What are my chances for U Penn, Berkeley, Wesleyan, GW, and Georgetown

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

(I know most of these are long shots but I’m stressing out A LOT right now, and my college counselor got my hopes up way too much)

plan on either applying as a major in poli sci or undeclared
plan on applying ED to Penn

Me:
-Jewish white female, upper middle class, parents both got phDs (I may not disclose all of that on my application if it will hurt my chances)
-CA resident/US citizen
-strong in the humanities/social sciences
-weaker at science and foreign language (hebrew)

GPA: 3.83 (unweighted), 4.20 (weighted)
-My low GPA can be explained by getting mostly Bs in hebrew (which we are required to take at my school)
-also, I didn’t take any weighted classes freshman year (since they weren’t offered at the 9th grade level) so my weighted GPA isn’t as high as it could be (plus I haven’t started senior year yet, where I’ll be taking 5 weighted classes)

ACT: 33, but 34 if super-scored (which U Penn does)
-plan on taking Math 2 and Lit subject tests, aiming for at least 700
APs: 5 on AP euro, lang, psych, and gov. 4 on enviro
took AMC 10 in 9th and 10th grade

9th-
geometry
english 9
bio honors
modern world history honors
new media (school TV show, last year it was offered)
yearbook
hebrew 2
Jewish studies

10th-
algebra 2/trig honors
honors chem
AP euro
hebrew 4 honors
jewish studies
yearbook
honors english 10

11th-
honors precalc
AP psych
AP gov (it’s only offered for the 1st semester than transitions into honors econ)
honors econ (sem. 2)
AP enviro
yearbook
jewish studies
hebrew 5 honors
AP lang

12th (what I’m about to enter)-
AP lit
AP stats
AP calc AB
APUSH (my school screwed us over so I couldn’t take it junior year)
hebrew 6 honors
yearbook
jewish studies

—> for the most part, I’ve taken some of the most rigorous courses available to me. Although I’m way more of a humanities/social sciences person, so I’ve focused more on that area.

Awards/recognitions:
-AP Scholar with distinction
-honor roll
-principal’s list
-academic excellence award (for english and jewish studies)
-love of subject award (for history)

extracurriculars/leadership/etc:
-cheerleading all 4 years, cheer captain (12th grade)
-yearbook all 4 years (assistant editor in 10th, editor in 11th/12th)
-TVT Today (my school show) commercial team in 9th (the last year it was offered)
-JSA all 4 years (won best speaker award, wrote bill which was “passed” and sent to CA legislature)
-NHS member
-NCSY member
-school newspaper contributor
-volunteer with TVT Cares (my school charity program)
-Charity Begins at Home immersion program (did a ton of community service)
-Costa Rica immersion program
-Academic connections at UCSD- course was called Social Problems and Civic Action, I got 6.0 credits (although that wasn’t the reason I did it)
-Sar-El (volunteered at an IDF army base)
-Legal externship (assisted an attorney and basically shadowed him for a month)

------> if you need any more (or more specific) info, just let me know :slight_smile:

2

Quit your stressing! 99% of high school students would kill to be in your shoes and have your GPA and ACT score. You’re in a phenomenal spot.

I won’t speak on behalf of the other schools, as I would be merely googling statistics and information. However, I’m a current GW student and have worked limited roles in the admissions office previously. So while I don’t have detailed knowledge of the secret details of the GW admissions process, I can still offer good firsthand information. I can say almost certainly that GW will take you, and also that you’ll have the potential to be in the running for quite a large merit award too.

Just as a tip though, when applying to GW, I would recommend that you apply as a political science major, and not a undeclared. This is because when it comes to getting scholarship at GW, the admissions folk really like to see EC’s that line up with your indented field of study. If you apply as a poly sci major and talk about your “social problems and civic action” courses, your legal internship, etc, that will certainly help you out. Plus if you don’t want to do political science, you can switch it at orientation without consequence.

Feel free to ask me any more GW related questions that you’ve got. I’m more than happy to be a resource to you throughout this process :slight_smile:

Good luck!!!

3

Thanks so much! I love DC so much and it will most likely be where I end up.

4

@power33 I would say decent/good chance if you do ED. You GPA, scores are slightly below the Penn averages but still well within the feasible range for acceptance. The rest of your profile also looks good.

5

thanks for the response :slight_smile:

6

Do you think it would hurt me to not send in my subject test scores? They “highly recommend” 2, and the only 2 I am able to take are Math 2 and Lit. I’ve been prepping a lot, but I don’t think I can get a 700, which is the minimum score my counselor recommended for sending them in