<p>School info:
urban public school
NJ
Sent someone to John Hopkins this year so far (with a 1540 SAT)-- Columbia (with an 1850 SAT) and Cornell (with a 1900 SAT) last year</p>
<p>Me:
enrollment: fall 2011
African American Female
Under $60,000 income</p>
<p>Academics
Current GPA: 4.0 on a 4.0 scale
Junior Schedule: AP History (4), AP English (4), AP Physics B (dual enrollment-- 8 credits already earned), precal, french III etc etc
Senior Year: AP Calculus AB, AP English, AP Chemistry,</p>
<p>SAT
1950 first attempt
630 m, 640 cr, 680 w
SAT II pending
ACT pending...i took practice test and got a 31</p>
<p>LEADERSHIP
-Student Rep to Board of Education (only student on board)
-County Director for official state student political organization (more than 2,000 members state wide)--worked on '08 and '09 campaigns locally in NJ and in states like Michigan and Pennsylvania.
-Editor (chief)-- school newspaper
-NHS Vice President
-Varsity Soccer
-Vice President of Class (10)
-Financial adviser for an organization (music based--family owned)
--I do not add up my volunteer hours but ive worked in a soup kitchen and for the NHS beaucoup.
-- I am the coordinator at my school as the state quiz bowl we are going to participate in. </p>
<p>Awards
-- Student of the Year-- Elks
-- Gold in State Competition (Original Essay)
-- Numerous awards for excellence in an academic subject (within the school)</p>
<p>Others
-- I attended a Saturday program (called saturday scholars) every saturday morning :/ with Rutgers University during my sophomore year
-- Poetry publications at local library</p>
<p>Summer:
LEAD SBI @ UMichigan (UPenn is a partner school in this program)</p>
<p>Look, I don’t know what you want anyone to say. Penn clearly admits some kids like you, especially from its market area (and I get the sense that you may be more northern Jersey, and thus not quite in it). Your GPA, schedule, extra-curriculars, and awards make you look like a great person to bet on. Your SAT is weak for Penn, but not a complete barrier. If you got it up a little higher, and do well on SAT IIs, that would probably help a bunch.</p>
<p>The most important things will be things we can’t judge here – your recommendations, your essays (those will be really important, because they will show whether you can produce quality writing or not), who else who looks like you is applying.</p>
<p>The one thing you could do that would really help you – and not just with Penn – would be to get into the Questbridge match program. The deadline for that may have passed, or may be approaching soon, so get on that. I think what Questbridge does is sort of to prequalify candidates from lower income backgrounds and schools that may not be supergreat. Once that is in place, it may be harder for a kid with that profile to make it in without going through Questbridge unless he or she is coming from a feeder school that Penn really knows well.</p>
<p>and i am preparing for the SAT 2’s right now and on practice tests, i am breaking the 700s (us history and math 2)
that never happened before o_O i am going to try to do that on test day. </p>
<p>also, i am known as the “writer” in my school. i got a recommendation from a teacher already and she said i am the best prose writer she has ever taught (she was a professor at rutgers uni prior to teaching high school).
hopefully i do a realllyyyyy good essay. it is just so hard to get started knowing that so much is on the line.</p>
<p>Penn only accepts students with official EFC under $500 from the Questbridge National College Match program. If your EFC exceeds that limit (like me), you have no choice but to apply ED</p>