General Advice for All

We hope the advice we give in the Alumni Council on Admissions helps students to present a stronger application.  We host frequent Legacy Advising Sessions in the Sweeten Alumni House, which are often small and personal.  We are also happy to correspond with alumni families via email or phone.  Below, we offer a sample or overview of our advice.  There is more available throughout this website, on a variety of topics relevant to selective admissions.  We fear our advice can never be fully captured in words, so please feel free to follow up with questions about anything covered here, and about anything we forgot to cover.

Good student vs. good applicant-
We try to impress upon people some of the differences between being a “good student” and being a “good applicant.”  For many college admissions offices, these terms can be equivalent.  If someone has been a good student, then they will also present the credentials requisite for being considered a good applicant.  Remember that most colleges are not very selective.  About 80% to 90% of 4-year colleges in the US admit more than half of the applicants, and the average selectivity rate is about 70%.  When a college must admit fewer than half of its applicants, it enters a realm of higher selectivity.  Even small differences between applicants become more noticeable, and the school is forced to choose a smaller ratio of applicants.  In a selective admissions environment, there seems to be a big difference between being a "good student" and being a "good applicant."

The Application-
The Penn application collects a lot of information, and the Admissions Officers look at all of it:  transcript, standardized testing, teacher recommendations, activities and essays.  We think each component has equal weight in the decision process, though we admit you will hear varying opinions on that subject.  Here are some thoughts about a few of the application components:

Transcript:
In examining your transcript, of course they look at your grades over 3+ years, but Penn seems to place a lot of value on the level of challenge or rigor in your course work, as compared to what your school offers.  The best students will have seized nearly every opportunity to challenge themselves throughout their high school years.  Some of the best students will also show a special level of interest, passion, or dedication to their studies.  Perhaps they have pursued an enrichment opportunity outside the classroom, or maybe their intellectual curiosity has made them read or research a topic further, and as a result, they take classroom discussions to a higher level.  These kinds of attributes might be addressed in teacher recommendations, and might make one student somehow stand apart from their peers.  The best applicants will find links between their current academic interests and particular academic features at Penn. 

Activities:
We like to tell students to allow their extracurricular interests to play an active role in the college search.  If you have been involved in a few activities for the past several years and you have enjoyed them, then you deserve to continue those activities in your college years.  In terms of extracurricular activities, good students will be involved and committed.  A little higher on the food chain are students whose passion for an activity has established them as a leader in one or more areas.  Even higher up are the good applicants:  These are the students who have not only made an impact on their environment, but have also found ways that their talents will make an impact during their college years.

Essays:
When it comes time to apply to colleges, the essays represent the final homework assignment, the opportunity for the student to express themselves in their own words, and often the opportunity to articulate their fit with the school.  Good students present solid, well-constructed, well-written essays.  Good applicants take the assignment a step further.  They analyze the essay question.  They answer thoroughly and competitively.  Each of their essays retain the voice of the writer, so that all of the writing samples in the application truly represent the applicant.  As with many college applications, Penn asks a specific essay question about the student's fit with Penn.  A good student will articulate why they want to attend Penn.  The best applicants will find specific examples that answer the question and demonstrate their fit with Penn, and perhaps imply the kind of impact they will have here.

Testing:
We realize we have not addressed standardized testing yet in this message.  This is an important factor in the selection process, but it is often something a student cannot control, so we don't have a great deal of advice.  Penn Admissions will always look at a student's best scores, so students should feel free to retake testing as often as they would like.  We suppose there is a point at which a student could be spending an inordinate amount of time and effort on testing, when some of that time could be better spent researching their college options and finding the best collegial fit.

In the final analysis, the Admissions Committee has plenty of "good students" from which to choose.  Within that group, there are many "good applicants," and they seem to select the ones they find the most exciting or appealing.  We think there are things a student can do in their college search and in their application materials that may help to make them a more appealing candidate.

Surely, this message will make you think of further questions, so please feel free to follow up with an email, a phone call, or a visit!

Good luck with your college search, and good luck in school!

Sincerely,

Links for More Advice:

Podcast of a Regional Advising Event
Frequently Asked Questions
Opinion Forum
Early and Regular Decision for Legacies
What if They Say "No"?
Legacy Advising Sessions
Advising eNews