This is the official discussion thread for University of Pennsylvania Class of 2029 RD applicants. Ask your questions and connect with fellow applicants.
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I got cooked Yale REA without an interview, after reevaluating my profile and my own interests I feel like business school meshes better both with my profile and interests so I’m here now!
ACT: 36 comp
GPA: 4.0/4.4 top 5% in class
Coursework: 7 APs (all 4s and 5s), 9 DE including 3 higher level (200-400 level) courses
School: Wharton
Domestic from AL, noncompetitive public school
Awards/Honors:
- Top 30 at natl debate tournament
- Ranked top 150 in US in debate
- Pretty good award at intl music competition
- State champs for math (team)
- State champs for math for a different statewide tournament (team)
Extracurriculars:
- Founded debate tutoring org for debaters w/o school program, coached kids w/o a program to 6 TOC bids+2 full quals+multiple top speaker awards+multiple natl tournament champs+saved debaters $72,000 on resources
- Director of debate at massive speech+debate nonprofit, directed production of substantial part of $311k of free speech and debate resources including 1000+ pages, 3000+ debaters reached thru lectures, and camps.
- Codirected an online debate camp that was originally confined to AL but expanded it to natl with ~75 (?) students
- Competed in debate, see awards above for the bigger achievements but I also competed w/o any school support
- Project leader for another debate nonprofit, lead infrastructure and design of various philanthropy and teaching events
- Solo bassoonist, see awards above
- Math team captain
- Volunteer tutor @ local Korean school
- Semi selective summer journalism camp
Why Wharton topic: Private sector solutions to educational disparities in the US
Since a good chunk, perhaps even the majority of the applicant pool is admissible on stats alone, ensure your essays convey your personal traits - this is the place to showcase them, as your essays are the next filter.
With college kids at UPenn and Harvard, UPenn has recently made its financial aid formula much more generous. Like Harvard, it now counts siblings in grad school (to a lesser degree than those in college) and has relaxed its formula. In the past, Harvard and Princeton’s need-based aid packages were extremely hard to beat. Now Penn joins MIT where tuition is free for families earning < $200K/yr. To provide an idea, my contribution for my D at Harvard was half the amount in her Brown offer, which equaled my need-based contribution amount at schools she applied to between Brown and Tulane. My Penn child’s aid package was similar to my younger child’s Brown offer last year but should now match Harvard’s.
The multiple kids in college family contribution split (for CSS schools as FAFSA only, or public, colleges will stop the split next fall, was 100% of EFC contribution for 1 child, 60% each for 2 kids, and 45% each for 3+ kids in school. (Most top tier colleges are close to this percentage) But if sending 2 kids to Penn simultaneously, the contribution is 50% per child or you pay the same for 1 or 2 kids if receiving any need-based aid. All Penn undergrad aid packages have been loan-free since 2001.
UPenn, Harvard, and Stanford have top ranked MBA, MD, and JD programs so they attract lots of qualified undergrads who hope to attend one of these grad programs, plus those in studying other majors which also offer strong career placement. Yale is close in this way as it has top MD and JD programs and has successfully been improving its MBA program over the past 30 yrs. With the above in mind, I imagine admission to Penn will be more competitive than ever. My wife and I loved out time as students there. My Penn child loves it there too.
I loved the MBA program where the admin (non-traditional grades, no class rank, no GPA, recruiters not allowed to ask academics) and profs (one returned my call same evening at 11pm) did everything to help students. My banking prof later became the president of the Philly Fed. During his PhD, my Advanced Strategy course teacher’s advisor was Michael Porter. My Strategy course teacher was a former Bain partner who became partner in record time. And there’s so much one can learn from classmates.
The highest number of students in my Wharton MBA class of 760 were from Penn undergrad. Twenty from Wharton undergrad and 25 from the rest of Penn. Around a dozen (some less) from each of the other ivys and the rest in even lower numbers from everywhere else.
Watch for other 1st tier colleges to relax their aid formulas to compete as this application season progresses. Good luck to all!
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Meant to say personal qualities, not traits. Starting this admission cycle, the alumni interviews are not evaluative but rather informational and no interview report is furnished to the admin committee.
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Did everyone just get a missing fin aid docs mail?
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We did, seems more like a reminder. We submitted long time back. On portal if we click on “submit or review your finaid documents” we are getting an internal error
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Are you getting an error when you click on finaid doc? @RD-29
Yeah I am, ig it’s a common thing
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Same, I have just received a remainder for Financial aid but I believed everything was correct. However, when I click on the Financial aid link there is an error
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Open now, everything is still same
Do you (or does your kid) see a whole pile of documents in the financial-aid checklist? My kid has seven docs, three of them "status date’ yesterday (and all marked “submitted”).
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Does everyone has the FAFSA Status date as February?(This is definitely not our submitted date)
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My kid does, yes. Date changed again yesterday.
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We got the letter and also got the error when trying to access the Financial Aid portal. It finally went through after some time. All of our required documents were marked as “Submitted” so that email was likely a general reminder and not one specific to any missing documents.
My daughter just received an invite for an alum conversation and is having it this evening. I thought it was kind of late to have this conversation. But if it is only informational, then the timing won’t matter.
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Congratulations. Getting alum conversation at such a late stage is typically a very good sign. Have you received any other communication from the Univ other than this one, ever since you applied?
No other communication except for an email reminder to submit financial docs. Fingers crossed! 
I heard colleges shouldn’t and won’t look at FAFSA until they made a admission decision for that student. Is that true?