I’m a rising senior and I just visited a bunch of schools. I’d like to study Biotechnology, which is usually a concentration within a more broad biology major.
Some basic stats:
Unweighted GPA: 3.8
ACT: 35, one sitting
of AP courses: 10
I understand that a huge part of admissions is based on extracurriculars and other such stuff, but the purpose of this thread is not to chance for admission… My question is which school I should apply to
I think Penn is my #1 (with Yale very close behind), but I’m a little concerned because I’d have to apply to the SEAS, and some of my science/math grades have been sub-par, although they have generally shown improvement. Here’s some examples… I list my first semester grade and then my second semester grade.
Honors Precalculus: B+ (1st sem) to A- (2nd sem)
AP Chemistry: A to A-
APES: A to A
AP Biology: A- to A
AP Calculus BC: B- (yikes) to A
I’m just a little worried that my STEM grades might make me less competitive for Penn SEAS, whereas for Yale you just apply to the university, not to an individual school. However, I’ve read that applying ED to Penn confers a reasonable advantage in terms of admission, since Penn admits 54% of its class in the ED round. Also, Yale is just harder to get into overall. What do you guys think I should do?