I’m worried that my app might be thrown out before the adcom takes a look at my ecs. Do you think a 3.7/32/2200 would suffice? Or maybe a 3.8/32/2200?
Not all 3.7s or 3.8s are created equal. There are schools (certainly some selectivie privates) where a 3.7 (unweighted) is a very strong GPA. What matters more than the GPA is the nature of your school and your rank. The best way for you to answer the question is to check Naviance (and the stats of accepted students) for your school. Ask your college counselor if this is possible. If not then without additional information my sense is that your stats are competitive for Penn.
I agree with most of what fogcity says except for the suggestion to check Naviance. Naviance provides too small a sample size. Unless there is something very unique about your school, rely on the published data derived from tens of thousands of applicants instead of a handful. If you are in the ballpark, the rest of your application will be read. I can’t imagine a scenario where your scores and grades would not be high enough to have your application be seriously considered. Of course, then the question is whether the other information is strong enough to get you admitted.
There are a few exceptions to my suggestion to avoid Naviance as a way to gage your level of competitiveness. If you know your school has a very special or close relationship with a college, then you may be considered even if your credentials are low compared to the published data. If your school is among the very small number of elite private schools or very rigorous special schools (like, for NY, Bronx or Stivy). But in those situations Naviance won’t help either. It’s just that neither will the published averages.
There are certainly issues with Naviance - and the sample size is the least of those - but Naviance CAN give applicants an idea of what a college looks for from THEIR school. In that regard, the Naviance graph can be a bit of a reality check (and little more). If NOBODY from the school has ever been accepted with an applicant’s stats - that student has an idea of how competitive they are. Of course, one never know what’s BEHIND those dots (accept in the case of certain outliers), so I don’t think any student should be dissuaded from applying based on the graph. Although not the case with Penn, sometimes a college’s Naviance graphs will be skewed - especially if that school is a popular “safety” with very high achieving students. Looking at general stats is a great idea as well. I find the stats on the Common Data Set more helpful than what’s on most websites that list stats.
So it says the lowest accepted gpa was a 3.61. However I can’t seem to find that point anywhere on the graph. Same with the lowest sat score (1960)