Wharton or School of Arts and Sciences? (Chance me thread)

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Pennsylvania
1

<p>Hello everyone,</p>

<p>I'm planning to apply to University of Pennsylvania for Regular decision this year, and I have few questions to ask you fellow CC'ers. First of all, is it hard to transfer from CAS to Wharton? I've heard conflicting stories, and it's hard to discern which one's true.</p>

<p>Second, based on my profile below, how much chance do I have at either colleges: Wharton and CAS? </p>

<p>I've been thinking about just applying to CAS and attempt to transfer to Wharton after a year (since CAS seems to be easier to get into).</p>

<p>Every single comments, insights, and snarky remarks will be wholeheartedly appreciated! So please feel free to share your thoughts </p>

<p>Nationality: Asian-Canadian
Gender: Male</p>

<p>GPA: n/a but according to estimates, should be around 4.00
Rank: n/a</p>

<p>SAT I:
Crit: 740
Writing: 800 (10)
Reading: 800
Total: 2340 (First time) </p>

<p>SAT II:
Math II: 800
Korean w/ Listening: 800
Chem: 730 (Arghhh, retook this month, hopefully will get a better score)</p>

<p>IB:
English SL: 6
French SL: 5 (final)
Math SL: 6
Chem HL: 6
Bio HL: 6
History HL: 5
(I know, the marks are quite shoddy; I will hopefully have bumped my Chem and Bio to 7’s and History to 6 or 7)</p>

<p>Awards:</p>

<p>Academics
-Top Science Student (Gr. 10)<br>
-Top Information Technology (Gr. 10)<br>
-Duke Edinburgh Award 2011 (Bronze)
-Math Challenger Provincial Competition (Certificate of Participation)
-Pascal Math Contest (Certificate of Distinction)
-Michael Smith Science Challenge (Certificate of Excellence Top 10%)
-CFGL Essay Competition 2010 (Divisional Award)
-CFGL Math Challenge 2010 (Divisional Award)
-Award of Excellence Science (Gr. 10)<br>
-Department Award French (Gr. 9)</p>

<p>Miscellaneous
-Tae Kwon Do 2nd Degree Black Belt
-SemiMUN 2011 – Arctic Council 2011 Best Delegate
-FHMUN 2010 - UNSC 2010 Honorable Mention
-Design Entrepreneurship Competition 2011- Best Business Plan</p>

<p>Work/Volunteer </p>

<p>-Drycleaner during Spring/winter breaks
Odd jobs to pay for IB fees
-Volunteer @ School library 2008-2010
Rearranging books; odd jobs again
-Hospital Volunteer 2009-2011 (Junior Auxiliary, Musician, Team Leader)
Played music for patients with dementia; supervise junior volunteers; organize snacktime/mealtime; converse with the residents
-Math Club Tutor Volunteer 2009-2010
Help the younger grades with the math competitions
-Hospice 2011
Training to become a client volunteer; volunteering at the fundraisers and thriftstore</p>

<p>Extracurricular</p>

<p>Summer
-McMaster University Summer program participant 2011
Stayed at the university for summer enrichment program; university lectures and workshops; competitions such as Design Entrepreneur; focused on Entrepreneurship, Sciences, and Leadership
-Studied French in France 2009
Mostly touring and learning French</p>

<p>School
-Interact Club 2008-2011 Executive (Gr. 11)
Organized events for the club; created/managed the website
-The Interact Globalizers 2011 – Chair (Gr. 12)
Organize events, run committee meetings
-World Politics Club 2009-2011 – Delegate Coordinator (Gr. 12)
-Cancer Youth Society 2008-2011 – Group leader (Gr 10-11)
-Science Club 2009-2011
-Youth Orchestra 2008-2011 Cellist
Long time member, award-winning orchestra; RCM level 8 and up</p>

<p>Misc.
-Youth Leadership Millennium 2010
Year-long leadership program sponsored by S.U.C.C.E.S.
-Tae Kwon Do 2006-2011 Instructor/Volunteer
2nd degree black belt; clean up dojo; facilitate lessons
-Canadian High School MUN Committee (Director)
-Went to many MUN conferences as a delegate ~6 conferences</p>

<p>Recommendations: Known both teachers and counsellor for only a brief time, but will probably be good.</p>

<p>Essays: Showcases my volunteering. I think it's quite alright. </p>

<p>Since all of you CC members are insightful and perceptive, I appreciate every candid and critical assessments.</p>

<p>The only business-y EC I have is the Summer program and the Design Entrepreneurship one, and I will include the business plan in the additional info if it needs to be.</p>

2

<p>If you can somehow show a serious business interest in your essays, then I’d say go for Wharton. However, given your scattered ECs, it looks safer to apply CAS. As for chances, I can’t say. Being from America, I have no idea how prestigious those awards that you’ve accumulated are. Based straight off your scores and other judgeable factors, I’d say your a strong candidate for both Wharton and CAS.</p>

3

<p>CAS and Wharton are both difficult. Wharton is difficult because it is geared toward aspiring business men and women. CAS is difficult too because more people apply to CAS than the other schools. If you have an interest in business, apply to Wharton. Why do you want to waste a year of college by transferring just because of one part of a school? And even if you apply to CAS, transferring is difficult, but with Penn’s one school policy you can take classes in Wharton as well.</p>

4

<p>It would be very foolish to apply to CAS already planning to transfer into Wharton because you are in no way guaranteed to be successful. I have several friends who are doing dual degrees with Wharton and it has become a long application process where they consider course rigor, GPA, and essays (they used to only consider GPA so the cutoff would be like 3.8 but now its a holistic process so you can possibly get in with a lower GPA). By the way my friends did not come in planning to transfer, they decided to when they got here and the option was available to them because they are all very serious students. But it’s hard to know how you will perform in college when you are still in high school. Many people here were big fish in a small pond so they were quite surprised by the workload.</p>

5

<p>About 35 students per year transfer from CAD to Wharton, the chances of being in the top 35 are very slim…</p>

6

<p>Not all of the top students want to go to Wharton. The smartest kids I have personally met at Penn have been in the College and Engineering and are perfectly happy to stay there because that’s what they’re interested in.</p>

7

<p>The fact of is, I’m not sure what future path I want to take. Business and Econ definitely interest me a lot, however, so does the health sciences. </p>

<p>Anyways, given my “specs”, would it be more prudent to apply to Wharton right off the bet and hope for the best, or apply to CAS which I have slightly higher chance of getting into, and hopefully muster up enough GPA to grant me a placement into Wharton if I want? 'Til now, I didn’t know only 35 people can transfer to Wharton.</p>

8

<p>Everyone has answered this for you already. Pretty much it comes down to answering this question, would you mind spending the next 4 years at CAS if you can’t transfer? If the answer is yes, then do CAS. If answer is no, do Wharton.</p>

9

<p>I definitely wouldn’t mind. In fact, I will be thrilled if I can get into UPenn. But the prospect of going to Wharton keeps lingering on my mind. So I wanted to see if I do take the risk of applying to Wharton instead of CAS, is that a rational choice to make given my circumstances and whatnot.</p>

10

<p>You do realize that most people that apply to Wharton do not usually have much business related ECs but maybe like FBLA and DECA. So in that sense, I don’t think you are at a disadvantage. But as one of the earlier posters said if you show an interest in business in your essay, you definitely have a chance at acceptance.</p>

<p>So from what you are saying, I feel you should go for Wharton. There is no point in going to CAS and having that lingering feeling. </p>

<p>I just want to confirm you do know that you can take classes from both schools, right?</p>

11

<p>Thank you so much :slight_smile: I’ll sleep on that thought tonight and try to get a clearer sense of what I’m going to do.
And yes I did hear about that. But are people from CAS granted access to every classes in Wharton, or is it limited?</p>

12

<p>Hey man! Vancouverite + MUNer + Cahsmun = we know each other ;)</p>

13

<p>O hey. Just looked at your profile, and although I don’t think we met before, I did hear your name few times in the Mun world :slight_smile: Are you going to CAHSMUN this year? Btw, craaaaazy EC’s brah.</p>

14

<p>Btw. If you don’t mind chancing me, it would be real appreciated :D</p>

15

<p>I dont quite understand, if you dont mind me saying, your IB (predicted) grades arent very high. Classmates in my school who are scoring 38~39/42 are like getting under 2000 (or just barely over) for their SATs, yet you have an amazing SAT score! I’m wondering, do our IB grades matter less than SAT & EC’s? because no one above has mentioned your ib grades so im quite curious.
Cheers</p>

16

<p>I was initially confused about that too, and after hours of perusing CC and other various forums, I think the verdict is that the predicted scores don’t amount to as much. What does matter is the percentage scores that usually accompany the grades. I know, this is really bizarre and certainly an aberration to UK’s system (or Canada). So in this sense, your IB predicted marks are insignificant, relative to your GPA.
And about the importance of those facets, the opinion will differ from person to person, but I believe the degree of importance goes like this: Essay > GPA > EC’s > SAT > Recommendations.
But it’s easier to assume that all those parts are just as significant as the other.
Are you planning to apply to UPenn this year? It’s nice to meet a fellow IB’er :)</p>

17

<p>I’m not sure why you took Korean as a subject test… 800 is like the median score and it provides no useful info for an adcom if you’re a native speaker.</p>

<p>You obviously prefer Wharton (you immediately ask about transferring) so you should apply there, IMO.</p>

18

<p>Woahhhh your ecs are real good</p>

<p>lol i hope mine was like yours :(</p>

19

<p>wassup bro - i strongly believe your application contains that passion that can put you in the acceptance list. And go for Wharton! I have an impression business is/will be a strong forte for you!</p>

<p>GL and let’s keep in contact braa! :)</p>

20

<p>Hey IBprocrastinate, its really really nice to meet that an IBer on CC, I’ve hardly met any!
Yeah but the thing with my school is that on our transcript they wont provide percentages? We have always gone by grades 5s 6s 7s etc never percentages… So yeah I dont know what Penn’s gonna do with that… hopefully they will consider my IB grade somewhat “not bad” for their admissions? LOL
Btw I have like similar EC’s to yours, except you are a more extreme version of me in terms of EC’s haha.
I havent seen anyone else listing Duke of Ed as their EC’s on CC before, I almost thought no one knew~ are you doing silver & gold?
I applied ED… fingers crossed!
Cheers =)</p>