gashergina

I'm applying RD. Penn's been my dream school for years and words canNOT explain how delighted I'd be to be able to attend next fall.

This is what I'm concerned about - I go to a very difficult school. It's a large public high school, but we have some of the most incredible students, including intel competition winners, etc and this year we had 53 national merit semifinalists. Our classes, especially AP classes are taught at a very rigorous level. Although I am no genius, I still consider myself smart. The problem is though, that there are too many overly intelligent kids at my school so it is hard for a just "smart" person like me to shine.

Overall, my UW GPA is 3.56 and weighted 3.8. Although my school is difficult, I am sure I am not even near top 10% of the class because of so many overachievers. The school does not rank, but the counselors do write our percentiles on recommendations. I have yet to figure out my percentile (I will though soon).

My SAT I: 2280 superscored,
SAT II: 790 Japanese with listening, 770 Math IIC, 710 Literature.
AP's: Psychology 4, English 4, Euro 4 and Chemistry 5
EC: mostly viola and art, have several awards for those two.
Volunteer work: taught kids at an orphanage
Jobs: tutored an elementary student.

Those are my basic stats. With those, and a (hopefully good) interview, will I have a decent/low/or no chance for penn?

I'm not applying to Wharton, so hopefully that will make things slightly easier.

Has anyone gotten in without a super high GPA?

ttparent

I am no expert but I think one of the important thing I can think of is that you are in many ways competing with your classmates. If there are a number of people from your school applying then unless you have some special hook, you will be ranked lower than them and will be difficult for you to surpass them with limited number of spots. Nothing is impossible, but if there is certain aspect of your student career that you can show that distinguish you then that would really help.

xs0itg0esx

^^ I think what you just said is wrong on a couple of accounts. First, from what I heard, there are no quotas on schools. So you are not competing with your classmates. Secondly, even if you were competing with your classmates, class rank is not the deciding factor as ttparent has suggested. Last year, the valedictorian was rejected from brown while someone who was 17th in the class was excepted (without any hooks). The admission officers take a holistic look at your application. Your transcript and rank is probably the most important aspect of the application, but it is not the only thing that is looked at. Essay, ECs, character, and match for the school (which doesn't really get brought up too much on cc, but is very very important) are all very important.

tenebrousfire

there are no absolute quotas, but applicants from the same school are evaluated against each other (how could they not be?)

but indeed, holistic evaluation is the way it's done

ttparent

Even though I didn't exactly said that class rank is the deciding factor, I just want to add that last year at our school, 6 applied to MIT, 5 with 3.9+ and one 3.5. One 3.9+ got in and the lone 3.5 got in. So I would echo what the person above me said. The 3.5 GPA person went through a lot of hoops to get in, so obviously anything is possible, you try your best and then you wait and see what happen. That is all you can do at this point.

pbr

Aren't 99% of admitted students at Penn in the top 10%? In an effort to game the system (presumably), Penn has decided to maximize its USNWR ranking by focusing on the top 10%. Harvard, Yale, Stanford, etc. don't even try to approach this goal because they want to continue to encourage second decile students to apply. Many great students below the top 10% (yourself included?) can add a lot to the campus community, and are worthy of admission. I suspect that much of Penn students' and alums' hand-wringing over the high admission rate at Penn (relative to its peers) is due to the USNWR gaming choice made by Penn, resulting in many qualified students electing not to apply if not in the top 10%. (If only 1% of students like myself get admitted, especially given the slots given to recruited athletes, legacies, development candidates, URMs, etc., why should I even bother to apply?) I would apply with confidence; maybe this is the year Penn comes to its senses and realizes that many great candidates come from the second decile.

Code Monkey

Don't let it bother you. I got into Wharton ED last year and I was barely in the top 50% of my class. But then, Stuyvesant is Stuyvesant.

ChoklitRain

^ Stuy is a joke, dude.

rodney

"Many great students below the top 10% (yourself included?) can add a lot to the campus community, and are worthy of admission"...TOTALLY AGREE but let's start even higher than that....

how about top 5%? 7%?

....in our competitive, NJ HS not one person (except a URM) has been accepted below top 3% for the last 5 years.....and even she squeaked in at top 8%

net, net....Penn is rank obsessed.....legacy or no legacy....., they even rejected our Val last year.....

45 Percenter

Actually, that isolated fact would tend to indicate that Penn is NOT rank obsessed, or else it would have accepted your val.

Also, folks, keep in mind that the vast majority of those who apply to and are accepted by Penn come from high schools that DO NOT RANK. Furthermore, the Penn Admissions Office has removed the high-school ranking stats from its "Incoming Class Profile" page for the Class of 2013, perhaps signalling a shift away from emphasis on class rank.

In general, it really depends on the high school involved and the individual applicant--there are certainly schools from which Penn regularly accepts applicants who are not in the top 10%.

Code Monkey

ChoklitRain, I'm curious to learn why is Stuy a joke, if 26 people has been accepted to Harvard last year, 20+ to MIT, 80+ to Cornell, 30+ to Columbia, 5 to Wharton, 12 to Penn and 200+ to all 8 ivies combined?

To the OP:
To elaborate my last post a little more, none but 2 of the 12 people from my high school accepted to Penn last year was in the top 25%. None of us was recruited. Only one guy is minority. In other words, if your high school is indeed as awesome as you believe, you have nothing to worry about.

rodney

45: arent they one of the schools that boasts how many vals they reject? somehow I remember hearing that.....one is at a great advantage if their HS does not rank in the case of UPenn....especially if they have a high GPA....

mrstreak101

since when do you justify how good a highschool is by how many get into ivy league schools? What if the valedictorian went to some non-ivy league college just because it fit him/her better then the ivy's? cmon, the ivy league is nice but there are a ton of other schools that are on its level or higher

45 Percenter

Not anymore. As of the Class of 2013, Penn no longer includes that statistic on its web site:

Penn Admissions: Incoming Class Profile

wtan

The incoming class profile doesn't say anything about admission criterion at all though