2009-2010 University of Pennsylvania Application Thread

shemarty · May 6, 2009

Prompts

1. Please check up to three (3) activities (lists your AMCAS activities) which are most important to you. Please elaborate focusing on leadership and commitment. (1000 characters each)

2. If you will not be a full-time student during the application year, please list your primary activity/employment.

3. Have you been nominated or received an award from any state, regional or national organization? If so, please describe.

LOR Reqs

1. Committee letter/letter packet from a pre-health advisor or career service office, with or without, additional letters attached. Letters from your school's pre-health advisor or career services office are preferred.

2. A minimum of two letters from faculty members who know you well, at least one of whom represents a science department. Letters must be on official stationery and submitted to AMCAS by the recommender.

ksmi117 · Jun 3, 2009

Hey fellow Penn Applicants!

So I did some research on secondaries this morning and here is what I found:

Penn's secondary is available via email. There is no screen for applicants. More info can be found here. Just for reference, last year someone posted that the secondary was available on July 1st (there were no essays). Post whenever you hear anything. 🙂

Best of luck this year. :luck:

mvenus929 · Jun 3, 2009

I'm really just commenting to mark this thread for quick find later in the season. But thanks for the info about the secondary ksme... I like secondaries with no essays.

Steeler7588 · Jun 3, 2009

mvenus929 said:
I like secondaries with no essays.

Penn's is amazing! Especially when I'll have to fill out Duke's...

sleepy425 · Jun 5, 2009

penn's secondary was the easiest secondary ever. even easier than WashU's. It took longer for the credit card authorization to go through than the rest of the secondary! good luck everyone!

oh, and come to Penn!

ksmi117 · Jun 6, 2009

sleepy425 said:
penn's secondary was the easiest secondary ever. even easier than WashU's. It took longer for the credit card authorization to go through than the rest of the secondary! good luck everyone!

oh, and come to Penn!

You're obsessed. You should put in a good word for me. 🙂

dw2158 · Jun 7, 2009

ksmi117 said:
You're obsessed. You should put in a good word for me. 🙂

and me 🙂

seriously, i'm praying to get an interview at penn. no one i've met who's even visited penn has had anything negative to say about it. seems incredible.

sportsfreak · Jun 7, 2009

ill second that...a great place to do MD or any other degree

tjluke25 · Jun 12, 2009

Penn is far and away my top choice for medical school...I am applying for the MD/MBA program there.

My uncle is an orthopedic surgeon who graduated from Penn, he told me that he had more fun at Penn than he ever had in college...he has gotten me extremely excited about their med school.

sportsfreak · Jun 12, 2009

thats cause they have parties every weekend

SnarkyMD · Jun 13, 2009

sportsfreak said:
thats cause they have parties every weekend

We do?

We do have a happy hour almost every Friday which mostly consists of a keg.

But aside from having fun/balanced people, we have one of the best curricula to boot, and great dual degree programs (just not MD/MPH). A word for tjluke, you can't apply directly into the MBA program, as you have to take the GMAT first, which you'll do after your first year.

sportsfreak · Jun 13, 2009

well the people i know there tell me that they work very hard during the week, but when weekend rolls around there is time to have fun

tjluke25 · Jun 13, 2009

SnarkyMD: Thanks a lot for this, I just realized this yesterday actually.

Ok2Panic · Jun 30, 2009

Just got an e-mail saying the secondary will be released July 15!

Equality · Jun 30, 2009

I just got the email too. Man, I got all excited until I found out that the real thing isn't open until later. -_-

mvenus929 · Jun 30, 2009

At least they sent us something letting us know when it was going to be released...

uva2010 · Jun 30, 2009

do they screen applicants? cuz i got the email too and i felt special haha

ksmi117 · Jun 30, 2009

uva2010 said:
do they screen applicants? cuz i got the email too and i felt special haha

Nope, no screen here. But you should still feel special. 🙂

ksmi117 · Jul 11, 2009

Snail mail from Penn. 🙂 A booklet about their curriculum and such.

FML · Jul 11, 2009

ksmi117 said:
Snail mail from Penn. 🙂 A booklet about their curriculum and such.

ditto
my family was around when I opened it and they were like "why does penn taunt you so much?" :laugh:

mvenus929 · Jul 11, 2009

ksmi117 said:
Snail mail from Penn. 🙂 A booklet about their curriculum and such.

And they didn't even bother to include a form letter. Pshhh....

ksmi117 · Jul 11, 2009

My mom went to undergrad at Penn, and she was like "It's so weird that we got something from Penn, and it's not addressed to me and asking for money."

Jolt21 · Jul 12, 2009

initially, Penn was in my top 5. after reading their brochure and doing some more research...yea, i dont think they will get out my top 5.

mvenus929 · Jul 13, 2009

Jolt21 said:
initially, Penn was in my top 5. after reading their brochure and doing some more research...yea, i dont think they will get out my top 5.

Why the change?

LAman10 · Jul 13, 2009

mvenus929 said:
Why the change?

umm, I think you misread his post. he said penn WON'T be falling out of his top 5

JJMrK · Jul 14, 2009

This sucker should come out tomorrow, yeah?

ksmi117 · Jul 14, 2009

JimmerJammerMrK said:
This sucker should come out tomorrow, yeah?

Woot! Hope there are still no essays.

mvenus929 · Jul 14, 2009

LAman10 said:
umm, I think you misread his post. he said penn WON'T be falling out of his top 5

Meh. That's what I get for trying to read posts after a 12 hour day at work.

Jolt21 · Jul 15, 2009

ksmi117 said:
Woot! Hope there are still no essays.

i hope there is one, actually. i have some stuff to say about the school...

Aggro · Jul 15, 2009

If Penn had an essay, it would be, "Why WOULDN'T you want to go to the University of Pennsylvania?"

Steeler7588 · Jul 15, 2009

Because you'd have to treat Eagles fans?

Jolt21 · Jul 15, 2009

Steeler7588 said:
Because you'd have to treat Eagles fans?

HAHAHA...that an listen to Phillies/76ers fan. no good thing comes out of philly sports.

i've heard they are almost as mean as fenway fans and fans in the black hole (raiders).

Aggro · Jul 15, 2009

Fenway fans aren't mean. They're just drunk and angry because they paid $10 a beer to get drunk.

However, the Black Hole is insane. You'd have to be to keep buying season tickets for a team that hasn't had a four win season since like 2003.

sleepy425 · Jul 15, 2009

it appears that the "secondary" will be up soon because I woke up this morning and they now have a 2010 option on the status page login. It wasn't there yesterday. So I expect those with verified applications will be getting an email with a temporary password later today. Good luck!

musings · Jul 15, 2009

got it

there are like 3 "mini" essays. They ask you to pick the three activities that are most important to you and WHY you have 1000 characters to elaborate on leadership and commitment.

Jolt21 · Jul 15, 2009

PENN! PENN!

just easy questions...dam

Equality · Jul 15, 2009

Got the secondary! It's the easiest one I received so far.

Equality · Jul 15, 2009

In case anyone is wondering--the link to the secondary is here but you need to refer to your email to get the unique password they generated for you.

mdeast · Jul 15, 2009

Not as easy GW, but still pretty good. Not sure what to write about the activities sections that I didn't include in my descriptions on AMCAS (I was pretty thorough).

seira · Jul 15, 2009

I don't know where I got this idea but is Penn non-rolling?

Sam32 · Jul 15, 2009

is it different from last year's one?

SpaceDementia · Jul 15, 2009

I wonder if "awards" includes scholarships?

Not a big fan of writing descriptions for 3 activities because I wrote quite a bit for each in my AMCAS... guess I'll have to be a little bit redudant.

Steeler7588 · Jul 15, 2009

SpaceDementia said:
I wonder if "awards" includes scholarships?

Not a big fan of writing descriptions for 3 activities because I wrote quite a bit for each in my AMCAS... guess I'll have to be a little bit redudant.

I'm putting down scholarships (state, national) for the awards.

I think I'll just put slightly modified versions of my AMCAS descriptions for my 3 activities. I made sure to touch on leadership and commitment in my primary application, so I'm not sure what I could do differently...

JasonE · Jul 15, 2009

it is really stupid for them to ask you to elaborate with 1000 characters. thats exactly what was on the amcas. why ask the same thing twice

osumc2014 · Jul 15, 2009

What are the LOR requirements? It says I'm not eligible because I don't have LORs assigned...so LORs must be in before I start filling this out?

Sam32 · Jul 15, 2009

JasonE said:
it is really stupid for them to ask you to elaborate with 1000 characters. thats exactly what was on the amcas. why ask the same thing twice

Really stupid. I don't even know what to write. I talked about this on the amcas. Should we copy and paste then?

JasonE · Jul 15, 2009

Sam32 said:
Really stupid. I don't even know what to write. I talked about this on the amcas. Should we copy and paste then?

i wouldnt copy and paste. it may make you look lazy. just try your best to detail what you did (maybe provide some kind of short example/story in the description)

vette2k10 · Jul 15, 2009

osumc2014 said:
What are the LOR requirements? It says I'm not eligible because I don't have LORs assigned...so LORs must be in before I start filling this out?

Ya I got the same status. I just assigned my LORs to them so we will see how fast they are

wt45 · Jul 15, 2009

osumc2014 said:
What are the LOR requirements? It says I'm not eligible because I don't have LORs assigned...so LORs must be in before I start filling this out?

same.

Dantheman52188 · Jul 15, 2009

"If this parent has any of the Penn School of Medicine affiliations listed above, please provide his or her address"

What affiliations are they talking about here?

Also, when I click on my 3 activities of choice, I am getting no option of writing 1000 characters. Is anyone else having this problem?

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