Count applications before interpreting a record year
Penn’s counselor newsletter lists 65,236 applicants for the Class of 2028, including 8,683 early decision and 56,553 regular decision applicants. These are application-pool counts for a historical cohort.
The Ivy Institute editorial team
Read the labels
An applicant, an offer, and an enrolled student are different units. Record the label on the source before carrying a number into a comparison.
Penn reports the application pool by round and labels several profile measures as characteristics of incoming students. Penn’s Class of 2028 counselor newsletter.
For a related decision, see the Institute’s guide to interpreting MIT’s Class of 2028 figures.
Reconcile the pool
Adding the two application-round counts gives the reported total. Dividing early applications by total applications gives a pool share, never an early admit rate.
An early application share is about 13.3% of this applicant pool. It tells a reader when applications arrived. To calculate an offer rate for either round, you would need the corresponding offer count and a consistent rule for how deferred candidates are counted.
Use the news in a list decision
The historical scale can justify building alternatives. It cannot tell an individual student what their result will be.
Reconstruct Penn’s pool
Choose the situation closest to yours, then add a detail you want to take away.
How our advisers use cohort data
A student asked our team whether a perceived strategic advantage should outweigh the subject they wanted to study. Our written feedback asked which interest the student could explain and what work supported it. Apply that question when a historical admission rate makes one academic route look more attractive than another.
Continue with interpreting MIT’s Class of 2028 figures and reading Yale’s historical admit rate.
Read the Institute’s student case studies, meet the advising team, or bring a question to an adviser.
The University of Pennsylvania received more than 65,000 applicants to its class of 2028, an all-time high and marking the second year in a row that the size of the applicant pool set a record.
Penn accepted 3,508 out of 65,235 applicants to the class of 2028, amounting to a record-low 5.4% acceptance rate. That compares to the 3,474 students who were admitted to the class of 2027 out of more than 59,000 applications, for a 5.8% acceptance rate.
The applicant pool for the class of 2028 was the largest in its history, and marked an increase of more than 10% from the prior year.
Class Makeup
14% of the incoming class are legacy students, while 14.5% are from Pennsylvania, according to a report by The Daily Pennsylvanian.
The class includes students from 109 countries and all 50 states, as well as Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, and the Marshall Islands, Dean Whitney Soule said in a release.
This was the second application cycle in which applicants wrote a thank-you note to someone in their lives, “sharing inspiring encounters, relationships, and observations that impacted them and filled them with gratitude,” Soule said in the release.
New Landscape
The class of 2028 was the first to be admitted to Penn since the Supreme Court ruling last year overturning affirmative action.
“The higher admissions landscape experienced significant adjustments and complications this year, including the Supreme Court's elimination of considering race in admissions evaluations, exceptionally complicated circumstances related to federal financial aid programs, and the pressure of world events on college campuses, including at Penn,” Soule said at a University Board of Trustees meeting on June 14, according to the Pennsylvanian.
How The Ivy Institute’s College Admissions Consultants Can Help
Getting into top-tier universities like the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) can be incredibly challenging, especially as these institutions become increasingly selective. For the Class of 2028, UPenn, like many of its peers, reported one of its most selective admissions cycles yet. In this competitive landscape, The Ivy Institute's college admissions consulting services can be a crucial asset for prospective students.
Here’s how:
The Ivy Institute employs former UPenn admissions officers and graduates, providing insider knowledge for navigating UPenn's competitive admissions. Their services include personalized application strategies, essay crafting, interview prep, and application reviews. Consultants help accentuate strengths, address weaknesses, and ensure essays and recommendations align with UPenn's values. Post-application support is also offered to manage waitlists and decisions. By leveraging expert insights and a holistic approach, The Ivy Institute enhances applicants' chances in highly selective admission cycles like UPenn’s Class of 2028.
