<p>It’s not 80% haha.</p>
<p>@xAlex</p>
<p>being a first generation college attendee probably wouldn’t help as much as legacy, but it may be pretty close to as advantageous (idk, that’s how I see it?)</p>
<p>@trackgirl</p>
<p>I think aangel meant more like…40-45% overall…and like %60 ED
the point is that its definitely several multiples of the overall acceptance rate
I would say that Penn is one of those schools that still really values accepting legacies and I think that’s what aangel meant too</p>
<p>@maani @aangel
Oh, I misunderstood. I agree. I think Penn is definitely a school that pays attention to legacies more so than many other top schools</p>
<p>If you go to look at a detailed score report of what you got on the SAT, in each section there’s a “compare my score” link. When you click it, it gives you average scores and your percentile rank for the country, your state and your school</p>
<p>Penn emphasizes that they take legacy applicants very seriously as they hope that those applicants have developed a greater passion for the school through their parents’ or grandparents’ first-hand experiences.</p>
<p>They also emphasize that a legacy who is unqualified still will not be admitted.</p>
<p>What about first generation though? How much does that help?</p>
<p>First generation probably only helps a little bit. But they definitely look at it in context. If your parent is Steve Jobs (who only attended one semester at Reed), they’d probably (definitely) disregard your first generation status altogether.</p>
<p>If you were first generation, I would have played it up in my essays and talked about the impact it had on my life – if there was no significant impact, I’d imagine that first generation probably doesn’t mean too much to you or to them.</p>
<p>I see. That makes sense. Yeah well my essay was about being first generation, low income, from a single parent household, and really independent, and still succeeding. I think it was a pretty positive essay and wasn’t just written to evoke pity. I was just seeing if that would be viewed as a huge advantage.</p>
<p>Ah, nice (great minds think alike). As long as it didn’t sound self-pitying and disingenuous, I’m sure they’d consider your being first generation.</p>
<p>But with me at least, even as a legacy applicant, I don’t like to think about it. I still consider myself a normal applicant with as good a chance as anyone else. I don’t see it as an advantage because I don’t want to be treated specially and get in because my grandfather went there. I want to be able to say I got into Penn because I worked hard and I deserved it, you know?</p>
<p>^
it doesn’t matter if you dont see it as an advantage because the truth is that legacies get a clear bump in admissions at Penn, especially early decision. I can empathize with the sentiment but at the end of the day just because you don’t want to be given special treatment doesn’t change the way they look at your application…</p>
<p>I know that, but I’d still love to be treated normally.</p>
<p>Also, if I don’t get in as a legacy applicant, it looks even worse…so it’s a lose-lose in my case.</p>
<p>Guess we’ll just have to wait till decision day. No use in speculating! On another note, how exactly do they process applications? Have they read all of our applications at least once by now?</p>
<p>I’d imagine that all the top tier schools process applications in a fairly similar manner. I think it goes something like:</p>
<p>Each admissions officer reads it (the first to read the application may be the officer in charge of a specific geographic location). If the application is a clear reject, it is tossed; if it is questionable (on the threshold), it is reviewed and discussed by the entire committee; if the first officer feels that the person is an accept, it may go through a couple more officers (probably the dean of admissions). If, during this process, the status is reverted to “questionable,” the entire committee will review it.</p>
<p>I don’t know, just my guess. Someone correct me if I’m totally wrong.</p>
<p>Edit: I just found this. Sounds pretty similar to what I wrote.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.collegedata.com/cs/content/content_getinarticle_tmpl.jhtml?articleId=10047[/url]”>http://www.collegedata.com/cs/content/content_getinarticle_tmpl.jhtml?articleId=10047</a></p>
<p>that’s so weird to think that some of our apps may have already been tossed…:(</p>
<p>@maani</p>
<p>I’ve had dreams about it haha. My application with the big “REJECT” stamp on it.</p>
<p>haha</p>
<p>an admissions officer throwing your app over his shoulder, papers flailing everywhere while he simply moves on to the next one</p>
<p>wouldn’t it be nice if they contacted us if we’ve already been added to the reject list? hahaha</p>
<p>So do they do it alphabetically or just randomly? I’ve thought about this too much. :P</p>
<p>I’m guessing they go through them geographically…like certain officers are assigned to certain areas because they are more familiar with that area’s schools</p>
<p>Here’s a 13-year-old article about the inner workings of Penn admissions–the numbers are now very much out-of-date, but the basic procedure probably hasn’t changed very much:</p>
<p>[High</a> drama in the office of admissions / The Christian Science Monitor - CSMonitor.com](<a href=“http://www.csmonitor.com/1998/1215/121598.feat.feat.2.html]High”>High drama in the office of admissions - CSMonitor.com)</p>
<p>@ 45 Percenter</p>
<p>That…was scary.</p>