Penn’s transfer acceptance rate has hovered around 8% for the past few years. Especially when attempting to transfer into top tier schools, it’s important to keep in mind that 1) they’re only replacing the small percentage of students who left and 2) acceptance rates are low across the board. And if you were out of range to apply right out of high school, one year of good grades in college won’t do much to help because the evaluation process includes high school performance. If you’re serious about transferring and think Penn is the place for you, keep reading. We’ll detail the three required writing supplements, but be sure to check for additional requirements for special programs.
Please explain your reasons for transferring from your current institution and what you hope to gain by transferring into another institution. (4150 CHARACTERS)
Penn’s first question is broader than the two that follow, but that is not to say that it is a catch-all for unfocused information. Let’s break the two parts of the question down below:
“Please explain your reasons for transferring from your current institution”:
It’s important to keep in mind that under no circumstance should you talk poorly about your current school. It won’t be well received, and it will ultimately reflect poorly on you because you chose to go to that school. Instead, get honest with yourself about what’s not working. Did you pick the wrong major? Have you fine-tuned your academic interests – for example, you started out as a Linguistic major and now you want to study Italian and French? We’re starting with academics because those are the strongest reasons, but that doesn’t mean that personal reasons for wanting to transfer (besides the weather) aren’t legitimate. If you stayed close to come for family or health reasons, and are now comfortable leaving the state, you can write about that here. We often work with transfer students who attend colleges in rural areas, and they’re now having issues finding jobs and internships and would prefer to be living in and/or close to a city.
IMPORTANT: In order to show Penn that you really are better off there, you need to show them that your current school doesn’t have what you’re looking for. If you’re currently at a school that offers the same exact major with similar opportunities that’s also in a city, they’re going to think you’re just looking to trade up. An excellent example of how to make this argument for yourself can be found here.
“What you hope to gain by transferring into another institution”:
This is where you write about what Penn has to offer that your current school doesn’t. Spoiler alert: you’re going to write about specific classes in the next supplement, and you don’t want there to be overlap in your work. Here, you want to write in more general terms about things like location, proximity to a city, better job and internship resources, libraries, speaker series, guest lectures, etc. Don’t get too vague (make sure everything you’re writing can actually be found at Penn,) but don’t step on the toes of your second supplement.
How did you discover your intellectual and academic interests, and how will you explore them at the University of Pennsylvania? Please respond considering the specific undergraduate school you have selected. (2295 CHARACTERS)
This is where you dive into specifics at Penn, and you should start by doing research. Ideally, you already know why you want to transfer to Penn. But you still need to back that desire up with facts. Your response should include:
Origin story:
We love writing origin stories because they explain your classroom interests, and this is what Penn is referring to when they ask “how did you discover your intellectual and academic interests.” While it’s possible that you feel you were born to be a doctor or an engineer, it’s more likely that something happened throughout your life that made you intellectually curious about your desired major. Maybe you’re an aspiring journalist who grew up asking your relatives to tell you stories about their life so that you could circulate a family newspaper, or maybe you started designing websites in sixth grade. Whatever your story is, tell them. It should be a small (and zoomed in) story, no one is expecting you to have everything figured out just yet. Your origin story lays the foundation for the rest of your supplement.
Two upper-level classes that you want to take:
Let’s say that you want to transfer to Penn to study Political Science. Go to the department homepage of your desired major and do a deep dive on the course catalogue. The goal is to find two upper-level classes (this means above 200 level) that you are genuinely excited about taking, and also have good reasons for wanting to take. The classes that you pick should build off of something from your past – it could be from classes that you’ve already taken, jobs, internships, research, books, or online classes. Include the name and course number of the class, and your reason for wanting to take it.
A professor that you would like to work and/or do research with:
Similar to the class that you choose, the professor that you write about should have expertise that aligns with your academic interests. In other words, working with them would teach you a lot, and you’re not writing about them to take up space. Look through the professors in your department and do a lot of research, it can be helpful to read their resumes and articles that they’ve written. After naming the professor, you should explain why you would be a valuable addition to their team.
Anything else that is specific to Penn (academics only):
If you have any other specific academic reasons for wanting to transfer to Penn, such as a research grant or special offering, you should include in here as well.
At Penn, learning and growth happen outside of the classrooms, too. How will you explore the community at Penn? Consider how this community will help shape your perspective and identity, and how your identity and perspective will help shape this community. (1020 CHARACTERS)
Surely you recall dozens of “Why X” school supplements from when you originally applied to college. And if you’re familiar with our blog, you should know that answering that question requires writing about how you spend to plan your time outside of the classroom. Well, your response to this question should address exactly that. It’s overwritten, and the words identity and perspective can be anxiety-inducing, but when we work with transfer students at TKG, we essentially ignore that part of the question because things can get very soapbox-y very quickly when teenagers talk about their identity and perspective.
To answer this question, you should find something at Penn that aligns with your extracurricular interests. Start by googling “Penn students clubs and organizations” and then click on the first few links. You can also check here and here. The club that you choose to write about should make sense within the context of the rest of your application, which means that if you haven’t taken a science class since junior year of high school, you shouldn’t pick the Robotics club. Make sure that you prove that you would be an asset to the club, and explain how it will also help further your goals.
If you need help creating a transfer school list, contact us here.