<p>[[[father says that there’s no point in me going to any other college and wasting his money unless i’m attending an Ivy league. haha. yeah, like that’s going to happen. He wants me to attend a junior college for two years than transfer to a UC (university of California) school to save money (cuz we dont have a lot). </p>
<p>Well, he’s allowing me to apply to colleges anyway to keep my options open. As much as he and my mother don’t want me to attend a four year university straight out of high school (for financial reasons), they want me to feel free to make my own choices. I’ve since decided that I should take my chances and apply to at least one Ivy. After all, what’s the harm? If i don’t get in, then i don’t get in, i’m not going to cry over it. and if I do then, well, i can rub that acceptance letter in my dads face! lol. Anyway, enough
with my long winded explanation. I’m considering applying to Upenn this fall. Please assess my chances (what little chance i have…)]]]] </p>
<p>White Female from CA
GPA: 3.82w, uw 3.40 apprx
SAT: 700r, 660w, 470 m (will retake in october)
SAT II: 710 Bio-m, 620 spanish, 590 lit</p>
<p>EC’s. Choir all four year of high school, Piano, numerous leadership positions throughout high school. lots of volunteer work (the leadership is actually all centered around non profit and volunteer work). activism in my community etc. I’m involved. that’s all that matters and I don’t want to go into great detail about my activities. Overall, they’re nothing special or outstanding, though i find immense joy in them. </p>
<p>Other:
English is not my first language, however it is my primary spoken language.
GPA has shown immense improvement since freshman year. I went from a 2.67—> 4.60.
immigrated to the United states at the age of 4 and will be the first in my family to attend college in the US!!</p>
<p>Well. thanks for reading and I appreciate whatever commentary you have to offer guys</p>
<p>Your math SAT score and your GPA are pretty below the norm. Considering 21% of all applicants get accepted to UPenn, your chances as it is now is something like 0.5 to 1%.</p>
<p>HOWEVER:
You have numerous leadership positions, and you find passion in them. Maybe you could write about them in your essays, and make your essay outstanding. If you raise that 470 math score to something like a 700 (which is not that hard to do if you truly try), and possibly retake literature (you should be able to do better - especially if you have a 700 in CR), you'd have a much, much better shot. You can probably raise that writing score a tad too. Try to get above 2100. An 1830 is just not good enough, unless you're either a superjock, superpianomaster, or an eskimo. And even then...</p>
<p>Ever consider taking the ACTs? I find them much easier (especially the math) for me. I'm in a similar situation as you. English isn't my first language but it is my primary spoken language, as I came here when I was 5. Flip around your math and CR scores and you have the me. (sort of)</p>
<p>I don't know, what are you thinking? It's really easy to look up a school's averages. Unfortunately, your scores are so below average that it would be next to impossible to get in at Penn. There are many, many 4 year schools that you can get into. Why don't you make peace with your dad and tell him that's what you want and focus on some great, realistic colleges?</p>
<p>Penn's financial aid office can be generous to those who need it. If you get in, they wil do everything they can so that money is not the reason you choose to go somewhere else. Not everybody at Penn can just write a check for 45k. This actually applies to a lot of schools as well.</p>
<p>While a JC is probably cheaper, you won't have the true college freshman experience of living in the dorms. If you stay at home, your first two years of college will be more similar to HS, rather than an immersion into college culture. Even if you don't go to an Ivy, do your best to convince your parents to let you go to a four year school so you have the college experience. After all, not all of your education will be in the classroom.</p>
<p>Even though my dad died and our finances are essentially in the shredder for the time being, my family has assets that don't exactly help me in the realm of financial aid. The Ivies tend to have differing packages for people and different interpretations of "need." My friend, who will be attending Yale, is going there for like 10k whereas Penn wanted him to pay 27k. </p>
<p>I have to pay somewhere around 9k for Penn. Yale's package was like 12k. Columbia's was pretty bad, somewhere around 18k. Brown was like "rofl 8k in loans". Tufts was insane: 30k a year. The UCs? 20k in loans. The UCs are not kind to out-of-staters. Georgetown was cheap, somewhere around 3k. </p>
<p>Point being, Penn isn't the greatest with aid. They do want to remain competitive, but if you want good aid, go to Princeton, as they are quite generous.</p>
<p>To the OP: Your SATs need quite a bit of boosting as does your GPA. Your UW is low and your weighted GPA doesn't show that much more of a boost... it will be very hard for you to get into Penn unless you show brilliance through essays and passions.</p>
<p>"it will be very hard for you to get into Penn unless you show brilliance through essays and passions."
"but if you want good aid, go to Princeton, as they are quite generous."</p>
<p>Obviously you cant just choose a school by how generous it is with finaid, bc the most generous ones might be the hardest to get into.
Try some schools that are good with merit aid (WashU for example) or state schools that are inherently cheaper.</p>
<p>I would like to verify that Penn can be generous, my finaid covered my EFC (according to the institutional formula) and it was all grant, with the required W/S amount. I took out an extra loan of my own accord however.</p>
<p>I think that's true for any school...one person may think it very generous, another may feel that it's not enough.
Also a reminder: FAFSA EFC does not equal your EFC as determined by a school</p>