Does anyone have a recommendation to help my daughter attend Penn next fall? She is talking to several highly selective D3 schools and may continue playing lacrosse through college. Overall, she is solid for most colleges with 4.05 GPA (W)/3.88 GPA (UW), 30 ACT, and strong ECs. She is a much stronger on the english, reading, and writing academic side with english major plans. She doesn’t have a hook for Penn unless you count grandparents and cousins having attended Brown. Would she have a shot applying early?
Honestly, her most plausible path to Penn is as a lacrosse recruit, if she is good enough to attract the attention of the coaching staff. Someone on here could probably give you some specific advice of how to judge that and how to approach the Penn coaching staff.
As a straight academic applicant, I think she is a very long shot to be blunt about it.
Not sure if you’ve found this yet:
http://www.collegeconfidential.com/dean/penn-admission-30-act/
@Nickflynn Thanks NickFlynn. She doesn’t want to play D1, but may play D3 and has several coaches offereing her support. She took the ACT again and improved it slightly to a 31. Would she have a better ED shot at Dartmouth or Brown? I know she is still a long shot, but would certainly appreciate your thoughts and recommendations. All the best, C
I’m confused- she wants to play D3 but she’s applying to UPenn and other ivies? She has to choose- I think her biggest/only hook for getting into Ivies would be as a recruited athlete, but if she is dead set against D1 lacrosse, then that is obviously not an option.
If she wants to go to UPenn and other Ivies AND play lacrosse, she would be a D1 athlete. Otherwise she should just be looking at D3 schools. There’s really no way that she could play D3 lacrosse AND go to an Ivy
Since she is evaluating options, she has the option to play D3 at strong competitive liberal art colleges. Naturally, she is also giving strong consideration to larger private schools as student only. The demands of a D1 athlete are considerably more time consuming than those for D3 student athletes….
Relatives attending other colleges don’t matter, regardless of how good said college is… why would Penn be impressed by someone having grandparents who went to Brown?
we’re just exploring the options and trying to be creative.
quite frankly, many schools shouldn’t give hooks to alum kids with lower than average scores. my friend’s kids landed in a very top IL school with ACT scores 3 points below the average…
Unless she is able/willing to be recruited to play lacrosse at Penn or another D1 school, it sounds her best shot is to get recruited to play lacrosse at one of the very selective D3 schools. If she really wants to go to Penn, she can work hard her freshman year and transfer. I have a friend whose daughter did something similar (transferred from a top LAC to Columbia). Anecdotally, I hear that Brown legacy status is mostly conferred on legacy donors and I’m not sure that 2nd degree relatives help anyway.