Penn ED chances?

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Pennsylvania
1

I have read that Penn has around a 25% average ED acceptance rate, and was wondering what y’all thought about my chances.

High school junior:
current gpa W: 5.1
current gpa UW : 4
class rank: 5(will probably be lower at the end of this year, but still top 10%)
Sat: 2050(from sophomore year)
Act: 33

Current grades:
Ap us history: A(will most likely get an A)
Ap Physics C mechanics and E+M(2 periods) : B(will most likely get a b+)
Ap calc Bc: B( most likely will get a b+ or a)
Ap computer science: b(guaranteed B maybe a b-)
Honors english 11: A(guaranteed an A or a+)

I know these grades may seem slightly below par, as until this year I was almost sure I wanted to go into the sciences, but went through a junior year “mid life crisis” as I became much more interested in politics, business, and public speaking- bad timing i know :slight_smile: and lost almost all of my motivation. I started this semester much stronger, but I doubt I will be able to raise all my grades to A’s.

Extracurriculars:
Science olympiad Varsity: 4 year member with around 8 regional medals and 1(4th place) state medal.

National Ocean Science bowl co-founder, and co pres- second place this year at states.

debate: I only joined this year, so I was not able to go to the ethics bowl tournament due to returners only policy, but I plan to do it next year too.

School ultimate frisbee team year round- 4 years

State u-16 ultimate frisbee team that goes to nationals(2 times, summer 2014 and summer 2015) - got second place the first time, and 4th the second time.

Internship at Unc - Nutrition/Virology department(sophomore summer)

volunteering at local election this year, with getting to know the school board, and mayoral candidates, along with grassroots work in the community.

around 200 total service hours.

I am trying to learn stocks, and invest in my free time.

/I also have an offer for a double research paper co-authorship internship on toxicology in texas this summer, but I have no decided my junior summer yet./

I plan to take classes more to my liking senior year, with a schedule looking something like : Ap government, AP literature, Ap bio(2 period, one honors), honors earth science, honors topics(basically stat), and maybe Ap micro or macro online(undecided slot).

2

Your junior year grade drop is concerning; try to limit your number of Bs to two if possible. If you score well on your AP exams and SAT Subject Tests and raise your SAT above 2250, which should be achievable, you can relatively easily counteract the negative impact of your “mid life crisis.” Good luck!

3

SAT score is def a bit on the low end. The median was 2260 last year.
Also the 25% Ed acceptance rate is misleading. If you exclude athletes, legacies and development cases then the acceptance rate drops dramatically. Still the chances are prob better than RD but def not by that much.

4

Thank you to those who responded! sadly I will not be able to raise the sat, as the system is switching over to the new version, so im not really sure how the colleges will work with scores. I plan to take the new one and do better than a 2050(relatively of course) as the new one is only out of 1600.

5

Also if anyone could recommend things to do, other than just raise standardized test scores, it would be super helpful.

6

Figure out how to incorporate an extracurriculsr passion of yours into an essay.

7

The SAT was out of 1600 for years so that is no big deal. Penn will accept either her version but will not superstore across versions.

8

yeah sportsman88, I was planning on most likely abandoning the old score(i only took it to apply to a private school,which I did not make) and just using the most likely superior new sat score, but I am not very clear with if I will have to send my old sat score as well. I also know you cannot superscore across tests.