HELP!!--GPA concerns for PENN admission

connercoan
Sun, 12 Jan 2014 23:41:12 +0000

Alright so to start off, i’ll tell you my situation. I’m currently a junior who goes to a top-ranked public school in the Philly suburbs. During my freshman year, I messed up, pretty bad. I got like a 3.35 in all honors courses. During my sophomore and the way my junior year is looking so far, i should be able to earn about a 3.94 GPA taking all honors and AP (no AP sophomore year, I took multiple math and science courses to set myself up for my junior year, and this year i’m taking AP chem, ap stat, and ap spanish) Next year i’ll probably take AP calc AB/BC and AP bio and then just honors classes to fill out my schedule. My total GPA-- freshman-junior-- will probably be about 3.75 on the dot or maybe even 3.74.

I desperately want to attend UPENN and my high school sends about 10 kids there per year. This year alone 8 people have gotten in ED. I took the act in december and got a 32, but I performed below my average in science so I think that after a few more tutoring sessions I could end up with a 34/35 composite. Im going to take SAT 2 tests in math 2 and chem and I would expect 760 or above (hopefully). My extracurriculars are solid all around as I am involved in about 7 clubs/activities and i’ll probably be president/leader of 2-3 different activities as well as a three season varsity sport captain in soccer, indoor track, and outdoor track. I plan on starting my own charity to help give clean water to africa and doing lots of volunteer hours over the summer. I work at my own landscaping business. Im considering taking some classes at UPENN over the summer just to show that I can handle college level classes at Penn and just because it’s another thing to write on my app. I will ensure that my recommendations and application materials (i.e. essays and interview) are stellar.

Essentially my app will be a 3.75 GPA UW- 4.3 W with all honors and AP classes, and an extremely rigorous junior year. I hope to get a 35 on my ACT and 760+ on my 2 SAT 2s. and then I have all the other extracurriculars listed above. I’ll definitely apply ED to the CAS. Do you think my freshman year could hurt my app enough that my chances are limited?

Thanks for reading and commenting; try to be as honest as possible.