The University of Pennsylvania, or Penn, is one of the most sought after undergraduate acceptances in the world. The same holds true for transfers. They recently received nearly 4,000 applications from potential transfers, and went on to only accept 178 — or 4.6%.
This may sound daunting — and it is — but it is possible to pull off a transfer to Penn if you plan ahead and approach the application strategically. Each year, we help students pull off just this kind of high-stakes transfer, and below we’ll break down what you need to write an application worthy of getting into Penn as a transfer.
First, let’s talk details. Prospective transfers can apply to one of four undergraduate colleges at Penn: Penn Engineering, the School of Nursing, Wharton, or the College of Arts and Sciences — and most apply to the College of Arts and Sciences, the school more than half of Penn undergrads attend. Before you get set on a program, though, it’s important to know that transfer students are not eligible for most coordinated dual-degree programs, nor specialized programs, and admitted transfers cannot switch schools once accepted.
Penn accepts both the Common App and the Coalition App for transfer, and do not have a preference, so pick the application that you feel highlights you best. If you are unsure, we recommend the Common Application.
In this post, we’re going to focus on the College of Arts and Sciences and Wharton, but our advice holds true across all of the undergraduate colleges at Penn.
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The Penn transfer application has three essays, but they are not supplements. Unlike when you first applied to college, there isn’t one main essay that every college gets. Instead, you have to complete a series of (typically) shorter essays that are more clearly targeted to your academic path and vision for your future. This is largely because, while colleges expect first-years to change their major — or at least shift their area of interest within a major — transfers are really expected to have it more figured out by the time they arrive on campus.
Below we’ll break down each Penn essay and provide you with your best strategy for writing an acceptance-earning response.
THE ESSAYS
As we said, there are three essays. Let’s get into them.
Please explain your reasons for transferring from your current institution and what you hope to gain by transferring into another institution. (4150 characters max, about 600 words)
Ok, so this is the closest thing your transfer application to Penn has to a “main” essay. It’s about 600 words, and that’s a good thing and a bad thing. With 600 words, it is easy to fall into the trap of using nearly all of the space you’ve been given to answer the first half of the question, the “why,” and nearly missing the “what.”
In this essay, what you are looking to gain is just as important as why you are looking to leave your current school. However, you do have to start with why you want to transfer. It’s important, for about the first third of your essay, to be specific about your reasons for wanting to transfer. However, you don’t want to deal in drama. Badmouthing where you are now will not help you, and even if you think you’re 100% “in the right” in a given scenario, they’ll be on the lookout for kids who are always dissatisfied. Even if your experience at your current school was traumatic in some way, it’s really not generally useful, for the purpose of admissions, to make that the centerpiece of this essay. You can mention a bad experience as a way of speaking towards a hopeful and more positive future, but you also don’t want to frame Penn as the fix for your woes.
More often, the most productive and successful way of answering this prompt is by focusing on academics. What are you now super interested in, that your current school doesn’t offer or doesn’t have the depth of program you were hoping for? Focusing on academics speaks to what Penn really is — a college — not a social experiment. They want to feel like you will thrive with the help of their resources, and writing about how you plan to do that speaks to that.
At the same time, you’ll have two more prompts that also look at Penn from a community and an academic perspective, so don’t go too deep into details for this essay. Instead, think big-picture, and ground your essay in two or three themes. Themes could include things like resources, mentorship, research, scholarship, rigorousness, or anything like that. Use these themes to guide your critique of your current school, and your vision for a future at Penn.
Finish off this first essay on a strong positive note. Applying to transfer is a hassle, so what is making you press “go” on a Penn application? Convey that drive, enthusiasm, and commitment to the application reader.
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. (2295 characters)
When Penn is considering transfers, they want students who will be active and involved members of their community. Theoretically, a transfer could come, live off campus, go to class, and otherwise exist separate from the Penn community. This is not what they want — at all. They are looking for transfers who are seeking out ways of engaging with and supporting their peers. To communicate your passion for the Penn community to the college, find two or three ways you would be excited to engage. These could be clubs, but they don’t have to be. You could also focus on a research program, a job training opportunity, a living community, a social group, or an a cappella singing group. What is most important isn’t what you pick, but how you connect yourself to it in a compelling way that makes the application reader not just feel that you want to be part of Penn, but actually see you there as if you were already.
Let’s use the a cappella idea as an example for the sake of illustrating our recommended format.
Step one is to start with a story. As an a cappella singer (go along with us here), you probably have a story of an experience, practicing a new song with a group or friend, and suddenly something ‘clicks.’ It may have just been one note you were struggling over for hours, or a whole song falls into place after weeks of push-and-pull. Start this essay by pulling the application reader into that moment with you. Focus first on simply the action of things suddenly working, and then zoom out to write about the time and commitment it took to get to a moment that felt effortless for the audience.
From this set-up, you could write about the value of a community of individuals that push each other while celebrating each other’s wins. From there, it’s a pretty easy jump to talking about how the Penn community is just such a place. Then maybe you zoom in at Penn on two things that are not a cappella where you feel you’d find this combination of competition and support. Finally, you’d end the essay with an a cappella group at Penn you’d love to join, and maybe a performance you’d like to be part of.
Now take that structure, and use it for what you love.
Considering the specific undergraduate school you have selected, describe how you intend to explore your academic and intellectual interests at the University of Pennsylvania. (For students applying to specialized programs, please answer these questions in regard to your single-degree school choice; your interest in the specialized program may be addressed through the program-specific essay.) (2295 characters)
This prompt is the reason why we advised you to hold off on going into too much detail on the first Penn prompt. The most important aspect of your transfer application is your academic past, present, and trajectory for the future. For this prompt, it’s all about your future (at Penn, hopefully), but contextualized by what you have done in the past and are working on now — whether at your current college, or independently.
Simply telling them about what you want to study, though, isn’t compelling. Instead, you need to tell a story. Yes, this sounds repetitive advice, but compelling stories are the opposite of repetitive. Instead, they pull people in. That’s exactly what you need to do here. You need to capture the attention of the reader through sharing your deepest passion and greatest interests, then tie that passion specifically and concretely to the Penn major you intend to pursue.
When picking a major to focus on at Penn, remember that individualized majors are not open to transfers unless you apply as a first-year and enter as a sophomore. Also, if you have Wharton in mind, make sure to review the requirements of potential Wharton transfers.
Close the supplement by looking a bit beyond Penn. Where do you think this program can take you, and how will that improve other people’s lives or our global community?
RESUME
Penn accepts a resume from transfer applications. The resume is submitted separately from the primary application, and there are limited guidelines on what constitutes a resume they find acceptable. This can lead to some unhinged submissions, which you absolutely want to avoid. To submit your strongest resume, follow a few core rules:
One single page (seriously)
No links
No funky formatting (use a template through Word, Google Docs, or similar)
As for what to put on the email, you should use the resume as an opportunity to provide greater detail for a small number of tailored activities and experiences specifically relevant to your Penn application. Do not simply use the resume to reiterate your activities section, or submit a resume you’ve used to apply for job.
FINAL THOUGHTS
As you prepare to apply to Penn, think critically about what courses you need to take in order to be a strong applicant. If you have time to shift your classes around before pressing submit, take advantage of that. If you don’t have any grounding in your preferred area of study, you should consider postponing submitting a transfer application to Penn for a bit to build that foundation. For example, if you want to study a natural science or economics at Penn, they require that transfer candidates have exposure to college-level calculus.
This underlines how getting into Penn as a transfer takes planning, strategy, and ideally a bit of lead time. But it is possible if you press start.
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