The University of Pennsylvania, located in Philadelphia, PA is an Ivy League university with notable alumni including Elon Musk, John Legend, and Noam Chomsky. Known as “Penn” or “UPenn,” this university also boasts an impressive faculty, from Jeb Bush to Adam Grant. It’s no surprise, then, that their admissions statistics are just as intimidating—only 4.1% of applicants were accepted into the Class of 2027. In this article, we’ll cover how to nail your UPenn supplemental essays.
Applications are evaluated holistically at the University of Pennsylvania, and students who can demonstrate intelligence, empathy, and personality in their supplemental essays will be most successful. Let’s dive right in.
University of Pennsylvania’s 2026-2027 Prompts
There are two kinds of essays you need to write for your UPenn application, for a total of three essays (unless you choose to apply to a specialized or dual degree program, or you are a transfer student, in which case you will have to write additional essays not addressed in this article). The first two essays are required for all first-year undergraduate applicants, while the third essay is specific to the school at UPenn to which you are applying.
All of the questions below have a suggested word range of 150-200 words.
Supplemental Essay Questions
- Write a short thank-you note to someone you have not yet thanked and would like to acknowledge. (We encourage you to share this note with that person, if possible, and reflect on the experience!)
- How will you explore community at Penn? Consider how Penn will help shape your perspective, and how your experiences and perspective will help shape Penn.
Undergraduate School Academic Essay Questions
- Penn Nursing intends to meet the health needs of society in a global and multicultural world by preparing its students to impact healthcare by advancing science. Why are you applying to Nursing, where do you see yourself professionally in the future, and how will you contribute to our mission of promoting equity in healthcare?
- The College of Arts and Sciences is designed to foster discovery and connection. Describe something you are curious about, something you’d like to learn more about or find a new approach to, and how you might pursue that curiosity in the College.
- Wharton prepares its students to make an impact by applying business methods and economic theory to real-world problems, including economic, political, and social issues. Discuss a current issue of importance to you and how you hope a Wharton education would help you explore it.
- Penn Engineering prepares its students to become leaders in technology by combining a strong foundation in the natural sciences and mathematics with depth of study in focused disciplinary majors. Describe how you plan to pursue your engineering interests at Penn, particularly within the intended major you selected.
University of Pennsylvania Supplemental Essay Questions
Write a short thank-you note to someone you have not yet thanked and would like to acknowledge. (We encourage you to share this note with that person, if possible, and reflect on the experience!) (150-200 words)
This prompt asks you to reflect on your relationships, and in particular, a relationship that has shaped you significantly and deserves acknowledgment. Admissions officers ask these kinds of questions in order to better understand your maturity level and ability to express authentic gratitude to those who have helped you in your life’s journey.
It’s less important who you thank, and more important how you thank them. Use specific details and/or anecdotes in your letter, and make it clear that you didn’t take their contributions to your life for granted. Also, bear in mind that this kind of essay prompt often gives rise to clichéd responses. Review each phrase in your essay and consider whether it sounds like a cliché—have you read this phrase before in a book? Have you heard someone say this phrase before? If you want your essay to stand out, the language needs to stand out as well.
How will you explore community at Penn? Consider how Penn will help shape your perspective, and how your experiences and perspective will help shape Penn. (150-200 words)
This essay question requires you to discuss your intended contributions to the community at UPenn in addition to your own past experiences in communities. You’ll also need to briefly discuss or imply through your discussions of past and future community interactions how your unique perspective influences your interactions within communities. That’s a lot to discuss in only 150-200 words: your past interactions with communities, your current perspective on community engagement, and your future intended exploration of the community at UPenn.
How can you fit so much information into one short essay? You can consider this essay to be akin to a “Why UPenn?” essay. You could talk about how your past experiences in communities make UPenn’s community a perfect fit for you, due to your unique perspective on the world.
Alternatively, you could focus on a particular past experience in a community and how you hope to recreate or improve upon this experience while at UPenn. Demonstrate your research into UPenn by naming specific programs or aspects of UPenn’s community which speak to you!
University of Pennsylvania Undergraduate School Academic Essay Questions
These prompts are specific to UPenn’s various schools: Penn Nursing, The College of Arts and Sciences, Wharton, and Penn Engineering. You don’t have to know your major going into a UPenn application, but you do need to know your school of choice. Moreover, each school has unique resources and opportunities which you should remark upon in your essay.
Note that students in all schools can take courses in other schools but transferring between them is very challenging; therefore, be sure to apply to the school which is genuinely most appropriate to your interests. Don’t apply to one school hoping to switch to another!
Penn Nursing intends to meet the health needs of society in a global and multicultural world by preparing its students to impact healthcare by advancing science. Why are you applying to Nursing, where do you see yourself professionally in the future, and how will you contribute to our mission of promoting equity in healthcare? (150-200 words)
This prompt asks three distinct questions, and admissions officers expect you to answer all three: why you are applying to nursing (and to Penn Nursing in particular), where you see yourself professionally in the future, and how you will contribute to Penn Nursing’s mission of promoting equity in healthcare. Before you write, jot down a one-sentence answer to each question. If any of them stumps you, that is the part of the essay that needs the most thought.
For the “why nursing” portion, resist the urge to say simply that you want to help people. Nearly every applicant to Penn Nursing wants to help people, so ground your motivation in a specific experience or observation that made nursing, rather than another healthcare career, feel like the right path for you. For example:
- Caring for a relative during an illness and noticing which nurses made the biggest difference, and why
- Volunteering or working in a clinic, hospital, or community health setting
- A gap in care you have witnessed in your own community, such as a lack of language access or a shortage of providers
- A love of science that you want to apply directly at the bedside
Next, describe your professional future as concretely as you can. “A nurse” is too vague; “a pediatric nurse practitioner serving rural families” or “a nurse-scientist studying maternal health outcomes” gives admissions officers a clear picture. Your plans are not binding, but they should be specific enough to connect to 1-2 opportunities at Penn Nursing, such as the Undergraduate Honors Program, the Summer Innovation Institute, a semester abroad, or a student group like Nursing Students for Global Health or the Minorities in Nursing Organization. Penn Nursing encourages applicants to review its mission and approach to equity in healthcare before writing, so take that advice and reference what you learn.
Finally, address equity directly, not abstractly. Tie your contribution to the same community, population, or problem you raised earlier in the essay so that the three parts of your response read as one story rather than three disconnected answers. With only 150-200 words, you have roughly one or two sentences per question, so cut anything that does not serve one of the three parts of the prompt.
The College of Arts and Sciences is designed to foster discovery and connection. Describe something you are curious about, something you’d like to learn more about or find a new approach to, and how you might pursue that curiosity in the College. (150-200 words)
This prompt has two parts: the thing you are curious about, and how you would pursue that curiosity in the College. Notice that the College defines curiosity broadly. It can be something you want to learn more about, or something familiar that you want to approach in a new way. A question you have never been able to answer, a debate you keep returning to, or a problem you think is being tackled from the wrong angle all fit. Pick one curiosity, not three, and spend most of your words on it.
The challenge with applying to The College of Arts and Sciences at UPenn, versus one of the other schools, is that it has the least specific curriculum. Thus, your essay should point out 1-2 specific programs, courses, professors, or other opportunities which you have researched and have determined are most interesting to you.
Even if you’re undecided about your major, you can still discuss subjects which have sparked your curiosity and enthusiasm in the past. You can talk about academic topics that you get lost in, projects which have wiled away many hours, and questions you hope to investigate while a student at UPenn. Then, your excitement for the future opportunities at UPenn which you hope to take advantage of will make sense in the narrative of your academic journey.
Highlight your curiosity in your response by “showing” and not “telling.” Many students fall into the trap of telling the reader that they are curious, but just saying you are passionate about biology or you love history is neither memorable to read nor particularly credible to the reader. Clarify your curiosity, excitement, or passion for learning through specific details and genuine enthusiasm. Write an essay that could be written by no one else—every sentence should be specific to you and your perspectives and experiences!
Wharton prepares its students to make an impact by applying business methods and economic theory to real-world problems, including economic, political, and social issues. Discuss a current issue of importance to you and how you hope a Wharton education would help you explore it. (150-200 words)
Many students apply to Wharton without a motivation beyond making money or attending a prestigious name-brand institution. Of course, these are legitimate motivations. But Wharton is more than a pre-professional program and UPenn is ultimately an academically focused institution seeking academically motivated students.
Before writing this essay, consider researching economic, political, and/or social issues which are relevant today, and narrow down your research topics to those which are most interesting to you. Consider how one of these issues could serve as a useful and engaging long-term research project. Develop a question which is specific, timely, and—most importantly—fascinating to you.
Then, you can compose an essay which revolves around this question and remarks upon how various opportunities at Wharton will help you develop a nuanced answer to this question. Mention by name a class you could take, a professor under whom you could conduct research, or another academic program which would help you become more informed on this issue. Be as specific as possible in your response, while also being sure to tie your curiosity about this question to the opportunities at Wharton which relate to this question.
Penn Engineering prepares its students to become leaders in technology by combining a strong foundation in the natural sciences and mathematics with depth of study in focused disciplinary majors. Describe how you plan to pursue your engineering interests at Penn, particularly within the intended major you selected. (150-200 words)
In this essay response, you should elucidate your engineering interests and how you plan to pursue these interests at UPenn, particularly within the major you selected. That means naming specific programs, courses, professors, and other opportunities within your intended major at Penn Engineering that excite you. The prompt asks you to focus on your intended major, so anchor your response there, but you can still briefly mention opportunities across disciplines, as the admissions officers are seeking students who will engage in UPenn’s curricula with both depth and breadth: depth of study into specific topics of interest and breadth of topics across interests.
Ideally, your essay will address more than just academics, albeit briefly. The prompt mentions “leaders in technology”; if admissions officers are looking for students who will become leaders in technology, then describing how you seek to be a leader on campus or pursue innovation through extracurriculars will help round out your essay’s narrative.
If you need help polishing up your UPenn College supplemental essays, check out our College Essay Review service. You can receive detailed feedback from Ivy League consultants in as little as 24 hours.
