Please look at what I've accomplished so far

Applying to College
1

<p>Hi, I'm gonna be going into my junior year now, but my grades weren't all that great for my freshmen and sophomore year. I think my GPA's around 3.5... but I'm gonna be doing the IB Program during my junior and senior year and at the school that I'm going to, if you want the IB diploma when you graduate from high school, you need to take IB classes instead of APs. I still plan on taking APs even though I'm not taking the classes at school, so here are what I've done so far during my high school year and also what I plan on doing for rest of the two years I have left.</p>

<p>GPA 3.5
Classes I'm going to be taking my junior year:
IB English HL 1
Honors Pre-Calculus
AP Biology
Hon Human Anatomy and Physiologist
History of the Americas IB HL (Two year course)
Spanish Pre-IB
Philosophy IB</p>

<p>SAT II: Korean, Biology, US History, Math II C, and English.</p>

<p>SAT: (haven't taken one yet) on my practice tests highest I've gotten was 2210.</p>

<p>Volunteer: Leo Club (Secretary), Library Computer Program, CFACM, and etc.</p>

<p>Sports (outside of school): Tennis and Kumdo.</p>

<p>Even though this probably isn't enough to get me into UPENN, I just wanna at least try my best, so please tell me what I have to do and also what would help me stand out between other applicants. I wrote this while I was doing something else so there might be some mistakes.</p>

2

<p>Ace your IB and AP exams.</p>

<p>Get extra involved in the clubs you’re in with officer positions.</p>

<p>Make significant sports accomplishments–enter competitions, train hard…</p>

<p>Definitely raise your GPA to 3.9+ to be more competitive for UPENN.</p>

3

<p>I agree with the above poster on 2/4 suggestions. </p>

<ol>
<li><p>You don’t need to ace IB exams. As long as you do decently in them you don’t have to worry about them; by the time you get to exam time you’ll already be admitted and enrolled in college. Both AP and IB exams are more helpful for placing out of classes than anything. I’m not saying you SHOULDN’T attempt to ace them, but I don’t think you need to abandon all hope if you don’t ace them. </p></li>
<li><p>For the GPA advice, I think for UPenn, and unweighted GPA of 3.7 would be the absolute minimum, although there are probably outliers even to that prediction, and of course, that is entirely a prediction. To be more competitive, yes, a 3.9 GPA is very helpful, but I’m trying to offer you hope and a little bit of reassurance.</p></li>
</ol>