Admission to Wharton

Akashi
Sun, 10 May 2015 23:13:19 +0000

Good on you for thinking about college and your career this early. I’m planning on applying to Wharton this year!

1 thing if you want to show that you're interested in finance: join clubs (or even better, start a club) about business/finance. Emphasize mathematics in your courses. As for AP, take as many as you want. AP Calculus BC is also important to take, since finance deals with math and calculus often.

There’s no NUMBER of EC’s or AP’s that is certainly better than another. A person with 2 EC’s that has REALLY shined in them and has shown leadership in them (Wharton looks for leadership, as any businessman must have these skills) is far more preferable than one with 8 EC’s with little activity in them.

Have a couple of leadership positions (Prez, Vice-Prez, Treasurer, etc.). They don’t all have to be president or anything.

I’m ASSUMING you want to go into finance to work on Wall St./stocks and make some good money (like I want to lol), so I would say to have something on your resume/your essays that shows you were interested in stocks throughout high school. Maybe even ask your parents for a couple hundred dollars to put into a portfolio that you would manage yourself (with a mentorship from a parent or someone else who is experienced with trading). If stocks isn’t your thing, just show some interest in whatever field of finance you plan on doing.

The goal is to be unique. Show interest in business and finance ALONG with competence in academics.

Also, try to get at least a 2300 on your SAT (I did). Some people say 2200 is all you need for Ivies, but after looking at Results threads on CC, with Ivies, the chances are higher for 2300+ (unless you have some hook like URM… 'cause you know, Affirmative Action and such). With 3 more years till your SAT, you have plenty of time to practice (though you’ll be taking the new, redesigned SAT). If SAT isn’t your thing, ACT is the way to go. A 34-36 out of 36 is basically the same as the range of 2200-2400 on the SAT. Most say the ACT is easier question-difficulty wise, but it’s far more time-constrained.
Have a good GPA and rank. A 4.0 unweighted GPA (basically means you got all A’s, no B’s, though some schools have different scales) is obviously great.

Lastly, essays. Ivies DO read your essays. It really shows what kind of a person you are. After your junior year, start drafting your essays in the summer. Re-read and re-read them. Have others read them. Make sure your essays TRULY show an

Also, assuming by the time you apply you are absolutely sure you want to go to Penn Wharton, apply Early Decision. The acceptance rate for it is ~25%, up from the ~10% of regular action. The catch: if you are accepted ED, you are REQUIRED to matriculate and attend Penn. You can’t deny them and say you want to apply to other colleges. Read more about ED on their website:
http://www.admissions.upenn.edu/apply/freshman-admission/early-and-regular-decision

Good luck to you!