The University of Pennsylvania is a prestigious Ivy League university in Philadelphia with more than a few claims to fame. Penn received over 72,000 applications for the Class of 2029, and it was the hardest year ever to get into the university. The acceptance rate was only 4.9%. We expect the statistics to shake out about the same for the Class of 2030.
In the past, Penn has filled a large percentage of the first-year class in the Early Decision round. This held true last year when they accepted 51% of their class in the Early Decision round. That is a massive prioritization of ED applicants by Penn, and it means that they go into the regular decision application round with half — or more — of the spots already claimed. Then they admit students in to fill the rest of the spots with a little extra because not everyone will select to attend when not bound by an Early Decision agreement.
The Waitlist is an additional backup that they only use if they need to. So, while Penn practices having a waitlist, they do a lot of work to not have to use it. If you are a waitlisted student, this poses a challenge.
The waitlist admit rate is not predictable for Penn. In 2024, for example, the rate at which waitlisted students were accepted plummeted 72% — and it was already miniscule to start with. Some years, well over 100 are admitted. Other years, under 50. For the fall of 2024, Penn offered 2,958 students a spot on the waitlist. Nearly all of them, 2,288, accepted a spot. Of that pool, 66 were accepted — or 2.9%.
This is all to say that the odds of getting into Penn off of the waitlist aren’t great, but it also isn’t impossible. In fact, pulling off an acceptance to Penn off of the waitlist is something that we are experts at.
In this post, we’ll outline the key steps you need to take to improve your chances of admission to Penn as a waitlisted student. The best chance, though, comes from working with someone who has faced this before — and walked away with an acceptance letter.
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What you need to do after receiving a waitlist decision from Penn can be broken down into four key steps. Each step is crucial to improve your chances of eventual admission to Penn, so do not skip around.
Step One: Join the Penn Waitlist
You’ve been offered a spot on the University of Pennsylvania waitlist, but you aren’t actually on the waitlist yet. To get on the waitlist, and still be in consideration for admission to Penn, you need to join it. First, though, consider whether you really want to. There is no cost from Penn to join the waitlist, but there are costs.
In step 2, you’re going two commit to a school you were accepted by, which involves placing a deposit. That deposit will not be refunded if you get into Penn and decide to attend. So, talk to your parents or close family to make sure you are all on the same page with sticking it out with Penn.
Once you’ve decided to join the Penn waitlist, it’s time to confirm that with Penn. This will require you to follow a few simple instructions through the applicant portal.
Step Two: Commit to Another School
This step is probably the hardest. You aren’t giving up on Penn — quite the opposite — but you do need to line up a back-up college for you to start at in the fall if Penn doesn’t work out. Ideally, you have a second choice school that you were accepted by and are even excited about…just not as excited about as Penn. If you don’t have a solid back-up option, we get that it’s hard to say yes to somewhere that you aren’t excited about. However, you need to do it.
Reapplying to college again next year is not an option. It is nearly impossible to achieve better college application outcomes when you apply in the midst of a gap year. It is much easier to transfer, which we can help with if it comes to that.
Step Three: Update School
Historically, Penn has invited students on the waitlist to submit additional information that “sheds new light on your candidacy.” The way they want to receive this information is through the Penn Applicant Portal, but you typically can only do it once. There aren’t multiple takes at it, which is part of why this is Step 3 not Step 1.
Penn does not want to be bombarded with reams of information that didn’t fit into your Common App, or that has happened since. They typically don’t want additional letters of recommendation, they don’t want a presentation about how awesome you are, they don’t want a five-page resume outlining everything you have done since 8th grade, and your school needs to be the one sending your updated grades. With all that off the table, this is what you are going to do: a letter of continued interest (LOCI).
This is how you need to write your LOCI:
Open
The opening is your place to set the tone for the letter, and the most important piece of the tone is professionalism. It’s a letter, so start it like one (Dear Penn Admissions). From there, you need to keep in mind that this is comparable to writing a letter to a potential employer. This is not a letter to a friend, it’s a letter to a group of people who are able to change the course of your college career with one, simple decision. In this letter, you want to make them start searching for ways to let you in, but that doesn’t happen through begging or pleading — it’s about writing a compelling letter that centers the connection you feel between you and Penn.
Next, you need to write 3-4 sentences introducing yourself as a waitlisted student still fully committed to Penn before sharing your prospective major and your intention for this letter. That intention, obviously, is to share updates to your application, reinforce your interest in attending Penn, and confirm that you will enroll if accepted.
Update
Next comes the update. This is super important, because there needs to be something new about you for them to seriously consider you as a waitlisted applicant. These don’t need to be flashy, though. If you’ve won awards since you submitted your application to Penn, awesome. Tell them that. However, you don’t to have any new trophies on a proverbial shelf to impress the admissions committee. What we really want you to focus on are three things: passion, community, and purpose.
Pick one thing to update Penn about that fits each category. One for passion, one for community, and one for purpose. The whole letter is only going to be one page — less than 600 words — so each update should be short but detailed enough to give them a sense of what it means to you and why it felt important to you to share it with them.
Reinforce
Next, you need to reinforce your interest in Penn with a focus on the specific academic path you want to take. Don’t copy-and-paste from your “why Penn” writing. There should be nothing, other than the name of your prospective major, that is a repeat here. Instead, it should be one tight paragraph full of new information that builds on what you’ve been presenting to them the whole time.
Close
Once you’ve reinforced your passion for Penn, you need to close the letter. Write a final one or two sentences thanking them for their time and consideration, and then sign off with a “Sincerely,” or something similar.
Edit, show to a mentor, edit again, and then submit.
Step Four: Wait
The last step is the most painful: you need to wait. Penn will not start even looking at the waitlist until after “Decision Day” in May when students are required to commit. It isn’t until after then that they will know how many spots they have left to fill. It typically takes at least a few weeks, then, for Penn admissions to sort through the waitlist to find the right students to fill the spots they have open. It isn’t only about you, after all, but also about crafting a balanced class with students distributed across departments and passions.
In the past, waitlisted students have heard back from Penn by the end of June.
Waiting on the Penn waitlist is not fun, but after committing to a back-up and writing your LOCI you shouldn’t let being in limbo mess with your senior spring. Keep achieving at a high level because that’s something you love doing. Continue pursuing your passions, and mentor the juniors who will step into your leadership roles after graduation. Enjoy yourself, your future is bright.
Getting off of a waitlist is very hard. We pull it off. Email us to learn more.