UPenn Class of 2021 RD Results

Reese5
Wed, 05 Apr 2017 01:13:44 +0000

**Decision: Waitlisted **

Objective:
SAT I (breakdown): 1580 (790 Reading and Writing, 790 Math, 22 Essay)
ACT (breakdown): 35 Composite (36 English, 35 Math, 33 Reading, 36 Science, 33 Writing)
SAT II: 800 Math II, 800 Biology M
Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): 4.0 W, 4.85 UW
Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): N/A
AP (place score in parenthesis): Biology (5), US History (5), BC Calc (5), Lang and Comp (5)
IB (place score in parenthesis): none
Senior Year Course Load: AP Chem, AP Lit, AP Gov, AP French, AP Stats
Major Awards (USAMO, Intel etc.): nothing extremely major… National Merit Commended, AP Scholar with Distinction, Harvard Book Award, French Honor Society, National Honor Society, and a bunch of school academic awards.

Subjective:
Extracurriculars (place leadership in parenthesis):

Varsity Tennis (Captain)

National Honor Society (Officer)

Asian Culture Club (President)

Math Team

Biology lab aide

Job/Work Experience:

Intern at biomedical company

Teacher assistant at local language school (won award for best teacher assistant)

Volunteer/Community service:

Invention/Science Camp (Camp Counselor)

Volunteer at local hospital

Volunteer at town library

Summer Activities:

Internship at biomedical company

Summer program at Brown

Invention/Science Camp (Camp Counselor)

Hiking/traveling with family

Essays (rating 1-10, details):

Common App: 9/10, Wrote about finding balance between being an individual and contributing to a community

Supplements: 8/10, Worked hard on it, but was kinda average I guess

Recommendations (rating 1-10, details):
Teacher Rec #1: AP Bio teacher 9/10, did well in class, work as lab aide
Teacher Rec #2: AP Lang teacher 9/10, did well in class, connected with teacher
Counselor Rec: 8/10 didn’t know super well, but she definitely likes me a lot
Additional Rec: none
Interview: 8/10 My interviewer turned out to have gone to Penn for graduate school, not for undergrad, so I couldnt ask many of the questions I had prepared. As a result, the interview was pretty short (like 25 mins)

Other:
Applied for Financial Aid?: Yes
Intended Major: Health and Societies
State (if domestic applicant): MA
Country (if international applicant): USA
School Type: Public, small but high-ranking in Massachusetts, competitive atmosphere
Ethnicity: Asian
Gender: F
Income Bracket: Upper middle class
Hooks (URM, first generation college, etc.): lol

Reflection:
Strengths: Grades, test scores, teacher recs
Weaknesses: Interview, Asian, interested in biology (very popular major), many strong legacy applicants from my school
Why you think you were accepted/deferred/rejected: Average essays and see above
Where else were you accepted/deferred/rejected: Accepted at Yale, Brown, Dartmouth, Duke, Vanderbilt, UVA, and McGill; wait listed at Harvard, UPenn, and Cornell; Rejected at Columbia and Princeton

General Comments: Congrats to all those accepted! You have worked so hard for this - enjoy yourself now!! For all those who didn’t receive the good news you were hoping for, please remember that college admissions is such a crapshoot and that some random admissions officer’s decision does not reflect who you are as a person.