So I have a question, when our app is reviewed who reviews it, a general admissions person or someone from the specific college I applied to. I say this because my app would not look great to a business person at wharton as I have lower math scores and not many business ECs but it would look much better to a general person as they may just notice my composite ACT as well as caring more about my community service and work experience
@daththiccboi It is reviewed by the regional admissions counselor who has knowledge on all the schools and what each of the schools is looking for
Hi guys, I want to know much ACT composite score is enough for an Asian (Chinese) to apply to SEAS. Is a 33 really bad?
@stayfoolish729 don’t sweat about it. While the Asian average score is a tad higher than others, you definitely are academically competitive enough with a 33. I know many friends (with no hooks, all Asians) who have gotten into great unis with a mere 1420, 1430, 1450 SAT scores.
I think it’s really important to remember that admissions always looks at context and the fit
Like a 33 could look amazing if your school average is a 22 (like at my school) but maybe if you’re coming from more competitive districts where the average is 35-36 it may put you behind but not at a disadvantage.
I remember talking to an AO and a Financial Aid person during a campus visit, and it’s the same thing with aid. For instance my income may be considered good enough to live in my state but if that was my income in New York it would be considered low so my aid package could be less even if my income is lower than someone in New York because the context of how we have to spend our income is completely different (hope that whole bit about context made sense idk if it did)
It’s hard to remember at times but admissions really does try to be holistic and at this point, all we can do is wait yknow
@JonEilish @yoharamona Thanks a lot!
@business151 I can’t directly answer your question, but last year, two seniors from my school got accepted RD (and none of them ended up attending…what a waste). It’s quite rare but definitely possible. I go to an international school in Chile and I guess its possible if both of them are equally qualified.
@csekar15 these states (esp. California, NY, and Jersey) have rather large populations of people. I think that Pennsylvania has large concentrations of applicants/students b/c they come from the same state as the college.
@yoharamona hey, I’m also applying to digital media design 
@Animanitee YES YES
TBH it’s a stretch for me to get in but I called and if I get into CAS as my backup I can still DMD minor
Good luck !
@yoharamona I feel like it is for me too, since my math is far from perfect, and my cs experience is limited haha. good luck to you too!
How much does Penn value class rank? I’m #20 out of 803. GPAs of students higher than me are inflated b/c many of them take lots of community college classes instead of AP classes.
Is it true that they’re trying to get more rural applicants? If so, will they just look at the state (I live in south), or pay attention specific demographics of where I live within it?
How much does it matter that I had a few B’s (all we’re B+s) freshman and sophomore year? Junior and senior year I had all really high As, so much so that I pulled my GPA up a lot (class rank went from 99th/600 at the start of freshman year to top 10 senior year). Considering that my GPA is strong, are those B’s early on going to affect my chances considerably?
@AnthonyZ probably not since you showed great improvement, nice job!
@pennplz ok because you better believe that I’m freaking about anything and everything right now haha. Thank you!
Do yall think going to another institution’s summer school would hurt my chances applying UPenn? Is it not enough demostrated interest in Penn then?
@goodusername Definitely not. AOs know summer school is just a “summer” school. I attended Penn’s summer academy, and I put it into other schools’ applications as a summer experience.
@goodusername Doesn’t Penn say that they don’t consider demonstrated interest? I’m fairly sure that they don’t but tell me if I’m wrong pls
Here’s what I would say, @777629. Penn can’t actually say that demonstrated interest is a major component of consideration for acceptance, because if you think about it, conventional ways of demonstrating interest aren’t available to everyone. Not everyone can visit campus, do a program, or get an interview. And on the flip side, if Penn admitted every applicant who emailed their regional AO to “demonstrate interest,” they’d have to admit probably everyone! However, I happen to know (as will other Penn fanatics probably) that penn does, in fact, consider demonstrated interest more than most schools actually. They genuinely want kids there that WANT to be there. It’s one of the selling points of penn— the campus pride. So if you ask me, yes, demonstrated interest is a MAJOR component of your app. But can they explicitly say that? Probably not.