It’s not just any business school, it’s The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
In January 2021, HW started working with a rising squash player. At that time, she was only 15 – but she knew what she wanted. Getting into a prestigious university that fulfills her academic aspirations, and where she could develop as a squash player.
She was just in grade 9 when she started her journey, but starting early was actually key to achieving her ultimate goal.
Throughout that year, she focused on researching and understanding aspects to become “college-ready”. Starting from the list of colleges we want to pursue, what majors she could explore, as well as the type of profile and activities she should build outside of squash. After doing this together, we narrowed down our focus – Ivy League colleges, Business or Psychology as a major, and social work and internship activities. So we executed the plan.
As a rising squash athlete, she worked hard on court. Playing various tournaments locally and maintained a top 3 ranking in her age category. Internationally, she traveled around Asia to play top level tournaments. Most importantly, playing the US Junior Open helped her get exposed to college coaches who started following her progress at the end of 2021. To complement her performance, coach communication was maintained to make sure coaches were up to date of her progress and performance.
In November of 2022, she got an early verbal offer from Penn. One step closer to the goal, but the journey is not done.
The next year, we had made sure that her academic profile was up to par with what Penn is looking for. Grades and SAT were important, so that was a priority. She worked hard to improve her A-Levels subjects to get straight A’s. With her interest in potentially taking Business and Psychology as a major, she had developed an non-profit initiative around mental health which has over a thousand audience on social media. She did a research internship during the summer at a local prestigious university, and was also involved in multiple leadership roles in her school organization.
With the profile she had built along with her academic grades and squash coach support, the door was wide open for her. Choosing an intended major took more in-depth research, and she decided to apply to The Wharton School at UPenn and focus on Business.
There is a lot of hard work, sacrifice, passion and planning involved in this process. Then a week ago, the official acceptance letter came in. Another goal achieved.
We at AddedEducation are so proud of her and her achievements and was ecstatic to be a part of her process to reach her ultimate goal!
By Lead Counselor Ashilla Safiya
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