracurriculars (name, grade levels, leadership, description): Varsty soccer (cocaptain, all four years), club soccer(captain, four years, leader etc etc), President of c/o 2018(four years, fundraising), Student Council(president, fundraising etc), culture club (founder & president, 10-12), MUN(founder and president, 11&12), U got brains safe driving (10-12, President)
Job/Work Experience: steady income for 4 years(bakery, pizzeria, Library)
Volunteer/Community Service: Salvation Army soup kitchen(5 years) & 600+ hours
Summer Experience: work!
Teacher Recommendation #1: 9/10 AP comp Sci teacher who is the advisor for MUN and knows me well. I didn’t do fantastic in her class but she knows how hard i work and wrote it well!!
Teacher Recommendation #2: 8/10 was my macro teacher(going into Econ so i figured i should). I did very very well and he really loved me but writing is not his forte
Counselor Rec: 10/10 counselor is great and loves me and knows me very wel
Additional Info/Rec: 10/10 my principal (of 7 years) wrote it for me and vouched for my dedication and ability to work through anything
Interview: 10/10 !!! She loved me and the convo went beyond well. She recorded the convo and put direct quotes

Writing (Subject, 1-10 rating, details):
Why Penn: 8, i wrote abiut why Penn is perfect for me and how i hope to achieve my goals of working for the CEA or world bank
Any dual-degree program essays:
CommonApp Essay:8, talked about my love for reading(basic) but really relayed subtle details about myself and who i am and why

Other:
Date Submitted App: 10/5
Applied for Financial Aid?yes
U.S. State/Territory or Country: NJ
School Type: public
Ethnicity:Hispanic
Gender: female
Income Bracket Range: 75k
Hooks (URM, first generation, recruited athelete, development): Hispanic female from a single parent home ??

Reflection
Strengths: i challenged myself and work beyond hard for where i am, and my application really portrays that
Weaknesses: SATs aren’t great and i have more B+s than i would like
Were else were you accepted/deferred/rejected: accepted to Fordham but still waiting on Northeastern, BC, Georgetown, and Williams
What would you have done differently?: taken my SAT one more time, but overall i don’t think i could’ve done anything more

Other Factors:

[anon18]

Decision: Rejected - CAS

Objective:
SAT I : 1340 - M/680 - CR/660
SAT I superscore: 1350 - M/680 - CR/670
Unweighted/Weighted GPA: 90.84
Senior Year Course Load: College Pre-Calculus, AP Literature, AP Macroeconomics, AP Computer Science, AP Spanish, AP Biology
Number of other ED applicants in your school: 1 other than me
Common Awards (AP Scholar, honor roll, NM things, etc.): High Honor Roll

Subjective:
Extracurriculars:

• Varsity Field Hockey, 9-12, forward and midfield, Played on the starting lineup for the school field hockey team since 8th grade. Highest scorer on the team during fall 2017 season.
• Student Government, 11-12, senior class president, Became class president in an election against other candidates. Had the responsibility of fundraising for senior prom and other school activities.
• Varsity Golf, 9-12, founder of varsity girls golf team, Played on the boy’s golf team as a freshman. Went on to create and the first Varsity girl’s golf team at school in the spring of 2016.
• Varsity Cheerleading, 10-12, base on the competition and game team, Joined the cheerleading team as a sophomore and competed against other teams in the division. Also cheered at boy’s/girl’s basketball games.
• Finance Club, 10-12, treasurer of the finance club, Managed the school store and thought of new products and apparel to be sold at the store.
• Theater Club, 9-10, member of the theater club, Participated in and wrote a play for the school staged readings, which is a series of skits and plays written and performed by students.

Job/Work Experience:

• Cashier at ice cream shop during school year and over the summer

Volunteer/Community Service:

• Girl Scouts, 9-12, Girl Scouts of America member, Have been a Girl Scout for 6 years. Currently working on Girl Scout Gold Award.
• Rotary Youth Leadership Award, Travelled to Bermuda for one week to do community and leadership work alongside fellow high school students.

Summer Experience:

• Exchange Student in Spain, Lived in Spain for three weeks with a local Spanish family to improve on Spanish and learn about Spanish culture.

Teacher Recommendation #1: 9/10. From college English teacher. Great relationship and did well in her class.

Teacher Recommendation #2: 7/10. From Algebra II teacher. Not very close, but did well in her class

Counselor Rec: 10/10. Extremely close with, knows everything about me.

Interview: 9/10. Lasted about 45 minutes. Connected with him in various topics and he seemed to take a great interest in what I had to say.

Writing:
Why Penn: 8.5/10. Discussed how living with my single mother while she was going through medical school inspired me to take the route in eventually becoming a physician as well.

CommonApp Essay: 9/10. Illustrated how traveling around the world as a kid turned me into the person I am today.

Other:
Date Submitted App: 10/17/17
Applied for Financial Aid? Yes
U.S. State/Territory or Country: New York
School Type: Small public school
Ethnicity: American Indian/Asian
Gender: Female
Income Bracket Range: $200,000+
Hooks: Enrolled in an American Indian tribe and involved with the native community

[power33]

[ color=red]Decision: Rejected - CAS[ /color]

Objective:
SAT I (breakdown M/CR/W/Essay):
SAT I superscore (breakdown M/CR/W/Essay):
ACT (breakdown): 33C (35 english, 31 math, 33 reading, 34 science, 9 writing)
ACT superscore (breakdown): 34C (36 english, 31 math, 33 reading, 34 science)
SAT II (subject, score): Math II, 740 (also got 670 on Lit but didn’t submit it)
Unweighted/Weighted GPA: 3.83/4.20
Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): N/A
AP/IB (place score in parentheses): AP- euro (5), lang (5), psych (5), gov (5), enviro (4)
Senior Year Course Load: AP lit, AP stats, AP calc AB, Apush, Hebrew 6 honors, Jewish studies, yearbook
Number of other ED applicants in your school: 1 (she was recruited for soccer though)
Major Awards (USAMO, Intel, etc.):
Common Awards (AP Scholar, honor roll, NM things, etc.): AP Scholar with distinction, Academic Excellence Award in english and jewish studies, Love of Subject award for history, Honor roll, principal’s list, national merit scholarship commendation for outstanding performance on the PSAT

Subjective:
Extracurriculars (name, grade levels, leadership, description): Yearbook, 9th-12th, Editor-in-chief — Varsity cheer, 9th-12th, Captain, received “Most Versatile” award — Junior Statesmen of America (JSA), 9th-12th, senior assembly member, best speaker award — NHS, 11th-12th, Secretary — Disaster Relief Club, 12th, founder and president, founded in the aftermath of Harvey/Irma in order to help raise money for those impacted — TVT Today, 9th, cast and crew member, my school’s tv show, would’ve continued but this was the last year it was offered — Lions’s Pride, contributor, wrote articles for my school newspaper
Job/Work Experience: Unpaid intern for an attorney, poll worker for 2016 election (earnings went to charity)
Volunteer/Community Service: Sar-El extension program, 11th grade, spent one week on an Israeli army base moving equipment and cleaning — Charity begins at Home immersion, 10th grade, spent 2 weeks volunteering at local non-profits — AIPAC volunteer — TVT cares volunteer, school sponsored charity events — Costa Rica immersion, 9th, donated supplies to a school and met with children at an orphanage
Summer Experience: UCSD Academic Connections- took course called Social Problems and Civic Action: Critical Thinking, College Writing, And Community Involvement
Teacher Recommendation #1: She let me read it, and it could’ve been better but was pretty good overall. She tried to highlight my positive traits and character as opposed to just academics
Teacher Recommendation #2: Amazing, my counselor read me a few bits of pieces of it, and she talks about me being the best writer in my class, doing research/analysis way more advanced than my peers, etc…
Counselor Rec: He read it to me- I was kind of worried since he said some stuff that I thought might hurt me (like how rather than leaping at the 1st opportunity to participate in something, I wait until I feel prepared and have done research), but he thought it painted me in a positive light and he knows the process better than I do…
Additional Info/Rec:
Interview: Went well, only lasted about 20 minutes. The guy was nice, and I was able to successfully answer his questions to show I had done my research about the school. Nothing too special.

Writing (Subject, 1-10 rating, details):
Why Penn: flexible curriculum, strong poli sci department and how I would like to utilize Penn’s opportunities for sociopolitical analysis, 9, my counselor actually mentioned it to someone else saying it was pretty much a perfect essay for the prompt, so I guess its good?
Any dual-degree program essays:
CommonApp Essay: Struggle with my jewish identity, 7, I thought it was kind of a cliche topic and sounded kind of ramble-y, 1 super minor grammar mistake (no one caught it, including my AP lang teacher), but it makes it seem like I’m in tune with my inner self

Other:
Date Submitted App: 10/24
U.S. State/Territory or Country: California
School Type: Private, religious
Ethnicity: white, jewish
Gender: female
Income Bracket Range: $200,000-300,000
Hooks (URM, first generation, recruited athelete, development): I wish…

Reflection
Strengths: portrayed myself in a positive light, made it seem like I have a strong sense of who I am and what I want to do, good writing, extracurriculars/courses help paint a picture leaning toward humanities/social sciences
Weaknesses: GPA could’ve been higher, test scores as well, no hooks, white upper middle class female, no amazing extracurriculars/skills/talents/awards, less rigorous course load freshman year
Were else were you accepted/deferred/rejected: accepted to University of Toronto (a definite safety)
What would you have done differently?: Taken a more rigorous course load freshman year, maybe tried the ACT again or taken subject tests earlier, done more genuine community service throughout high school, common app essay on different topic?

Other Factors: Fortunately, my counselor talked with the admissions rep and was able to tell me why I got denied. He said they all loved my app and didn’t see any holes in it, its just that its simply more selective than ever, meaning lots of good applicants will get denied (as we all already know), plus they are trying to defer less people

[SanjMoneyy]

Decision: Accepted - Huntsman Program

SAT I Total: 1500 Math: 760 English: 740 Essay: 16 (total)
SAT I superscore: Same as above

ACT (breakdown): Composite: 33 English: 34 Math: 29 Reading: 34 Science: 35 Essay: 9 (total)
ACT superscore (breakdown): Same as above

SAT II (subject, score): Math II: 700 Biology E: 660

Unweighted GPA: 4.0
Weighted GPA: 4.75
Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): 1 of around 600

AP/IB (place score in parentheses):
9th Grade
AP Human Geography (4)
10th Grade
AP Biology (4)
AP World History (5)
11th Grade
AP U.S History (5)
AP English Language (4)
AP Computer Science (4)
AP Physics 1 (4)
AP US Government and Politics (5)
Senior Year Course Load:
AP Spanish Language
AP Calculus BC
AP Micro/Macro Economics (two tests)
AP Psychology
AP Physics C (two tests)
AP English Literature
Total AP Classes (14) Total AP Tests (16)

Number of other ED applicants in your school: 1 other than me as far as I know
Major Awards (USAMO, Intel, etc.):
Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA) National Champion 2017 in Global Business
Technology Student Association (TSA) 11th at Nationals in Parliamentary Procedure
Common Awards (AP Scholar, honor roll, NM things, etc.):
National AP Scholar
3 Year Academic 4.0 Letter
National Honor Society

Subjective:
Extracurriculars (name, grade levels, leadership, description):
Cross Country 9-12th: I was the cross country captain and I earned a variety letter for my junior year
FBLA 11-12th: I was the Member Resources Director for my Chapter. Came first at districts, 3rd at state, and first at nationals
TSA 9-12th: I was an officer for 3 years ending at Secretary. Went to nationals four years in a row for architecture renovation and chapter team (Parliamentary procedure)
Spanish Honor Society 10-12th: I was an officer for two years going from treasurer to President this year. Worked a lot on exploring the city for cultural enclaves and community service
National Honor Society 11-12th: Member. Community Service and tutoring
Track: 9-12th: Ran one mile, two mile, and high jump. Varsity High Jump
Key Club 9-11th: Community Service

Job/Work Experience:
Worked as a balloon animal artist from summer of 10th grade till now. Make balloon animals at birthday parties, malls, and other community events

Volunteer/Community Service: see above clubs

Summer Experience: I didn’t really have much summer experience with business other than FBLA nationals. I spent my summers doing the cross country training camp preparing for the season. I also traveled during these times and saw some amazing parts of the world

Teacher Recommendation #1: 10/10 This was my AP government teacher and he had my older brother a while back and also really likes me as a student. He has won best social studies teacher in the nation a few years back.
Teacher Recommendation #2: 9/10 This was my AP english lit teacher from this year. Ive met with him a lot about the essays I’ve done and he has grown to like me a lot.
Counselor Rec: 7/10 I didn’t talk to my counselor a lot but she does know me pretty well.
Additional Info/Rec: None
Interview: 10/10 My interviewer was amazing. I saw on forums that people’s penn interviews were bad but mine was the ideal interview one could ask for. Right off the bat the lady started asking me about my past and my heritage which I did not expect. She used a few questions from the interview website but other than that it was just an enjoyable conversation we had over the phone. She said that it was like she was talking to an old friend and that I had a beautiful personality. Essentially I really conveyed why I wanted to be at Penn and she could sense that. Nothing about it was fake. I just spoke from my heart and it came across to her.

Writing (Subject, 1-10 rating, details):
Why Penn: 8/10 I spent a lot of time on this essay. I displayed that I knew what I was talking about with specific details of penn’s classes. I also was able to ensure that my essay did not sound like a brochure. I spent most of the essays talking about how I fit penn and why it fits me. It felt like a very strong essay and I would say that I am pretty good at writing my essays.
Huntsman Essay: 9/10 This was one of my best essays. I was asked to discuss a global problem and how it intersects with business. My experience in winning FBLA nationals in global business set me up perfectly for this essay. I talked about the Catalonian secession in Spain and everything was just flowing really well because of the prior knowledge I had. I also discussed why I am a good fit for the program and how its a good fit for me. See the common theme?
CommonApp Essay: 7/10 This one was pretty good. i wasn’t in love with my common app essay because it just didn’t feel very impactful. I tried to write that one amazing essay but I soon realized this would be a lot harder than I anticipated. I think my topic was sort of unique. I talked about my heritage which isn’t that outside of the box. It did what it had to do i would say because it revealed my personality.

Other:
Date Submitted App: 11/01/2017
Applied for Financial Aid?
U.S. State/Territory or Country: Colorado
School Type: Public. 3000 kids total
Ethnicity: Indian
Gender: Male
Income Bracket Range:
Hooks (URM, first generation, recruited athelete, development):

Reflection: THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PART IF YOU ARE GOING TO READ ONE THING

Strengths: I honestly do believe that FBLA nationals was a huge hook for my application. It is just so uncommon for kids to have this. me and my team studied incredibly hard and it paid off. This is more rare than any officer position. It honestly shows exactly why I should be in huntsman and Wharton. I was able to show off my business skills and understanding of the importance of cultures in business. I think my essays combined were extremely insightful as to who I really am. I truly am passionate about people, cultures, languages and how all of these tie into business. The huntsman was the perfect fit for me and I wanted to let the admissions team see the passion I had that hopefully would be hard to match by other students. More strengths include the course load and grades I earned. I challenged myself every year and took as many ap classes as i possibly could. I understand though that some schools don’t offer as many as my school so I was lucky to have an amazing school. But i took 8 ap’s by my junior year and another 6 this year. Not to mention I got 4’s and 5’s on all of them and took honors courses where I couldn’t take an ap course. Having a 4.0 also helps make up for some of my test scores. I worked extremely hard each and every year and I recommend that you all try to push yourself as much as possible even if you risk valedictorian ship. I plan on getting valedictorian this year but we will see how motivated I can keep myself

Weaknesses: Test scores, community service.
My scores are low for penn in my opinion. 33 super score and a 1500. most people i see have 35’s+ and1550’s+.
My biggest piece of advice is to do everything you can to pursue your passions and show why you belong. Even with my lower scores I proved to penn why I belong with these elite huntsman kids. If you show passion that will make up for scores any day. Kids with 36’s get rejected from the huntsman. I think it boils down to how much passion you display and the work ethic they think you have. Follow your heart and show who you are as a person. They look beyond the scores. Just use my stats to remind you of that. I was worried that my scores would prevent me from getting in. Personality and passion will take you a long way. If you don’t care about the program then they will see that.
message me for any advice or questions!

[collegecrazy2017]

[ color=orange]Decision: Deferred - Wharton[ /color]

Objective:
SAT I (breakdown M/CR/W/Essay): N/A
SAT I superscore (breakdown M/CR/W/Essay): N/A
ACT (breakdown): 35 Math: 36 Science: 36 English: 35 Reading: 33 (one sitting)
ACT superscore (breakdown): 35
SAT II (subject, score): Math 2: 780 US History: 720 (didn’t send)
Unweighted/Weighted GPA: 4.0 / 4.65
Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): N/A but prolly top 5 /500
AP/IB (place score in parentheses): Didn’t send any but mostly 4’s and 5’s
Senior Year Course Load: Calculus 3 Multivariable, Diff EQ, Ap Economics (Micro and Macro), AP Spanish, Wind Ensemble, Ap Literature, AP Chemistry
Number of other ED applicants in your school: 1 (she was so qualified but got deferred from wharton too so idek)
Major Awards (USAMO, Intel, etc.): national merit commended student, I won a couple of math competition in my school and area, some other smaller not as important stuff too,
Common Awards (AP Scholar, honor roll, NM things, etc.): The usual: ap scholar with distinction, honor role, state scholar etc.

Subjective:
Extracurriculars (name, grade levels, leadership, description):
Class President (9-12)
Varsity Volleyball High School
Club Volleyball
Alto Sax Section Leader
Jazz Band section Leader
NHS treasurer
Math Team State qualifier
Lit Lab Tutor
Youth Commissioner
Founder of a school unity program at my school to eliminate bullying, judgement, etc.
Founder of a program that connects students with service opportunities in the community to focus on the aspect of giving back
Started a Feed My starving children club at my school
Other clubs and stuff too
Job/Work Experience:
Soccer Coach
T-ball Coach
Volunteer/Community Service:
Attended a camp through Northwestern that got me 100+ hours, and obviously NHS and tutoring hours as well
Have a lot of service hours because of nhs and student government
Summer Experience:
Went to a highly selective engineering camp at the university of michigan
Civil Engineering internship through my local village
Teacher Recommendation #1:
10/10 my favorite teacher ever who loved me. Very few students got A’s, and she was ap lang so she knows how to write
Teacher Recommendation #2:
8/10 My other math teacher retired and refused to write recs because she was pretty much too lazy, so I asked my freshman and sophomore year teacher who liked me sometimes and other times not, but I heard he writes really strong letters of rec
Counselor Rec:
10/10 My counselor is my student government sponsor so she knows me very well and we have a very strong and close relationship
Additional Info/Rec:
I had my saxophone teacher write one to give an out-of-the-school perspective 9/10
I am going to ask the principal of student activities for my next one because we have a really good relationship
Interview:
Honestly I don’t think it went too well. He asked me such difficult questions (like if he was reading a 650 page essay about me what would be on page 420 and who I would have dinner with and why, which apparently are old penn common app questions) but I was unprepared for them to say the least. He also didn’t respond to any of what I was saying with positive feedback. He had the same response to all of my comments so I never really got to connect with him like I had hoped to. The conversation was about 45 minutes, but it was mostly comprised of him asking me seemingly impossible questions on the spot, while I struggled to turn the interview into a conversation (which has never been a problem for me before so idk what happened) 6/10 – honestly maybe it went better than i think but i really just don’t know

Writing (Subject, 1-10 rating, details):
Why Penn: 10/10 – I thought it was meaningful and really showed why I would fit in at penn and why i should get in and what i could bring to penn and what penn could give to me
Any dual-degree program essays: nope ;/ figured I wouldn’t get in so why writ additional essays
CommonApp Essay: 9/10 I took a simple and basic event in my life and expanded on how it really is a reflection of who I am and I think it’s very out of the box… either an essay you love or hate

Other:
Date Submitted App: 11/1/17 (lol)
Applied for Financial Aid? Yes
U.S. State/Territory or Country: IL
School Type: Public, mid-sized
Ethnicity: White (completely rip)
Gender: Male
Income Bracket Range: 150k+
Hooks (URM, first generation, recruited athelete, development): Sadly nope

Reflection
Honestly not as bummed as I thought I would be… I’m obviously upset, and 25% legacy does seem a little unfair, but it is what it is, and now I can expand my horizons. I am glad I am no longer binded to penn and I have the ability to look around and pursue other schools, but am upset cause I wanted to be done with the applications process. I really love Penn and hope I can get in regular decision, but everyone on this post is so qualified that it’s so hard to know! Regardless, Penn has an amazing batch for the class of 2022!
Strengths: test scores, extracurriculars (although compared to others maybe not), teacher recs, why penn essay
Weaknesses: my application seems more engineering based which prolly hurt me, not a national qualifier or anything huge, interview possibly, Not being a legacy or first generation or anything (I constantly joke around with my parents about it)
Were else were you accepted/deferred/rejected: Accepted into some other good schools but nothing too notable yet
What would you have done differently?: This is a tough question… I have done what I’ve done in high school because it interested me and not because I was destined for one career, so maybe if I had taken a more business based path? but I really don’t know. Maybe I was too well-rounded. I can’t say I regret anything besides trying to open up more on my interview… I was trying to be too perfect that maybe I came across stilted, but I can’t imagine the interview plays too big of a role. I guess I would have tried to reach out to make sure the admissions people knew my name, but that is a little too over-the-top for me.

Other Factors:
Nothing else. I know a couple of alumni but i didn’t have them write letters or anything, just not really my style.

I really hope to get in late, but if not I’m sure all of us on this forum will have a plethora of other options that will be perfect for them!

[Quebec]

Decision: Rejected - CAS

I am writing this before actually checking my application status as to give you guys the most rational look at my stats, also because I probably won’t be in the mood when actually getting around to posting this [-O<

Objective:

SAT I (breakdown M/CR/W/Essay): 1360 (actually got the exact same score twice, just different individual results however)

SAT I superscore (breakdown M/CR/W/Essay): 1370

SAT II (subject, score): MATH 1 (700) WORLD HISTORY (670)

Unweighted/Weighted GPA: Does not apply, but my R Score is good enough to get me into McGill (which is super cheap for me, something around 1850 US$ per year)

Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): Not actually a thing we get to know here

AP/IB (place score in parentheses): All my classes are IB, (5/7 are HL), Business Flavored IB goodness
Senior Year Course Load: I’m in ‘’CÉGEP’’ which is a 2-year-long college, so I didn’t get to choose what I took

Number of other ED applicants in your school: Only me, nobody ever even heard of Penn here, I had to do everything on my own, no counselor no nothing!

Subjective:

Extracurriculars (Where I shine):

• Executive Director in the province’s biggest (by far) student-run business (15hrs/week) a) +/- 75 employees b) 6 figure annual revenue c) Give opportunity to students in Web development, Marketing, Photography, Interior Design, . Security and Research & Development to work in their domain for experience & money d) 2 Start ups in the food industry have been created from our teams in the past year
• Vice President of an innovative food company (2hrs/week) a) We compost and grow food out of that compost b) We use hydroponic installations to grow food c) We also do research and collect data regarding the grow rates
• Vice president of a scientific website (where we publish articles on a wide range of topics) (1hr/week)
• Founder of my College’s MUN club (3hrs/week) a) Founded and created the structure around the club b) Head delegate/Organizer of my College’s delegation (26 ppl) to McMUN & WorldMUN c) Organized a joint MUN with a nearby college to help new delegates get experience
• Mandarin Diploma from a Beijing University a) That combined with the fact that I’m a native French speaker, considered a native English speaker . (even though nobody in my family is), considered somewhat fluent in Spanish, the language . . department isn’t so bad

Job/Work Experience:

• Car Rental Branch Agent for the past two years (5hrs/week [During school] & (40-50hrs/week [Breaks]) a) I’m the supervisor of the branch, if I don’t show up, no one gets a car
• Bilingual Heritage Interpreter ( Big fancy name for a tour guide ) a) I lived all on my own with no Phone, Television, Internet or Movies for two months this summer in . Northern British-Columbia b) Helped translate content for the French visitors
• Construction work (The odd contract here and there) a) Building aluminum ramps to allow elderly and/or injured folks to come back home and not be stuck . in the hospital

Volunteer/Community Service:

• Hosted a few foreign students on different occasions

Summer Experience:

2015: Mandarin Diploma
2016: Non-Stop work at the car rental place
2017: Bilingual Heritage Interpreter

Recommandations: How do you guys judge these? They could have dissed me for all I know (Most of them were incredibly uncooperative, I’m the only one asking for recommendations in the whole school (5000 + students) and they wait until the 31st of October to actually start filling out their portions, they all said they were truly interested in doing the recommandation, but they took more than two months to start the process despite several reminders, I was shocked at how disorganised they were! [was also quite complex to find people good enough in English to write a decent recommandation])

Interview:

Went really well, the interviewer was 15 minutes late and I was starting to worry I had driven the 3 hours to get there and paid the 150 $ in car rental and gas to get there for nothing. After that, really interesting conversations, the alumni seemed quite impressed by my ECs and kept answering my doubts with that the interview was definitely not going to be the reason I could get rejected (because he would write a good report?)

Writing (Subject, 1-10 rating, details): I don’t really know, didn’t spend nearly as much time as on my Common App Essay

Why Penn: I don’t really know, didn’t spend nearly as much time as on my Common App Essay

CommonApp Essay: 9 I really like it, and my teachers did too, talked about the weird and inconsistent concept of identity, social myths etc… Goes quite well with what I applied for (Philosophy, Politics and Economics)

Other:

Date Submitted App: 1st of November, about 3 hours away from the deadline (because of the recommenders)

Applied for Financial Aid? Yes

U.S. State/Territory or Country: Canada, Québec, Québec City

School Type: Cégep, a weird 2-year long college that follows high school, only here in Quebec! ( We finish high school a year earlier than you guys so I’ll only be a year older than most of you )

Ethnicity: White

Gender: Male

Income Bracket Range: With the currency difference I would say under 65k USD$ (Although my parents
fiercely defend any information regarding income)

Hooks (URM, first generation, recruited athelete, development): Nobody at all helped me with my endeavours, I learned English on my own, I had to figure out and pay for most of what I have listed up above, and just overall self-driven personality. That’s what I said in my supplementary writing, I create and innovate, hopefully it’s not too cheesy for them hahaha!

Other Factors (will most likely be my post-decision comments):

Poor SAT

Well, I also just most likely failed a class today, I feel nothing inside, numb, no emotions

This just goes to show you how great the whole college system is at giving you hope, I honestly thought I could get in, or at least be deferred, but let’s be real, I scored 1360 twice, I was fooling myself. Here I am, two years in, so many expectations from so many people, my parents, my friends, my teachers, all of which will make me relive a little bit of this numbness when asking how things went. I tried one last SAT on the 2nd of December, scores should be coming out soon, not expecting much. Feels like I’ve not only missed my only shot at an American college, but also compromised my plan B, McGill in the process.
Will just have to keep keeping on I guess,
At least I tried

Enjoy life y’all,

-Victor

[HoopsterMel]

Decision: Accepted - CAS

Objective:
SAT I (breakdown M/CR/W/Essay): 1460 (680M/780CR/no essay) 1520 (760M/760CRW/5-3-6 essay)
SAT I superscore (breakdown M/CR/W/Essay): 1540 (760M/780CRW/5-3-6 essay)
ACT (breakdown): 32 (35R/35W/29S/29M/12 essay)
ACT superscore (breakdown): ^
SAT II (subject, score): Did not submit any
Unweighted/Weighted GPA: 100.45/100
Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): 13/317
AP/IB (place score in parentheses): World History (5) Physics 1 (4) English Lit (5) Seminar (5)
Senior Year Course Load: AP US History II, AP Research, Chinese III, AP US Gov, AP English Lang, AP Calc AB
Number of other ED applicants in your school: 1
Major Awards (USAMO, Intel, etc.): Publication by international Lit mag Femine Collective; Gold Key, Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, publication by international news culture magazine Affinity Magazine
Common Awards (AP Scholar, honor roll, NM things, etc.): AP Scholar w distinction, high honor roll for all of high school, 3rd place in Voice of Democracy speech contest

Subjective:
Extracurriculars (name, grade levels, leadership, description): President of Interact club (12th), editor for International magazine Polyphony H.S., staff writer for Affinity Magazine, GSA, Habitat for Humanity, head prosecution lawyer of Mock Trial Team
Job/Work Experience: housekeeper for the summer after my junior year, associate at Smoothie King all of senior year
Volunteer/Community Service: in addition to service clubs, soup kitchen in adjacent county
Teacher Recommendation #1: 10/10!!! Sophomore and Junior year English teacher; I love her with all of my heart. She has changed my life, and we have an awesome relationship.
Teacher Recommendation #2: 9/10! My junior year Seminar teacher. He’s seen my leadership qualities in action in the classroom, and I think that was reflected in the essay. We also have a nice relationship.
Counselor Rec: 8/10, I went to her A LOT at he beginning of senior year because I was trying to make my schedule IMMACULATE, so she knows me better than the average student I suppose.
Additional Info/Rec:
Interview: 8/10, it was alright! He was kind of stiff, but he said he was impressed by me.

Writing (Subject, 1-10 rating, details):
Why Penn: 9/10; I wrote about a day in my life at Penn. I included details like talking to a professor I like there, hanging out at Kelly Writers House, and about the research I’m doing right now in AP Research. I thought it was creative and displayed my voice well.
Any dual-degree program essays: nope
CommonApp Essay: 10/10; I wrote about my experience as a housekeeper and the myriad acts of kindness I witnessed from my coworkers. I am very fond of this essay. It was definitely something only I could write.

Other:
Date Submitted App: October 15, 2017
Applied for Financial Aid? Heck yeah
U.S. State/Territory or Country: New Jersey, USA
School Type: small public school
Ethnicity: Approximately Hella White
Gender: Female
Income Bracket Range: ~100k
Hooks (URM, first generation, recruited athelete, development): I got a really good advocation from Kelly Writers House, a writing organization on campus

Reflection
Strengths: My essays really carried my entire application honestly. I think they really conveyed my personality well. Also my extracurricular we’re strong and—MOST IMPORTANTLY—carries the common theme of a passion for writing.
Weaknesses: My standardized test scores were not AMAZING. I didn’t even take the subject tests. I’m dubious about the purpose of those anyway.
Where else were you accepted/deferred/rejected: Penn was my first and last application—thank goodness.
What would you have done differently?: Enter more writing competitions; take standardized tests more seriously.

Other Factors: Does visiting the school help your case? If so, I took a tour of the school. Also, one of my recommenders was an alum.

[Quebec]

Decision: Rejected - CAS

I am writing this before actually checking my application status as to give you guys the most rational look at my stats, also because I probably won’t be in the mood when actually getting around to posting this [-O<

Objective:

SAT I (breakdown M/CR/W/Essay): 1360 (actually got the exact same score twice, just different individual results however)

SAT I superscore (breakdown M/CR/W/Essay): 1370

SAT II (subject, score): MATH 1 (700) WORLD HISTORY (670)

Unweighted/Weighted GPA: Does not apply, but my R Score is good enough to get me into McGill (which is super cheap for me, something around 1850 US$ per year)

Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): Not actually a thing we get to know here

AP/IB (place score in parentheses): All my classes are IB, (5/7 are HL), Business Flavored IB goodness
Senior Year Course Load: I’m in ‘’CÉGEP’’ which is a 2-year-long college, so I didn’t get to choose what I took

Number of other ED applicants in your school: Only me, nobody ever even heard of Penn here, I had to do everything on my own, no counselor no nothing!

Subjective:

Extracurriculars (Where I shine):

• Executive Director in the province’s biggest (by far) student-run business (15hrs/week) a) +/- 75 employees b) 6 figure annual revenue c) Give opportunity to students in Web development, Marketing, Photography, Interior Design, . Security and Research & Development to work in their domain for experience & money d) 2 Start ups in the food industry have been created from our teams in the past year
• Vice President of an innovative food company (2hrs/week) a) We compost and grow food out of that compost b) We use hydroponic installations to grow food c) We also do research and collect data regarding the grow rates
• Vice president of a scientific website (where we publish articles on a wide range of topics) (1hr/week)
• Founder of my College’s MUN club (3hrs/week) a) Founded and created the structure around the club b) Head delegate/Organizer of my College’s delegation (26 ppl) to McMUN & WorldMUN c) Organized a joint MUN with a nearby college to help new delegates get experience
• Mandarin Diploma from a Beijing University a) That combined with the fact that I’m a native French speaker, considered a native English speaker . (even though nobody in my family is), considered somewhat fluent in Spanish, the language . . department isn’t so bad

Job/Work Experience:

• Car Rental Branch Agent for the past two years (5hrs/week [During school] & (40-50hrs/week [Breaks]) a) I’m the supervisor of the branch, if I don’t show up, no one gets a car
• Bilingual Heritage Interpreter ( Big fancy name for a tour guide ) a) I lived all on my own with no Phone, Television, Internet or Movies for two months this summer in . Northern British-Columbia b) Helped translate content for the French visitors
• Construction work (The odd contract here and there) a) Building aluminum ramps to allow elderly and/or injured folks to come back home and not be stuck . in the hospital

Volunteer/Community Service:

• Hosted a few foreign students on different occasions

Summer Experience:

2015: Mandarin Diploma
2016: Non-Stop work at the car rental place
2017: Bilingual Heritage Interpreter

Recommandations: How do you guys judge these? They could have dissed me for all I know (Most of them were incredibly uncooperative, I’m the only one asking for recommendations in the whole school (5000 + students) and they wait until the 31st of October to actually start filling out their portions, they all said they were truly interested in doing the recommandation, but they took more than two months to start the process despite several reminders, I was shocked at how disorganised they were! [was also quite complex to find people good enough in English to write a decent recommandation])

Interview:

Went really well, the interviewer was 15 minutes late and I was starting to worry I had driven the 3 hours to get there and paid the 150 $ in car rental and gas to get there for nothing. After that, really interesting conversations, the alumni seemed quite impressed by my ECs and kept answering my doubts with that the interview was definitely not going to be the reason I could get rejected (because he would write a good report?)

Writing (Subject, 1-10 rating, details): I don’t really know, didn’t spend nearly as much time as on my Common App Essay

Why Penn: I don’t really know, didn’t spend nearly as much time as on my Common App Essay

CommonApp Essay: 9 I really like it, and my teachers did too, talked about the weird and inconsistent concept of identity, social myths etc… Goes quite well with what I applied for (Philosophy, Politics and Economics)

Other:

Date Submitted App: 1st of November, about 3 hours away from the deadline (because of the recommenders)

Applied for Financial Aid? Yes

U.S. State/Territory or Country: Canada, Québec, Québec City

School Type: Cégep, a weird 2-year long college that follows high school, only here in Quebec! ( We finish high school a year earlier than you guys so I’ll only be a year older than most of you )

Ethnicity: White

Gender: Male

Income Bracket Range: With the currency difference I would say under 65k USD$ (Although my parents
fiercely defend any information regarding income)

Hooks (URM, first generation, recruited athelete, development): Nobody at all helped me with my endeavours, I learned English on my own, I had to figure out and pay for most of what I have listed up above, and just overall self-driven personality. That’s what I said in my supplementary writing, I create and innovate, hopefully it’s not too cheesy for them hahaha!

Other Factors (will most likely be my post-decision comments):

Shitty SAT

Well, I also just most likely failed a class today, I feel nothing inside, numb, no emotions

This just goes to show you how great the whole college system is at giving you hope, I honestly thought I could get in, or at least be deferred, but let’s be real, I scored 1360 twice, I was fooling myself. Here I am, two years in, so many expectations from so many people, my parents, my friends, my teachers, all of which will make me relive a little bit of this numbness when asking how things went. I tried one last SAT on the 2nd of December, scores should be coming out soon, not expecting much. Feels like I’ve not only missed my only shot at an American college, but also compromised my plan B, McGill in the process.
Will just have to keep keeping on I guess,
At least I tried

Enjoy life y’all,

-Victor

[Quebec]

Decision: Rejected - CAS

I am writing this before actually checking my application status as to give you guys the most rational look at my stats, also because I probably won’t be in the mood when actually getting around to posting this [-O<

Objective:

SAT I (breakdown M/CR/W/Essay): 1360 (actually got the exact same score twice, just different individual results however)

SAT I superscore (breakdown M/CR/W/Essay): 1370

SAT II (subject, score): MATH 1 (700) WORLD HISTORY (670)

Unweighted/Weighted GPA: Does not apply, but my R Score is good enough to get me into McGill (which is super cheap for me, something around 1850 US$ per year)

Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): Not actually a thing we get to know here

AP/IB (place score in parentheses): All my classes are IB, (5/7 are HL), Business Flavored IB goodness
Senior Year Course Load: I’m in ‘’CÉGEP’’ which is a 2-year-long college, so I didn’t get to choose what I took

Number of other ED applicants in your school: Only me, nobody ever even heard of Penn here, I had to do everything on my own, no counselor no nothing!

Subjective:

Extracurriculars (Where I shine):

• Executive Director in the province’s biggest (by far) student-run business (15hrs/week) a) +/- 75 employees b) 6 figure annual revenue c) Give opportunity to students in Web development, Marketing, Photography, Interior Design, . Security and Research & Development to work in their domain for experience & money d) 2 Start ups in the food industry have been created from our teams in the past year
• Vice President of an innovative food company (2hrs/week) a) We compost and grow food out of that compost b) We use hydroponic installations to grow food c) We also do research and collect data regarding the grow rates
• Vice president of a scientific website (where we publish articles on a wide range of topics) (1hr/week)
• Founder of my College’s MUN club (3hrs/week) a) Founded and created the structure around the club b) Head delegate/Organizer of my College’s delegation (26 ppl) to McMUN & WorldMUN c) Organized a joint MUN with a nearby college to help new delegates get experience
• Mandarin Diploma from a Beijing University a) That combined with the fact that I’m a native French speaker, considered a native English speaker . (even though nobody in my family is), considered somewhat fluent in Spanish, the language . . department isn’t so bad

Job/Work Experience:

• Car Rental Branch Agent for the past two years (5hrs/week [During school] & (40-50hrs/week [Breaks]) a) I’m the supervisor of the branch, if I don’t show up, no one gets a car
• Bilingual Heritage Interpreter ( Big fancy name for a tour guide ) a) I lived all on my own with no Phone, Television, Internet or Movies for two months this summer in . Northern British-Columbia b) Helped translate content for the French visitors
• Construction work (The odd contract here and there) a) Building aluminum ramps to allow elderly and/or injured folks to come back home and not be stuck . in the hospital

Volunteer/Community Service:

• Hosted a few foreign students on different occasions

Summer Experience:

2015: Mandarin Diploma
2016: Non-Stop work at the car rental place
2017: Bilingual Heritage Interpreter

Recommandations: How do you guys judge these? They could have dissed me for all I know (Most of them were incredibly uncooperative, I’m the only one asking for recommendations in the whole school (5000 + students) and they wait until the 31st of October to actually start filling out their portions, they all said they were truly interested in doing the recommandation, but they took more than two months to start the process despite several reminders, I was shocked at how disorganised they were! [was also quite complex to find people good enough in English to write a decent recommandation])

Interview:

Went really well, the interviewer was 15 minutes late and I was starting to worry I had driven the 3 hours to get there and paid the 150 $ in car rental and gas to get there for nothing. After that, really interesting conversations, the alumni seemed quite impressed by my ECs and kept answering my doubts with that the interview was definitely not going to be the reason I could get rejected (because he would write a good report?)

Writing (Subject, 1-10 rating, details): I don’t really know, didn’t spend nearly as much time as on my Common App Essay

Why Penn: I don’t really know, didn’t spend nearly as much time as on my Common App Essay

CommonApp Essay: 9 I really like it, and my teachers did too, talked about the weird and inconsistent concept of identity, social myths etc… Goes quite well with what I applied for (Philosophy, Politics and Economics)

Other:

Date Submitted App: 1st of November, about 3 hours away from the deadline (because of the recommenders)

Applied for Financial Aid? Yes

U.S. State/Territory or Country: Canada, Québec, Québec City

School Type: Cégep, a weird 2-year long college that follows high school, only here in Quebec! ( We finish high school a year earlier than you guys so I’ll only be a year older than most of you )

Ethnicity: White

Gender: Male

Income Bracket Range: With the currency difference I would say under 65k USD$ (Although my parents
fiercely defend any information regarding income)

Hooks (URM, first generation, recruited athelete, development): Nobody at all helped me with my endeavours, I learned English on my own, I had to figure out and pay for most of what I have listed up above, and just overall self-driven personality. That’s what I said in my supplementary writing, I create and innovate, hopefully it’s not too cheesy for them hahaha!

Other Factors (will most likely be my post-decision comments):

Shitty SAT

Well, I also just most likely failed a class today, I feel nothing inside, numb, no emotions

This just goes to show you how great the whole college system is at giving you hope, I honestly thought I could get in, or at least be deferred, but let’s be real, I scored 1360 twice, I was fooling myself. Here I am, two years in, so many expectations from so many people, my parents, my friends, my teachers, all of which will make me relive a little bit of this numbness when asking how things went. I tried one last SAT on the 2nd of December, scores should be coming out soon, not expecting much. Feels like I’ve not only missed my only shot at an American college, but also compromised my plan B, McGill in the process.
Will just have to keep keeping on I guess,
At least I tried

Enjoy life y’all,

-Victor

[WashUH0peful]

Rejected

Decision: Rejected - Wharton

Objective:
SAT I (breakdown M/CR/W/Essay): 800M, 690CR/WR, 7,7,7 Essay
SAT I superscore (breakdown M/CR/W/Essay): 800M, 690CR/WR, 7,7,7 Essay
ACT (breakdown): 32C (33M, 33S, 34E, 28R, 8W)
ACT superscore (breakdown): 34S (35M, 33S, 34E, 32R, 9R)
SAT II (subject, score): 760 Math II, 690 Physics
Unweighted/Weighted GPA: 3.72 UW, 4.32 W
Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): Doesn’t provide
AP/IB (place score in parentheses): 4: World History, Lang, Macro, US History 5: Physics 1, Calc BC, Micro, US Gov
Senior Year Course Load: AP Lit, AP Psych, AP German, AP Physics 2, AP Bio, AP Stats, Calc 3(multivariable calculus
Number of other ED applicants in your school: 0?
Major Awards (USAMO, Intel, etc.): None
Common Awards (AP Scholar, honor roll, NM things, etc.): AP Scholar,high honors roll

Subjective:
Extracurriculars (name, grade levels, leadership, description):
FBLA: Partnership with Business Co-Chair (11th grade) Placed 4th in nation for respective competitive event, Secretary (12th grade), place 5th in nation for Accounting II, over 200 hours of community Service
Track and Field(9-12th grade)
FIRST FRC Robotics (Chairmans Leader)
German Club(president)
NHS
German Honors Society
Job/Work Experience:
Tutor(9-10th grade)
Assembly technician(10th grade)
Volunteer/Community Service: 200 hours of service
Summer Experience:
Teacher Recommendation #1: 8/10 (I’m guessing)
Teacher Recommendation #2: 8.5/10 (I’m guessing)
Counselor Rec: 8/10
Additional Info/Rec:
Interview: 7/10 he seemed to want to not be there. He wasn’t very conversational

Writing (Subject, 1-10 rating, details):
Why Penn: 9/10 pretty proud of it. I wish I spent more time on it
Any dual-degree program essays: N/A
CommonApp Essay: 8/10 personally I didn’t feel like it was too special

Other:
Date Submitted App: Night before deadline
U.S. State/Territory or Country: IL
School Type: Public
Ethnicity:Asian (indian)
Gender: Male
Income Bracket Range: ~150K
Hooks (URM, first generation, recruited athelete, development): First gen in USA for whatever that’s worth

Reflection
Strengths: Decent EC and good Why Penn essay
Weaknesses: trash GPA, tests scores, and common app essay
Were else were you accepted/deferred/rejected: Accepted: UIUC, IU
What would you have done differently?: Spent more time on the common app essay and took tests more seriously

Other Factors:
Feel free to DM for any questions you might have. After lurking on here for years I’d like to give whatever knowledge I got.

[dynamosniper]

Decision: Accepted - CAS

Objective:
SAT I (breakdown M/CR/W/Essay): 1530
SAT I superscore (breakdown M/CR/W/Essay): (800 Math, 730 English)
SAT II (subject, score): Math II, 800. Biology, 730.
Unweighted/Weighted GPA: 3.97
Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): ~15/650
Senior Year Course Load: AP Literature & Composition, AP Calc BC, AP Biology, AP European History, AP French Language
Number of other ED applicants in your school: 10-15
Major Awards (USAMO, Intel, etc.): N/A.
Common Awards (AP Scholar, honor roll, NM things, etc.): AP Scholar with Distinction, Various honor societies (science, music, english, history, french, etc).

Subjective:
Extracurriculars (name, grade levels, leadership, description):

• Varsity Tennis, 9-12, Started third singles junior year.
• Science Olympiad, 9-12, Captain 11-12, organized and ran team meetings and study sessions. ~8-10 medals (1-6th place) at states throughout the years, notably: Anatomy & Physiology (1st), Experimental design (1st), Ecology (2nd), Chem Lab (2nd).
• Marching band, 9-12, Drum Major, Conducted and led ~150 band members through the season.
• Honor Ensembles, 9-12, 4-year All State/region saxophone player (peaked at 2nd overall).
• News writer for the school paper, 11-12, minimal commitment; wrote one article per cycle on an assigned topic.

Job/Work Experience: N/A
Volunteer/Community Service: Minimal; ~40 hours over one summer at a Senior center. Fulfilling experience, but not really relevant in the college application process. Volunteered at a tennis camp over the same summer giving lessons to kids.
Summer Experience: Spent Junior summer in China (6 weeks) teaching English and music at a learning center. This opportunity was independent; not part of a program, but rather through family connections within the city with the learning center. Definitely a profound and fulfilling experience.
Teacher Recommendation #1: AP Physics Teacher (9/10).
Teacher Recommendation #2: AP Lang Teacher (9/10).
Counselor Rec: He took the position of my old counselor, so I only knew him for two years. Nonetheless, we still developed a good connection - 8/10.
Additional Info/Rec: Submitted a music supplement.
Interview: 9/10. ~30 minutes, cut short due to scheduling. Shared common interest in humanities and science.

Writing (Subject, 1-10 rating, details):
Why Penn: 10, Very high specificity; described my intention to major in Cognitive science and minor in Francophone studies (a desire to reach cultures outside of my own)
Any dual-degree program essays: N/A
CommonApp Essay: 10, essay #7 (free-choice); wrote an introspective essay about the contradictions that plague our lives. Strong sense of personality and voice.

Other:
Date Submitted App: 10/31
Applied for Financial Aid? Yes
U.S. State/Territory or Country: Mid-Atlantic
School Type: Public
Ethnicity: Asian
Gender: M
Income Bracket Range: ~150k
Hooks (URM, first generation, recruited athlete, development): N/A.

Reflection
Strengths: Writing and essays. Solid GPA and challenging course load. Strong extracurriculars that mirrored my interests.
Weaknesses: Average standardized test scores.
Were else were you accepted/deferred/rejected: N/A.
What would you have done differently?: I would not have stressed as much about standardized test scores. In the context of such a competitive high school and demographic, a 1530 appeared lackluster to so many 1550+s, which prompted me to spend so much time, stress, and $$$ trying to raise my score. In the end, I felt that expressing my interests and personality in the essays put me over the edge.

[vakilmohit]

Decision: Deferred - Wharton

Objective:

ACT (breakdown): 34C - 33E 34M 32R 36S
SAT II (subject, score): Math Level 2 - 800, Physics - 780
Unweighted/Weighted GPA: NA
Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): NA
AP/IB/A-level (place score in parentheses): Cambridge A levels Predicted AAA* (Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics)
IGCSE: 6A*s across 8 subjects
Number of other ED applicants in your school: Just me
Major Awards (USAMO, Intel, etc.): Highest Mark in Country in IGCSE Environmental Management (Cambridge Outstanding Learner Award)
Common Awards (AP Scholar, honor roll, NM things, etc.): Academic Excellence Award, School Topper across 8 subjects and in 4 individual subjects.

Subjective:
Extracurriculars (name, grade levels, leadership, description): Founder/Chairman of Reach BBTB - a non-profit organization based out of California (11,12) , Founder of EVM Society and Peer-to-Peer Mentor service at school (11,12). Arduino/Electronics Hobbyist (9,10,11,12). Several oratory and debate competitions(9,10,11), drama club (9,10), Head Prefect (9,10).
Job/Work Experience: 2 finance internships. One at a prop stock trading firm and one at a corporate lending firm.
Volunteer/Community Service: School stuff and from my Non profit - nothing major.
Summer Experience: Summer School at Harvard in 2016 (and internships in other summers)
Teacher Recommendation #1: Math Teacher (8/10)
Teacher Recommendation #2: Physics Teacher (9/10)
Counselor Rec: She likes me and was rooting for me (9/10)
Additional Info/Rec: Additional Rec from the principal. Doesn’t know me so well. 6/10
Interview: Bad. She was uninterested. Probably didn’t like me. I tried to make the best of it (3/10)

Writing (Subject, 1-10 rating, details):
Why Penn: 8/10. I liked it
Any dual-degree program essays:
CommonApp Essay: Talked about my inspiration and journey to Reach. I liked it. 8/10

Other:
Intended Major: Environmental Management and Policy, Business Economics and Public Policy
Date Submitted App: 23rd September, 2017
U.S. State/Territory or Country: India
School Type: Private International (British)
Ethnicity:
Gender: Male
Income Bracket Range:
Hooks (URM, first generation, recruited athelete, development): None

Reflection
Strengths: Country Topper in IGCSE Environmental Management Award
Weaknesses: Interview. ACT could’ve been better. Didn’t have EVM courses after IGCSE
Were else were you accepted/deferred/rejected: Accepted to the University of Warwick, University of Manchester, University of Nottingham, Durham University, Rotman School at the University of Toronto
What would you have done differently?: Taken AP ESS (or IB SL ESS) and worked on some research projects. An environmental consulting internship would’ve been nice.

Other Factors:

[pennnurse07]

Decision: Accepted - Nursing

Objective:
SAT I (breakdown M/CR/W/Essay): 730 CR, 710 M, no essay
SAT I superscore (breakdown M/CR/W/Essay): 1440
SAT II (subject, score): Biology E, 720
Unweighted/Weighted GPA: 97.3 W
Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): school doesn’t rank
AP/IB (place score in parentheses): Calculus AB (5) APUSH (5) Lang & Comp (5) Macroeconomics (4)
Senior Year Course Load: AP euro, AP Stats, AP Physics 1, British Literature Honors, Spanish VI Honors, Unified PE, The Art of Leadership Capstone
Number of other ED applicants in your school: 1
Major Awards (USAMO, Intel, etc.): Wellesley College Book Award
Common Awards (AP Scholar, honor roll, NM things, etc.): AP Scholar with Honor, National Honor Society, Spanish & Math honor societies

Subjective:
Extracurriculars: Soccer (grades 9-12) All Conference selected player in grade 12. Lacrosse (grades 9-12) team captain grade 12. Student Council (class vice president grade 11), Red Cross Club (10-12) treasurer, UNICEF Club
Job/Work Experience: Camp Counselor (grades 9-12) full time summer job. Concession stand attendant @ local park (grades 9-12) and manager/staff scheduler
Volunteer/Community Service: Tutoring in low-income school district (grades 11& 12) 3 hours per week for 8 weeks each year. Coached youth lacrosse team. Various small service projects (annually volunteering at the Hartford Marathon, visiting nursing home)
Teacher Recommendation #1: APUSH teacher who always spoke very highly of me and knew me well as a student. Wrote letter about how I finished the year as one of the top two APUSH students in junior class etc. Probably helped me a lot because I wrote my Penn supplemental about interdisciplinary study and how I will still pursue interests in History despite being a nursing major
Teacher Recommendation #2: Biology teacher… didn’t know me as well as my APUSH teacher but liked me a lot and I was very successful in her class
Counselor Rec: I was very close with my counselor throughout high school and she knows me very well. She gave me a little information on what she wrote about and it sounded like a very personal and well thought out letter
Additional Info/Rec: The Art of Leadership Capstone — because I was lacking in nursing / healthcare related EC’s, I chose to take this class. It is a year long independent research project where I am studying the value of strong leadership skills in the field of nursing
I also got an additional letter of rec from a nurse at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia who I have spent some time with
Interview: went well but nothing special… my interviewer and I got along well and she asked me very basic questions. We had a good conversation and she told me she thought I was perfect for Penn so I’m sure she wrote me a good review

Why Penn: I wrote about family connections in Philly and how I have spent a lot of time in the Philly hospitals. I also talked about Penn’s emphasis on interdisciplinary study and how I will possibly pursue a minor in history
Any dual-degree program essays: no
CommonApp Essay: I wrote about growing up in a very tight knit neighborhood and how it has impacted me as a person and my views on the world. I like my idea a lot but my execution of the essay wasn’t great and I wouldn’t consider it my best work

Other:
Date Submitted App: October 28th 2017
Applied for Financial Aid? yes
U.S. State/Territory or Country: Connecticut
School Type: Public, mid-sized (1200 total students)
Ethnicity: white

Gender: female
Hooks (URM, first generation, recruited athlete, development): none

Reflection
Strengths: I think I showed a strong interest in the school by doing my research and clearly showing that I was serious about Penn. I visited several times, shadowed a nursing student, and met with Marianne Smith (the dean of admissions at the nursing school) this summer
Weaknesses: I didn’t do any sort of healthcare related volunteering, SAT scores were also slightly below average and I didn’t take the suggested SAT II test (chem). My common app essay also could’ve been better
Were else were you accepted/deferred/rejected: accepted to Honors College at University of Pittsburgh, did not hear from any other EA schools before Penn
What would you have done differently?: I would have started my common app essay way earlier than I did. If I hadn’t waited until the last minute, I think it would’ve been more genuine and an accurate representation of who I am. Good luck to everyone applying to penn nursing in the future! I highly recommend scheduling a day to meet with Marianne… she is so nice and made my application process so much less stressful