<p>obviously they penn looks more at your math/science grades than english/history grades if you're applying to seas...but how much more? are math/science grades more important than SAT scores? rank how much each part of the application matters (like in a previous post but specifically for SEAS in this one).</p>
<p>here's my guess:</p>
<p>SAT I math score 3.
SAT I verbal scores 7.
SAT II scores 9
math / science grades 2.
class rank/gpa 10
course rigor in math/science 1.
course rigor in humanities 4.
essays 9
recommendations 8
extracurriculars/leadership 6
ap scores 11
location of residence 9
minority status (female, hispanic, etc) 5
interview 12</p>
<p>SAT I math score 3.
SAT I verbal scores 7.
SAT II scores 10
math / science grades 2.
class rank/gpa 6
course rigor in math/science 1.
course rigor in humanities 9.
essays 9
recommendations 8
extracurriculars/leadership 5
ap scores 11
location of residence 10
minority status (female, hispanic, etc) 4
interview 12</p>
<p>i think it all matters as a package. they arent admitting the math side of you they are admitting you as a person and want to see you as a person on your application.</p>
<p>Yeah I agree with nobromo…you may get a little more leeway with the non-math/science stuff, but their admissions is still rigorous and holistic (even more than Columbia’s Fu Engineering based on what I’ve seen in my HS). The essays are also very important; don’t brush them off.</p>
<p>If you want rankings, I’d put the GPA at first, extracurriculars second, minority status third, and SAT score fourth.</p>
<p>Essays…eh. I’d put them somewhere in the bottom. It’s not that they’re not important - it’s just that while Penngineers here are very eloquent, there’s not much to write about that’s interesting and engineering-oriented and the admissions office know that. I’ve read many essays here at Penn, and some of the accepted students’ essays are published and handed out to you in writing seminars. They really don’t care much from what I can tell.</p>
<p>I wonder how they look at GPA so much when some schools are much harder than others? Do they recalculate it or what? My school only has weighted GPA.</p>
<p>they pay particular attention to letter grades for individual classes and especially those that are more challenging (i.e. AP level)…I believe Penn also has a method of recalculating GPA based on whatever information your school provides. They assign you an academic and an extracurricular grade out of 9. Accepted students generally fall in the 7+ range for both categories and occasionally in the 5-6 range. Of course that doesn’t mean much since you don’t know the methodology they use to calculate those values. I read about it in an admissions book I had…don’t remember where it is or what is was now.</p>