CHANCE ME!!! Can I get into UPenn with these stats?

lushiceee
Sun, 06 Oct 2019 07:42:20 +0000

Hey, I’m a senior hs student, and my dream school is UPenn (applying ED). However, my stats are a little shaky.

I have a 4.2 W and 3.63 UW GPA. I just took my SAT yesterday so I am unsure of what score I'll send, but most likely it will range from 1350-1420. I took 2 subject tests: Math 2 (740) and Korean (800).

My mother had uterine fibroids with a tumor of around 15 cm and had to leave to Korea to get surgery, where all her family members were. With my dad working full-time, I had to take care of the household and my baby sister while balancing that out with school for half a year. Additionally, to help support my family financially, I had to work for a year. I most definitely learned to be independent and viewed the world with a more mature lens, but unfortunately, the workload at school (I was taking APs) overwhelmed me, and I failed to balance out my role as a "mother figure" at home and a "student" at school. This led me to my diagnosis of an eating disorder (anorexia, bulimia), which haunted me until the summer of this year. Fortunately, I have recovered and am more than motivated to pursue my goals as a child psychologist.

I had a lot of extracurriculars that revolved around children: 1) Tutoring children (5 years) 2) Teaching at 3 different children education institutions (8 1/2 years if I add the number of years I participated for each) 3) Volunteered at a disability center (2 years) 4) Club member of a school club that helps children with disabilities 5) Co-president of my school's anti-human trafficking club 5) Secretary of a big community service club outside of school (3 years) 6) Work experience (1 year) 7) Fundraised for 2 months for each place listed to buy clothes, toys, etc and contribute and volunteer in the following areas: Arizona Hopi Indian Village, Dominican Republic, Mexico, etc. (funded by the program I was involved in)

I got a few awards: 1) First Place at Piano Competition in Colburn School of Music 2) Recognized as the top student in a certain academy on behalf of the 68th CA Assembly District 3) Presidential Volunteer Service Award (Gold- 4 years throughout highschool) 4) Recognized for "exemplary and outstanding dedication" to my outside club by the Vice Chair of County of Orange, Second District 5) National Honors Society at my school 6) Principle Honor roll of CSF (CA Scholarship Federation)

My dream is to become a child psychologist and major in either child development, developmental child psychology, or general psychology (depending on what the school offers)

I believe my essays and teacher recs are pretty strong and I am determined to move onto college, serve the community by making a nonprofit organization for unprivileged ppl, but my stats are like totally demolishing my hopes and dreams. I mainly want to go to UPenn because of their high ranking in psychology most importantly their 4 college, 1 university system, where I am able to pursue my passion through my major but uplift and continue my interests (liberal arts/philosophy) by taking minors and ultimately apply all the critical thinking/knowledge I learned from my major and the broadened understanding of the world and human nature that I learned from my minor to strengthen the person I am and further stabilize my path to becoming a child psychologist. What do you guys think?