What chance do I have at UPenn early decision?

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Pennsylvania
1

Ok, here’s my profile. I’m new here so I hope I’m not posting in the wrong section, if I am just tell me and I’ll delete this.

Applicant to Penn School of Arts and Sciences (am undecided, but want to study either linguistics/neurolinguistics or programming or some combination of the two because I have a close family member who cannot talk)

White/middle eastern female, orthodox catholic
School is very small, graduating class is approximately 100 people
Legacy (father went to Penn for both undergrad and grad, but did not make any sizeable donations)
Weighted GPA on 100 point scale is a 99.79
SAT - took it twice, second time I got a 1550 (770 math, 780 reading)
Subject tests - 720 US History and 760 Math I

Honors:
-School merit award in Spanish III and Latin III, Latin II (no merit awards offered for Latin IV)
-National Merit Scholarship commended student

Extracurricular:
-Investment Club
-Robotics (FIRST Robotics Team, joined junior year, “Scouting” Captain junior year and team captain this year)
-Math Team (won the state championship for small school division last year and the year before that, I am team captain this year)
-Piano for 13 years (will upload recordings to portfolio)
-Guitar for 3 years (will upload something to portfolio)
-Clarinet for 2 years and also play in band (may/may not upload recording, I’ve been told I sound really good but clarinet isn’t a great instrument to record solo)
-Music ministry last year and this year (basically we play music for the masses at our Catholic school)
-Community service 100 hours, volunteered at Carenet Pregnancy Center and also made cards/talked with seniors at nursing home through school
-JV/Varsity lacrosse 3 years, not particularly good
-National Honors Society (but everyone does that haha)

Work
-Lifeguard at YMCA/a country club for 2 years
-this year paid speech therapist/support team member for my family member with disability

Notable Courses:
Took all the Latin courses my school offered and finished them last year (Honors Latin IV as a junior, school doesn’t offer AP Latin)
Took spanish III last year but could not fit Spanish IV into my schedule
Taught myself Russian using Rosetta Stone
Took half a semester of French online but didn’t like it online and couldn’t fit it into school schedule
APs: AP Chem, AP English, AP U.S. History, AP Calc BC, AP Lang, AP Physics (oddly now my favorite class), and AP Music Theory

Extra Stuff:
-Have an engineering portfolio of things I’ve built
-Have a music portfolio
-Am thinking of adding a language portfolio of some of my translations of Latin and Spanish poetry, but don’t know if I should
-Took courses at Center for Talented Youth at Johns Hopkins when I was younger (7th and 8th grade)
-Took a dual enrollment course at local university (pretty common I think)
-Took a summer college course at Harvard on Latin (Annals of Tacitus)

Things I’m not proud of: took AP Chemistry last year and ended up with an 85 despite getting a 93 on the midterm, this was because I missed work when my family had to fly out to California to see my grandpa who was sick. Also, I had a slight mental breakdown because I couldn’t sleep well and because of all the pressure put on me by robotics/chemistry (also I was constantly drinking 5-hour energy and coffee to stay awake because I couldn’t go to sleep at night). I remember one time at robotics practice someone dropped something and suddenly I was laughing like crazy and couldn’t stop, they made me go outside and dunk my head in the snow (not my proudest moment, haha). Also have two 80s - a high one in precalc last year, and another 85 in algebra 2 freshman year. However, I did get a 96 in geometry sophomore year.
Should I explain my mental breakdown or do you think it doesn’t matter?
Also I know I don’t have a lot of extracurriculars compared to some people and I don’t know if that will hurt my chances.
If I can’t get into UPenn, do you guys have any suggestions of schools where I could get a full-ride scholarship? My family seems well-off but I have a lot of siblings which costs a lot and my parents will not pay for college unless I get into a top school.
Thanks for the input, hope you have a nice day.

2

Help me out - so you have three B’s or were any of the 80’s a C? If no C’s, you are probably close to the Penn 30% ED admission rate. Penn cares about legacy more than most schools.

However, don’t say you were a paid speech therapist. That is a licensed medical position. You may have been a tech but there is a huge difference.

3

Nope, no Cs.
Yep, I put on the common app I’m on the support staff. I misspoke: I’m not really a speech therapist but I do help my family member communicate and do the activities the speech therapists recommend. Thank you for pointing that out.

4

the legacy is really going to help you out… especially when u pair that up with your SAT… However, I am not sure about your SAT subject test… U NEED a 800 in Math I

5

No one is going to reject you because you have a 770 math I score as opposed to an 800. 770 is good enough.

6

I wouldn’t add this. You’re already adding more than the average student to your extra material and they’re not going to take a look at it for more than a minute.

No, don’t explain this. It’s not that big of a deal and doing so will only make them scrutinize this aspect of your profile.

I disagree – you’ve got a good balance of academic strength and ECs

OP’s SAT more than outweighs the subject scores, so I wouldn’t worry about that, especially for a white/middle eastern female from the states.

All in all good luck! You have a good profile.

7

Thank you so much for the feedback guys! I’m not applying as a STEM major (linguistics) so I was thinking the SAT II Math score wouldn’t be so important. Penn’s my dream school, so here’s hoping!