<p>Hey guys,</p>
<p>I was just wondering what you guys think of my chances at Penn. Please give me a rough estimate. (Penn is in my top two schools to which I’ve applied.) I’ve also included my essays, since nobody can really copy them anymore, yeah? </p>
<p>Rank: 51/189, public school in Houston, within the top 50 schools in the nation
SAT: CR 730 M 720 W 730, 2180. Retaking in January to get around 2250-2300.
Awards: National Merit Commended, Eagle Scout Award, Black Belt
ECs: Student Researcher at Rice U., Student Teacher at local temple; Eagle Scout project: collected over 4000 books for cancer patients at M.D. Anderson.
Rec letters: An amazing one from my APUSH teacher and decent one from Physics teacher
EDIT: ASIAN MALE. Forgot to add that.
Also, 130 hours of community service.</p>
<p>Essays:
Penn Communities:</p>
<p>In my mind’s eye, I am in my city. Here, the red letters L-O-V-E bedazzle a neo-gothic campus. A spectrum of colors entices me to the horizon, where the answers to my inquiries lurk. Everything comes together at one university and because of One University. Here I am, a boy with a pocket full of dreams in a city at his disposal. That boy is not alone. He is never alone.
The streets are dirty, the coffee too strong, the days too long, but the colors of this boy’s life – green, orange, white – provide vibrancy on the path. The colors were not always so bold; they began pale, shallow, without flush. But that boy grew wiser and wiser. Each day his life took on a new hue. Passion, resilience, tenacity. His life became clear, his vision untainted. His parents transferred their dreams unto his pallet of colors, giving him reason to make another stroke on the canvas of his future. Another hue with flush, another virtue with history, both originating from a land far away. His parents fondly call it India; to him, it is heart. That boy bows his head to his parents and elders; they give him blessings of a bright future. These boons expand the spectrum of color and add layers to his dream, his story. It has not just green but also emerald, not just orange but also claret.
I linger between a new home and an old heart, at the altar before the gods. My eyes glide with inking precision across the glinting white pages, from which aphorisms of long ago shine their light on my soul. The Holy Geeta has the answers that direct me to the horizon. Ancient words tell the story of my descendents, more elaborate than my own, but still they give me spirit. Knowledge of the past, of these native colors and the red, white and blue of my home portray my colorful identity, one that will be further enhanced by two, more vivid hues of Royal Red and Blue. Finer perspectives, new friends, world-class professors at the College of Arts and Sciences, and True Learning will fuse together to provide this boy, me, a changed identity.
‘That kid’s got passion,’ they say. Resilience, tenacity, compassion. Many times, impenetrable obstacles hinder my way, but alter my direction, and give me crisp, deeper hues. And my mind is never at home; it traverses the cosmos, searching for new questions to tackle, finding some and discarding others. My mind is a threshold, a place where my beliefs are meshed together, my philosophy constantly re-tailored. It thirsts for the knowledge and the wisdom to change the world, to exude a fresh perspective unto the collective brilliance. It is an exceptional, driven mind.
And for the first time, in this city of Philadelphia, my mind, home, and heart will reside in unison. For the first time, I will have a city at my disposal. I would contribute my cultural outlook through participation in the Desi dance group Dhamaka, and in return glean my own, refined perspective. I would cheer on my fellow Quakers at every sports event, and the Locust Walk experience would cure me of any infrequent boredom. Philadelphia and Penn, two separate entities, exist in symbiosis, their diversity and social atmospheres acting as adherents to the academic standing of this dreamland. Four years later, I will exit through the campus gates with a community of others. New friends will help me make my impact on the world because the magnitude of my aspirations will have aligned with theirs.
It is now a new dawn. The sun gently rises above the horizon, and shadows block this boy’s way; but he will take the unchartered direction. The rough terrain flushes his unique mesh of colors, adding depth to his perspective. And he has a pocket full of dreams to light his faint way. </p>
<p>Page 217:
Optional Essay: You have just completed a 300-page autobiography. Please submit Page 217.</p>
<p>On the 20th of January, 2040, we completed the first brain-transfusion-bypass surgery and made history. The procedure took almost 3 days – 2 days, 19 hours, and 34 minutes – and at the end we were exhausted, but a life was saved. We had a team of twenty bright neurosurgeons, nurses, anesthesiologists, and anesthetic nurses, working day and night in alternating shifts. When the surgery was complete, the entire surgery staff was glowing with joy and pride, this being the latest significant milestone in medical history. Our hospital administrator mentioned that letters of acclaim began to fly in not even four hours after completion, but the heart-felt gratitude from her family was much more than enough. By chance, that day was also my birthday.
The patient’s name was Jennifer Walker. 34 years of age, 5 foot 3. Brown eyes, black hair. Walker had nearly eighty per cent blockage in a significant proportion of her most important brain arteries, just between her skull and head in the sub-arachnoid space. In my estimation, this could have resulted from a series of extraordinary impressions and experiences incurred throughout her life, instances in which her blood pressure was continuously high, her sleep schedule consistently altered, her nutritional state very degraded.
She was brought in that previous Tuesday, having had a serious case of cerebral hemorrhage due to peculiarly high blood pressure. My team first isolated the genetic mutations and hormonal imbalances that gave way to this unique scenario, and treated each factor individually. The result was a multitude of treatment procedures intertwined and sometimes in confliction.
After running these necessary tests, we began the surgery. Drs. Rohan Jain and Nikita Patel helped me direct the team. We had to clip off her twenty-five constricted arteries. Recent technological developments in neural cell research made transfusion between her cloned nerve cells and Walker possible, but it was nevertheless quite strenuous. We had to use threads that were thinner than the width of a single hair strand and some of the most powerful electron microscopes in the nation. Our biggest financial supporter was the University of Pennsylvania, which donated</p>
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Your essays are 10 times better than mine, and your stats/ECs are significantly better too, and I got deferred Wharton, So I’m saying you got like a 60-70% shot. A piece of advice though, I don’t think you should post your essays so openly. Many universities do have rolling admissions and things like that so people may be able to copy it. Just a piece of advice, up to you though.</p>