As the year ends, I’m stuck between Penn and Tufts mainly. I honestly can’t decide where I want to use the ED. I love the research opportunities PENN provides but find it discouraging that it’s difficult to swap between ENG and CAS because I’m not sure which field I want to pursue (pre-med versus bioengineering). Also, I straight up don’t think I’d get into Penn without applying early because a disappointing junior year (3.78 unweighted) thus far and a low SAT score relative to the rest of Penn (2120 710M+740CR). I spent the vast majority in my extra-circular that I performed extremely well in this year on a global stage. I love the hard-nosed work-hard, play-hard attitude that Penn students have and I love philly a city (I live around here and have fallen in love with the city). Penn also offers the ability to be close to home, which–for me–is huge in the college search
Tufts, on the other hand, is a brilliant school in which I have a significantly better chance of getting in early. It’s easy to swap between ENG and A/S and has an early assurance program for medical school which definitely a plus. Tufts also has a more active engineerings without borders program which is something that I want to participate in college. The biotech major is another thing that strikes my interest at the small school in med-ford. However, I’m worried about the amount of research opportunities that I have at Tufts and the distance from home. I love the quirky culture of Tufts, and the emphasis on global citizenship.
Something to consider is that Tufts has an ED II application which is something that I could do (ED I Penn if rekt ED II Tufts). I just wanted to hear student’s takes on this situation but realize this may be slightly bias because I’m posting in the Penn page.
If I were in your shoes, I’d probably apply ED to Penn and if that doesn’t work out, apply EDII to Tufts if I still love Tufts. That’s just my opinion though! (Unless there’d be any possibility that you would choose Tufts over Penn; in that case, don’t apply ED to Penn at all).
@MKsurgeOn It is not difficult at all to swap from SEAS to CAS or the other way around at Penn. ED is supposed to be used for your first choice/dream school so I would say go for Penn ED and leave Tufts for regular decision. While both your GPA and SAT are not super strong they are without a doubt within the feasible region for admission.
@Penn95 The reason why my GPA is lower than ideal is because I spent the vast majority of my time during robotics in which we won our division. I’m also looking at hopkins
Even with the hook, I would recommend working this summer to strengthen your application.
Remember that you need 2 subject tests. For engineering I would recommend Math and Physics.
If you have time this summer, I would consider studying for writing and math, the retaking the SAT too. Those two tests really just take practice to improve, so it is a question of the time you have available and your determination level.
For gpa, I would work hard to show a strong fall semester of senior year.
@Penn95 could you give us more insight into switching majors within a school or outside a school (say…from CAS to SEAS). I would think it would
be difficult since the school accepts students based on the college they apply to. If it was easy, then what would stop someone from applying (and getting in) as a CAS major, then switching to wharton? Is a certain gpa required or something? And about the difficulty of picking up majors from other schools (like wharton, etc)
@ZBlue17 Switching to Wharton from CAS or SEAS is harder than switching between CAS and SEAS. Also CAS and SEAS have completely opened up their majors to an another, meaning it is very easy to double major without even switching. In general nowadays the difficulty of getting into each of the three schools is more or less pretty comparable so there is not much benefit from applying to one school with the aim of switching to another. Wharton is most probably slightly more difficult but not considerably so. In fact given that it is hard to internally switch into Wharton because there is high demand ( many engineers who want to go into business after college realize that SEAS is too hard for them and many CAS students wanna go the more pre-professional route in term of academics), it is a better strategy to apply straight away to Wharton as a first year student. In general given that research and recruiting opportunities are the same and shared amongst all undergrad schools I think it is more advisable to apply straight away to the school that best fulfills your academic interests.