Penn announces 5.4% acceptance rate for Class of 2028, most selective year on record
Vice Provost and Dean of Admissions Whitney Soule announced admissions statistics for the Class of 2028, Penn’s most selective admissions cycle on record, at the University Board of Trustees spring full board meeting on June 14.
Out of a pool of 65,235 applicants, 3,508 students were admitted, resulting in an acceptance rate of 5.4%. The Class of 2028 consists of 2,400 students from 47 states and 95 countries. Legacy students constitute 14% of the class, and 14.5% are from Pennsylvania.
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I’m not impressed that every year schools claim “our most selective year on record”. With the common app, how applications are counted and how they entice students to apply, it’s all a numbers game.
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And with TO people apply to schools they probably wouldn’t apply to if they had to submit a test.
I suspect things will change for the required schools next year.
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Perhaps. But in Penn’s case, at least, there’s been a real effort in recent years to deemphasize the actual acceptance rate number. For example, Penn no longer formally announces the acceptance rate, issues press releases with acceptance rates, or even lists either the number accepted or the acceptance rate in the latest incoming class profile on the Admissions website:
https://admissions.upenn.edu/how-to-apply/what-penn-looks-for/incoming-class-profile
The above article from The Daily Pennsylvanian was only possible because the Admissions Dean fulfilled her obligation to report these numbers to Penn’s trustees at their annual spring meeting. Beyond that–and the Common Data Sets posted by Penn every summer in a rather obscure portion of its website which necessarily include admissions statistics for the previous freshman class–it’s kind of difficult to find Penn’s acceptance rates as reported or touted by Penn. Certainly, the Admissions Office is now doing its best not to disclose or emphasize that rate to applicants.
Penn will almost assuredly be more selective next year as it will remain test optional next year while most of the rest of the Ivies will require or strongly suggest (non-School of Agriculture Cornell) tests. Columbia and Princeton will probably have record years as well.
Yale’s admissions podcast indicated it thinks a significant increase in apps it’s seen over the past 4 years was due to students without test scores thinking they were viable based on strong GPAs and ECs - especially among many international applicants. No shade to such students, that’s what Yale’s own analysis found. So many of these students will flock to schools no longer requiring test scores and the schools that require the tests next year will likely have fewer applications - which according to them they are fine with.