UNDERGRADUATE ADMISSIONS GUIDE
Penn offers four different undergraduate educations, with room to learn across them. Start with the questions that interest you. We’ll help you connect those interests with the right school and a clear, personal application.
Fall 2027 entry
FIND YOUR ACADEMIC HOME
You apply to a particular school or coordinated program. Compare what you would study every week, not just the name on the degree.
COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES · BACHELOR OF ARTS
For Fall 2027 entrants, the new curriculum combines shared first-year courses, study across the sciences and humanities, and depth in a major chosen by the end of sophomore year.
PENN ENGINEERING · B.S.E. OR BACHELOR OF APPLIED SCIENCE
Mathematics, science, and computing support design and technical study. The B.S.E. and the more flexible B.A.S. offer different ways to combine engineering with other interests.
THE WHARTON SCHOOL · BACHELOR OF SCIENCE IN ECONOMICS
Business foundations and a concentration sit alongside arts and sciences. Economics, calculus, writing, and Wharton 1010 are part of the first-year education.
PENN NURSING · BACHELOR OF SCIENCE IN NURSING
Nursing, science, and liberal arts begin in the first year. Clinical practice is built into a degree that prepares you for professional nursing.
Wherever you start, you can take classes, usually electives, in any of Penn’s four undergraduate schools.
Foundations: start with different ways of asking questions. Kite explores human experience; Key develops scientific and quantitative reasoning. First-year and writing seminars add close discussion. Language study and Perspectives & Difference broaden the foundation.
Distribution: give your interests depth without losing breadth. Allocate at least 12, 5, and 3 credits across natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities and arts. You choose which division receives each weight. Major courses can also count.
Your major: build deeper knowledge in a field you choose. Your department sets the major requirements. The broader curriculum sits around and overlaps with that study, rather than requiring a separate extra set of courses for every category.
Letrado’s advice: Look for a useful stretch as well as a natural strength. If your interest is economics, for example, think about how historical, philosophical, or scientific approaches could change the questions you ask.
College places economics within a liberal-arts degree. Compare the economics major’s theory, empirical work, and quantitative requirements alongside the College’s broader curriculum.
Wharton places economics within a business education. The degree title is B.S. in Economics, but its business foundations and concentrations make it different from the College’s economics major.
Letrado’s advice: Read the required courses side by side. Which questions and methods would you want to spend four years learning? Let that answer guide your school choice.
One degree can still cross disciplines. Start with your school’s requirements, then explore electives and eligible minors. Check prerequisites, permission, and available places for individual courses.
A coordinated dual degree needs a reason for both fields. Programs such as Huntsman, LSM, M&T, NHCM, and VIPER combine two degrees with additional requirements. The additional coursework should serve what you want to learn. Huntsman accepts students only through the first-year application.
Letrado’s advice: Choose a single-degree option you would genuinely be happy to study. Do not apply to another school on the assumption that you can transfer into Wharton later; internal transfer is selective.
Your house: Choose a first-year house, mostly of new students, or a four-year house shared with every class. Faculty live in the houses too.
Your advisers: Before you arrive, the College introduces your peer and pre-major advisers.
SHOW HOW YOU LEARN AND CONTRIBUTE
Penn considers your academic preparation, curiosity, contributions, and growth in the context of your opportunities. Practical interests can begin with everyday experiences.
ACADEMIC READINESS
Your transcript helps Penn understand how you have prepared for the school you chose.
Letrado’s adviceCheck the school’s recommended preparation early. Ask your counselor to explain unavailable courses or other important context.
CURIOSITY IN PRACTICE
Penn values curiosity and inventive, practical thinking. Activities help it see how you use your time.
Letrado’s adviceDescribe a decision, a test, or a change you made. A job, repair project, or school responsibility can show real initiative without an expensive program.
COMMUNITY
The application also asks how you engage with people and what you would bring to Penn.
Letrado’s adviceExplain who relied on you and how you responded. Listening, following through, and helping others can be more revealing than a leadership title.
PREPARATION TO BUILD ON
PENN’S ACTIVITY GUIDANCE
Penn says part-time work, family responsibilities, and school, summer, and community experiences all count. It isn’t looking for a specific list of accomplishments.
How you engage with what you’re learning.
How you organize it around what matters to you.
What you add to the communities you belong to.
WHAT PENN SAYS
Penn doesn’t offer on-campus interviews with admissions officers or individual appointments with admissions staff. It offers information sessions in person and online instead, and says it doesn’t track demonstrated interest.
WHAT PENN SAYS
Penn says using “a tool, including an AI tool, to organize your thoughts or check your grammar” doesn’t compromise your application. Submitting work that isn’t yours does, including when “an AI tool generated your responses,” or when activities or honors are embellished or invented.
Penn’s test: if you couldn’t explain how you arrived at what you wrote, “it isn’t ready to submit.”
GIVE YOUR APPLICATION ROOM TO DEVELOP
Early Decision is binding. If you want to compare universities and financial-aid packages before choosing, Penn recommends Regular Decision.
Early Decision
Nov 1, 2026Regular Decision
Jan 5, 2027Early Decision suits you when Penn is your first choice and you understand the commitment: if admitted, you withdraw your other applications and enroll. Regular Decision keeps time to compare your offers and aid before making your decision. Penn doesn’t offer Early Action or Early Decision II. Dates without a year are as Penn lists them.
Apply through Common App, Coalition, or QuestBridge. The application fee is $75, with hardship waivers available.
Request transcripts from every high school you attended, your School Report, and midyear grades when available.
These are the two required recommendations. One further letter is optional, from another teacher or a community supporter. Penn needs your letters, transcript, and School Report by your application deadline: November 1 for Early Decision or January 5 for Regular Decision.
Penn requires SAT or ACT scores. If you have not taken either test and face a hardship, you can request a waiver in the application. If you have already taken a test, you must report your scores.
Early Decision: SAT: November 7, 2026. ACT: October 17, 2026.
Regular Decision: SAT: December 5, 2026. ACT: December 12, 2026.
How scores work: These are Penn’s latest accepted test dates, not application deadlines. Scores can be self-reported; enrolling students must provide official results. Recruited athletes must provide official scores. There is no minimum score.
English testing is separate. You are exempt if English is your native language or was your primary language of instruction for at least three years in high school or college by enrollment. Otherwise, submit official TOEFL, IELTS, or Duolingo English Test scores from a test taken on or after April 1, 2025.
Everyone’s questionnaire: All applicants complete an English-proficiency questionnaire in the Penn Portal after applying. It becomes available in October.
Two jobs: The standard school answer addresses your single-degree choice. Program-specific writing explains why the combined or specialized education fits your interests. You can also name a single-degree second choice.
Huntsman: Select a target language and discuss your experience and interest in its regions in 50–200 words. Then explain how international studies and business would help you address a global issue in 50–400 words.
Life Sciences & Management: Use 50–400 words to discuss questions at the intersection of life science and management, beyond career advancement.
Management & Technology: Explain how M&T would help you pursue a problem needing engineering and business in 50–400 words. Then describe something you created or improved, why you did it, and what you learned, in 50–200 words.
Nursing & Health Care Management: Use 50–400 words to connect your interests in nursing and healthcare management with the program.
VIPER: Explain your intended science or math and engineering combination in 50–200 words, then discuss energy interests, experience, and goals in 50–400 words.
Visual & Interactive Computing: Use 50–650 words to connect your interests with the program. VIC is a specialized engineering degree, not a coordinated dual degree, and Penn recommends a portfolio of 5 to 12 visual pieces.
Letrado’s advice: Explain why the subjects need to work together for your particular interests. Two degrees are not automatically a better plan than one. Check the exact fields and instructions in your application before submitting.
If you’re applying internationally: The process is the same wherever you live. Send records in English, with certified translations if needed; no third-party evaluation is required.
If you’re applying through QuestBridge: Penn takes part in the binding National College Match. For finalists who rank Penn, the Penn Supplement deadline is November 1. If you don’t match, you move to Regular Decision.
If you’re applying Early Decision: You can apply to nonbinding programs elsewhere, but not to another private college’s Early Decision or Restrictive Early Action.
Midyear reports and extra materials: Deferred Early Decision applicants’ midyear reports are due February 15. Most applicants send no supplementary materials, and Penn can’t promise to review them.
Your citizenship affects how aid enters the decision. Penn is need-blind for citizens and permanent residents of the U.S., Canada, and Mexico: requesting aid does not affect their admission decision. Other international applicants are considered need-aware. If you need aid, request it when applying; students admitted without it generally cannot request Penn aid later.
Your forms: U.S. applicants file the FAFSA and CSS Profile with parents’ tax returns, through Penn’s own portal rather than IDOC. International applicants, including Mexican citizens, send the CSS Profile and tax or earnings documents. Canadians use Penn’s separate aid application.
MAKE EACH RESPONSE DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT
50–200 wordsFor each of Penn’s three short answers, alongside your Common App personal statement.
Alongside your personal statement, Penn asks for two shared short answers and a school-specific response. The 2026–27 prompts use 50–200 words for each of these answers. You answer the prompt for your selected school, not all four.
Letrado’s adviceGive each answer a different job. If two of your answers could swap places, one of them needs a new example.
Acknowledge someone you have not yet thanked. Penn encourages you to share the note with them if possible. Letrado’s advice: write directly to that person. Use a specific memory and explain why it stayed with you. Let the appreciation stand on its own, without turning the note into another account of your achievements.
Penn asks how you will explore its community and how you and Penn might shape each other. Letrado’s advice: connect a real experience with a way you would take part at Penn. Include the perspective you hope to gain from others, not only the contribution you plan to make.
Penn asks you to describe something you are curious about and how you might pursue that curiosity in the College. Letrado’s advice: name a question you want to explore and show how the College could help you pursue it. Make the link between your curiosity and the education specific. You do not need to pretend your future major is settled.
Penn asks how you plan to pursue your engineering interests, particularly within the intended major you selected. Letrado’s advice: explain what you want to learn or build, then research the curriculum and relevant opportunities within your selected major. Show why those particular tools or methods would help you move forward.
Penn asks you to discuss a current issue of importance to you and how you hope a Wharton education would help you explore it. Letrado’s advice: identify what you still want to understand about the issue and how a Wharton education could help. An account of prices, incentives, or organizational choices is more useful than a list of famous alumni.
Penn asks why you are applying to Nursing, where you see yourself professionally, and how you will contribute to its mission of promoting equity in healthcare. Letrado’s advice: ground the answer in what you have observed or learned, not a sweeping promise to fix healthcare.
YOUR COMMON APP ESSAY
WHAT THE COMMON APP ASKS
The prompts are the same as last year’s. The last one lets you write about any topic you choose, and it was last year’s most popular choice (28%).
You write the essay once, in the part of the application your colleges share, so write it for every reader rather than one school. Each college’s own questions come separately.
LETRADO’S ADVICE
Write the essay no one else could write. If another applicant could have written a sentence, swap it for something only you would say.
Sound like yourself. Plain sentences and everyday words work better than impressive vocabulary.
Tell it as it happened. Keep to the facts, seen from where you stood. Don’t add drama or invent details.
Skip the big lesson. A small, true observation shows more than a claim about growth.
Any topic can work. An ordinary moment, or a setback, often says more than a trophy.
PLAN AROUND YOUR FAMILY’S REAL COST
Penn meets full demonstrated financial need through grants and work-study, without loans in its aid package. What your family pays depends on its circumstances.
FAMILY INCOME, TYPICAL ASSETS
Aid covers billed tuition, fees, housing, and dining.
FAMILY INCOME, TYPICAL ASSETS
Aid covers at least tuition, and often more.
ANY FAMILY INCOME
Aid meets it without loans. Penn offers no merit aid.
This is Penn’s Quaker Commitment. Penn excludes primary-home equity. Eligibility is assessed each year through the financial-aid application. Owning a business or extra property can mean your assets aren’t typical.
Understand the Quaker Commitment (opens in a new tab)2026–27 · PUBLISHED ON-CAMPUS BUDGET
$99,082Before financial aid and first-year extras. The $575 first-year orientation fee is additional.
For Fall 2027 entry, use the 2027–28 budget when Penn publishes it.
See Penn’s full budget (opens in a new tab)Letrado’s adviceCompare the family contribution, work-study expectation, insurance, and travel across your actual offers. If the figures are unclear, ask the aid office before committing. You deserve to understand the cost, not just the award headline.
Penn’s cost calculators give an early estimate. They don’t reflect the Quaker Commitment, which Penn applies after admission.
Estimate your family’s cost (opens in a new tab)ONE STUDENT’S DECISION · D.K.
D.K. studied the IB in Hong Kong. Her interests connected economics and philosophy, so she looked carefully at how each university would let her learn.
Economics and philosophy shaped the questions she wanted to explore beyond school.
Her research considered curriculum, undergraduate research access, and opportunities to study across schools.
They considered the real cost alongside the education, rather than choosing from reputation alone.
How we helped: we helped D.K. research the curricula, develop her application writing, and compare the financial terms with her family. Penn offered the combination she chose.
ADMITTED TO PENN
Offered a place at the University of Pennsylvania
CHOSE PENNPenn’s Quadrangle · Photo: WestCoastivieS / Wikimedia Commons, CC0. Cropped.
The ability to combine her interests while exploring courses across schools mattered to her final decision.
ALSO ADMITTED TO
FIND A USEFUL NEXT STEP
Meet your proposed mentor in a free 45-minute introduction. We’ll talk through your interests and send a personalized plan by email afterward, so you can decide what would help.
