The University of Pennsylvania is an iconic and storied Ivy League university in the heart of Philadelphia. Founded by Benjamin Franklin, the university has innovation and idealism at its core. While admission has long been coveted, the 21st century has seen the acceptance rate plummet parallel to demographic changes (more people going to college) and the strong draw of Penn’s unique perspective on education and purpose. The acceptance rate for the Class of 2030 was 5.8%. This was a small, about 1%, uptick from the previous admissions cycle (2024-2025). We do not take this small adjustment as a meaningful trend change, as it just keeps getting harder to get into Penn.
A key piece of Penn’s draw is the structure of the undergraduate experience. There are four undergraduate colleges, each offering globally renowned programs. You can choose to apply to (and hopefully gain acceptance to) The Wharton School, Penn Engineering, Penn Nursing, or The College of Arts and Sciences. Wharton, Penn Engineering, and Penn Nursing are known for being focuses, intense, and admissions requires a deep demonstrated interest in the field you’d be working to enter. The College of Arts and Sciences is the school that offers the most room for exploration, experiment, and discovery. Students don’t need to know what they want to be someday when they arrive at Penn for the College of Arts and Sciences, but that doesn’t mean you can get in as a generalist.
When students first reach out to us, they often have one question on their minds: “Can I get into Penn?” There is no easy answer to that question because it is the wrong question. Instead of asking if it is possible for you to get in, you need to be asking what you need to do to make it happen. Yes, this is because gaining admission to the College of Arts and Sciences is actually in your control. There are steps you can take to make admission nearly certain, and there are things you can refuse to do that make your application, at best, a long-shot.
In this post, we’re going to put you in the driver’s seat of your Penn application. Focused on the College of Arts and Sciences, we are going to break down the application process and provide you with the tools to start making the right decisions to get in. Remember, though, that this is just the beginning. When we work with our students, there is so much more that goes into an application that is personal and specific to your interests. Blanket rules are where you can begin, but eventually the best next step is to tap in an expert.
A Penn acceptance requires strong strategy. Get yours.
As we said, in this post we are focused on the College of Arts and Sciences. While some of our advice is transferrable to the other undergraduate colleges at Penn, don’t assume that it is all copy and paste. What you need to do for Wharton is not the same set of actions you need to take for Arts & Sciences, so if you are looking at another of the Penn undergraduate colleges you should definitely get in touch.
Step 1: Brush Up Your Grades and Scores
Ideally, you’ve already been doing this. You are applying this year! There isn’t time to do much of what we implement with our sophomores and juniors, like strategic course selection. What you’ve taken is what will be on your transcript, plus your senior year which may well be set in stone. That said, there is still time to make sure that Penn sees you in your best academic light.
The number one thing here are your grades. We’ll talk scores in a moment, but it really all starts with grades. If your school doesn’t follow the typical grade scale, this does not exempt you from Penn’s expectations. They want to see you thriving in the hardest courses you have access to, both in your prospective area of focus in college and in the subjects you might not be all that into. The grades still need to be As, and 90% of recently accepted and enrolled students reported an unweighted GPA between 3.75 and 4.0. 59%, they say, reported a 4.0.
When the statistics are made available by your school, Penn also wants to see how you measure up against your peers. Nearly all accepted and enrolled students fall in the top 10th of their graduating class when high school class rank is reported:
| Class Rank | Percentage |
|---|---|
| Top 10th of HS graduating class | 91.00% |
| Top Quarter of HS graduating class | 99.00% |
| Top Half of HS graduating class | 100.00% |
| Bottom Half of HS graduating class | - |
| Total submitting class rank | - |
The Class of 2030 was the first class since 2020 admitted without required SAT or ACT scores. The reinstatement of the testing requirement caused a small drop in the number of applications submitted, which is only important in as far as it impacted how many students got in. Most students who didn’t submit scores when they were optional, however, were not admitted anyway. For example, for the Fall of 2024, 67% of admitted and enrolled first-years had submitted scores. This was, remember, during a time that it was quite hard for many to even access the SAT or ACT — let alone ace it. Still, most students who got into and enrolled in Penn had done just that.
For us, this underlines how important test scores are to Penn when they assess an applicant. In short, they matter.
| Test | 25th Percentile | 50th Percentile | 75th Percentile |
|---|---|---|---|
| SAT Math | 740 | 760 | 770 |
| SAT Reading + Writing | 770 | 790 | 800 |
| ACT Composite | 34 | 35 | 36 |
The problem with these ranges, though, is that they can be misleading. It kind of opens up the idea that you can get into Penn with scores below the 50th percentile. The issue is that these statistics include applicants who have special considerations that lower the academic bar a bit — whether they admit it or not. This could include being a recruited athlete, having strong family connections, or a child of a large donor. If any of those apply to you, you probably aren’t reading this. If they don’t, you need to aim for the 75th percentile.
Step 2: Pick a Passion
Ideally, your academics point towards a passion. For many students with limited elective and advanced course options, their transcript doesn’t say a ton about what drives them in or outside of the classroom. It’s critically important, then, to decide on an academic direction and build a narrative around it. This is even — and perhaps especially — true if you aren’t sure what you are going to major in.
When we work with our students to identify a passion, we look at how they spend their time outside of the classroom and where they are most successful academically to find points of synergy and overlap. This might not be what you would call a passion in the ‘real world,’ but for the purpose of a Penn application it is perfect.
Step 3: Niche Down
Next, we need to zoom in. Having a passion is crucial, but it isn’t the end of the process of building the central academic narrative of your application. You may like biology, for example, and would even call it a passion, but what we want to guide your towards is the corner of the biological universe that most strongly aligns with who you are and what you do.
When we work with students, we like to find a niche well in advance of pressing submit such that we can craft activities, experiences, and supplementary academics around the passion. When there is less time, it’s often more of a matter of framing. We’re looking to tell a story of focus, which can mean choosing not to include certain things that may distract from the narrative of your application. Even with less time, though, there are typically ways to augment your extracurriculars for impact.
Step 4: Edit Your Extracurriculars
The narrative around activities or extracurriculars and college is almost uniformly that you need to do more. We hate that, though. The activities section has only ten spots to put an activity in. You have almost certainly done more than 10 things during high school. Some, then, will have to be cut. We work with our students to make sure that what gets included actually improves their application. However, we also often add an activity at the eleventh hour that underlines their passion and niche. This could be an internship, a relationship with a nonprofit, or even an independent project.
When assessing what to add, we look at your activities from three angles that are particularly important to Penn:
Scholarship
Leadership
Curiosity
There isn’t just one way to address any of these ‘buckets,’ and we might pull from places like these when you’re on a tight timeline before submitting:
Research
Internships
Outside classes
Summer programs
Part-Time Job
Long-term volunteer work
What comes next is pulling all the pieces together into an acceptance-earning application.
Step 5: Apply!
The last step should be obvious: It’s time to apply.
Penn heavily favors Early Decision applicants. It is important to know, too, that any boost, like legacy, that your application may have only applies in the Early Decision round. If you apply RD, being a legacy will not help you. If you apply ED, it can make a big difference. It won’t make up for flawed grades or scores, but it still makes a large impact. Penn has not released the Early Decision results for the Class of 2030, but in their most recent Common Data Set they share that 14.2% of ED applicants were accepted. Compare the early and regular decision results:
| Early Decision | For the class of 2028 |
|---|---|
| ED Applicants | 8.683 |
| Acceptance Rate | 14.20% |
| Overall Admission | For the class of 2030 |
|---|---|
| Applicants | 61,264 |
| Acceptance Rate | 5.80% |
It’s obvious based on this data that applying Early Decision is your best option if you want to get in. If you aren’t ready to commit yet, start your application early enough to accommodate an Early Decision application just in case you change your mind.
As you dig into the application process, remember that the qualitative aspects of who you are matter deeply. Once you check their boxes on academics, both GPA and scores, the way to stand out is through how you spend your time. We’ve already dug into passion, focus, and extracurriculars, but it’s helpful to see how Penn self-reports prioritizing things.
| Nonacademic Factors | Very Important | Important | Considered | Not Considered |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Interview | X | |||
| Extracurricular activities | X | |||
| Talent/ability | X | |||
| Character/personal qualities | X | |||
| First generation | X | |||
| Alumni/ae relation | X | |||
| Geographical residence | X | |||
| State residency | X | |||
| Religious affiliation/commitment | X | |||
| Volunteer work | X | |||
| Work experience | X | |||
| Level of applicant’s interest | X |
Penn has not released their 2025-2026 supplement yet, but they are very helpful in outlining the core questions they are seeking to answer about who you are and what drives you:
“We want to get to know you better, understand what you will bring to the Penn community. Stories can often be a good way to share this information!
What motivates you, inspires you, and how does it connect to Penn?
What do you hope to gain at Penn? What impact do you want to have? What do you care about? How do you like to learn?
Why are you interested in Penn specifically? What about Penn will make it feel like a new home to you?
We’ll be digging into the precise strategy for the 2026-2027 supplement once it comes out, but don’t wait to start writing. Try drafting stories about experiences, motivations, and what you hope to gain from Penn in advance of the supplement coming out to begin flexing your college application muscles.
Conclusion
Getting into Penn doesn’t just happen. Even if you have great grades and super strong scores, you probably won’t get into Penn unless you implement a real strategy to communicate your values, dreams, and drive. So, let’s do it.
If you want to craft the perfect application for Penn, reach out to us today.