Hello everyone,
I just received my sat score. I got an 800 in math and a 680 in reading + writing. I will be applying to UPenn’s engineering school ED. I know my composite score is lower than their averaging because of my low Reading and writing scores, but does my perfect math score offset that to any degree, esspecially since I’m applying to the engineering school? I know test scores are not the most important thing in the world, esspecially at Penn, but I’m really stressing about it because I studied for so long and hardly improved my Reading and writing scores. Thank you to everyone who replies!
With an acceptance rate under 10% Penn is a longshot for everyone. The middle 50% for Penn Engineering in critical reading is 640 - 750 so you are on the low side there http://www.admissions.upenn.edu/images/uploads/docs/SEAS_brochure.pdf (see p. 10). But of course that is only one attribute of your application.
So all anyone can reasonably tell you is to ED if Penn is your top choice but to also be sure to have a list of match and safety schools that you would be happy to attend and that appear affordable.
Haha a wonderful tollfree number code of 800 on math. But a lot of candidates are in these 780-800 territories, but if I were you dead set on Penn engineering, study the strength of this engineering school, its smaller than Cornell, comparable to Columbia but bigger than all other ivied. Penn engineering just finish hiring 30 new engineering professors recently to compete with the VAST expansion of Harvard engineering, which harvard students may like to refer their part of school as Harvard institute of technology(hit). To get in penn engineering may be hard, to score high among these pack of students and sail through with excellent gap will be much harder. Study the true character of this engineering school and write a very impressive essay and then you will be fine. Or you can try Princeton engineering which it has a very different focus from penn engineering.
Thank you for your response. If you don’t mind me asking, how is Princeton’s engineering program different from Penn’s? I hear tour guides at college campuses make these type of comparisons all the time, but I can’t quite grasp what they are referring to.
As a side note: I just received a 34 on my ACT, so I think I am in a pretty good position now in terms of test scores. Let me know what you think.
AnthonyZ, your thread title is actually very misleading. You don’t have poor scores in reading/writing, you are just too capable with maths. You almost have no mistakes in sat math(not sat2 subject maths), so therefore I assume you can analyze facts and data with a better level and almost neutral rationality. You are suppose to do research on this topic and come to a conclusion on your own, but now you throw back another question. Ok, fine. Let’s go one more round.
Since this is an ivy forum, we need to narrow down and need a little focus on the set. One thing I cannot emphasis enough about is the big differences % these two engineering schools. Not counting one fact is they are dead set rivals on all major ivy sports events. These two schools are like 2 sides of the coin that they will never see the beauty of the other sides, and they intended not to be.
One is very aggressively steered by a new engineering school dean and very positively believes his school is at the beginning of a golden age. New faculties are recruited in major fields and reach 150 strong in the next 2-3 years. Even though it is still moderate when compared to their giant business school which has over 200+ professors. New bioengineering building, nanotechnology lab, computer central quad, and innovation labs all in these several years.
All new research are targeted at merging scientific fields of medicine, nanotechnology and computing. Combining with strong supports from physics, chem, and biomedical, and mathematics. Scientific computing and applied math are used for further enhancing the strength of this engineering school.
The other elite engineering school is built on a second to none campus setting. Every incoming student is well taken care and will be provided with the best resources and faculty advice. Even in a smaller scale, but is a much more focused and tailored made for each talented student. However, this school allows no double major like the other one, not encourage to have so called minor but provide you with a certificate to highlight your secondary field. Recent focus moved onto financial engineering ( combining operation research/civil engineering) and the other top school followed ( Cmu, Columbia etc., and Stanford called that management sciences and engineering). All efforts are used to pull top candidates from the other famed business school or rival the famous M & T program. Their liberal arts setting and balance for their engineearing education is at the very top. And therefore, do me a favor not to rank these two schools, but to love them one way or the other. I do hope that you can get accepted either way.
Thank you for your explanation. I’m definitely planning on doing more detailed research.
@soundfirst5 “One is very aggressively steered by a new engineering school dean and very positively believes his school is at the beginning of a golden age.”
I see you have met him! lol
They do challenge you there. No question about it.