raccoon

Hi guys I'm currently a rising senior (male, South Asian) from a large (relatively), competitive public high school in the Bay Area and I am planning on applying Early Action to UChicago (and possibly ED to upenn).

Grades:
Freshman year: 4.0/4.0 (first semester/second semester [weighted])
Sophomore year: 4.15/4.5 (AP World, AP stat, AP Chem)
Junior Year: 4.67/5.0 (AP English, AP CompSci, AP Spanish, APUSH, AP Biology, AP Calculus AB)

Weighted GPA: 4.4/4
Unweighted GPA: 3.93
Top 1% in the class (Not sure how my school administers class rank, but im in the top 3-4 kids and there's a little over 600 in the class)

Standardized Scores:
ACT:
Composite: 34 (36M,34R,33S,32E)
SuperScore: 35(36M,36R,33S,34E)
SAT2: 740 bio, 720 US (meh)


Extra Curriculars:

13 Years in Tae Kwon Do
-4th Dan Black Belt
2 years Varsity Wrestling
Plenty of Comm service
Founder and President of Khan Academy Club
- We tutor kids using the site
- Raise $ for the organization
- translate vids into other languages
2 years in DECA (Business Event Competitions)
- Internationals competitor

Cancer Genetics and Neurogenetics Research internship
-MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX

Job Experience:
3 Years as an instructor at my Tae Kwon Do school (Lots of great experiences I can talk about in my essays)


Anyway thanks in advance for the help!

sunshinerocks

I think you'd have a good chance. You have good grades and your SAT score is great. However, your extracurriculars don't especially stand out, but I guess if your essays are really well written that wouldn't matter. I'm not sure if you can apply to Penn AND Chicago for early admission, because I'm pretty sure than Penn is single choice (I could be mistaken). If this is the case, only apply to the school that you REALLY want to go to. But good luck!

muckdogs07

Solid at both, but better chance at Chicago then Penn because Chicago places less weight on EC's. I believe you can apply ED Penn and EA Chicago. Penn appears to prohibit just two ED applications.

Penn Admissions "IMPORTANT NOTE: As noted above, a student may apply Early Decision to only one institution. Accordingly, if an applicant for Early Decision to the University of Pennsylvania also applies for Early Decision to another school, the Early Decision application to the University of Pennsylvania will be withdrawn. Further, if any Regular Decision applicant to the University of Pennsylvania is accepted Early Decision under a College Board approved Early Decision plan by any other school, the application to the University of Pennsylvania will be withdrawn."

raccoon

Yeah I've talked to college councellors and theyve given me the OK on applying EA to Chicago and ED to Penn. Thanks for the comments...should solid essays make up for the lackluster extra curric's?

rbouwens

I got deferred with a 22 ACT. I think you're good.