What do you guys think it is?
I think the Wharton and SEAS acceptance rates are both in the 7-8% range, and CAS is in the area of 10-11%. From a big picture perspective, they are quite similar. Students are likely to have the best chance of being admitted by applying to the school where they are the best fit and want to attend, rather than focussing on the small differences in the acceptance rates.
No one knows for sure but you can kind of guesstimate using the college. The College’s acceptance rate is always, nearly exactly the same as the overall school acceptance rate because it makes up the largest contingent of the undergraduate student body and thus has a disproportionately larger affect on the weighted overall admit rate. for example, in the article below from the DP in 2003, the College’s admit rate was 19.4%, Wharton’s was 15.5%, SEAS was 28.1%, Nursing’s was 42.6% and yet the overall admit rate was 20.5%. If the schools were all averaged together equally, the overall admit rate would have been higher. Alternatively, if the overall admit rate was just the average of the ED and RD admit rate, then the RD admit rate back in 2003 would have had to be about 8% (which it wasn’t), in order for the overall rate to be 20.5 But because each school’s admit rate is weighted, the rate most closely mirrors that of the College. So you can assume that the College’s admit rate is about 9-10%, Wharton and engineering are a bit lower (probably 8-9%), and Nursing is usually higher (probably 15-16%). As you can see in both the 2003 article and this article from 2010 showing the nursing admit rate to be about 20% while the overall admit rate was 14.2%, penn nursing tends to be about 5-6% points higher than the overall.
http://www.thedp.com/index.php/article/2003/04/admission_rates_drop_at_penn_ivies
http://www.thedp.com/article/2010/02/decisions_sent_to_nursing_hopefuls
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/31/penn-acceptance-rate-fall_n_519942.html
There were a total of 9,143 freshman SEAS applications to the Class of 2020 for 410 spaces.
If I remember correctly, there were just over 770 SEAS acceptances offered to the class of 2019. If that number was the same for 2020, it would confirm that SEAS in the 8-9% range.
@KLSD The 2018 SEAS acceptances were 777, so 770 seems accurate. With 9,143 applications, that would put the acceptance rate at 8.42%.
At the engineering welcome this year they said the acceptance rate for SEAS was 4.5% and the lowest of all 4 schools
4.5% for SEAS is kind of unbelievable.
4.5% could very well be the regular decision acceptance rate for SEAS. Given that Penn’s overall regular decision acceptance rate was about 6% according to the email sent to alum interviewers, it wouldn’t be surprising if RD SEAS was about 4.5, RD Wharton was about 4.5-5.5% and RD College was about 6-7%.
For non-hooked applicants, The rate for admission to Wharton may be well under 5%. Wharton has many special kids, kids from wealthy and influential families, many Sports recruits, URMs etc.
@f2000sa “For non-hooked applicants, The rate for admission to Wharton may be well under 5%. Wharton has many special kids, kids from wealthy and influential families, many Sports recruits, URMs etc.”
That is probably true.
Penn SEAS probably has fewer of each of those groups, but their avg. students are probably stronger academically. I have the impression that getting admitted to Wharton is harder than getting into SEAS for unhooked applicants, but that staying in Penn SEAS is harder than staying in Wharton once students are there.
Actually, the average SEAS student is unlikely to be any stronger academically than her peers in the other undergraduate schools. Academic ability is probably pretty evenly distributed across the undergraduate population. Just as an example, you can compare the SAT scores of the overall incoming class at Penn to that of the class entering just the school of engineering. At the time of my writing this post, the links below show data for the class of 2019:
Overall Stats: – Engineering Specific Stats
CR: 690 - 780 – Engineering CR: 640 -750
Math: 710-800 – Engineering Math: 680 - 780
Writing: 700 - 790 – Engineering Writing: 650 - 750
http://www.admissions.upenn.edu/apply/whatpennlooksfor/incoming-class-profile
https://www.seas.upenn.edu/prospective-students/undergrad/
As you can see, Engineering students tend to have lower standardized test scores across the three sections. Of course, the SATs are only one indicator of academic ability but I think this speaks to the overall reality that Penn students across its undergraduate schools are pretty evenly intelligent and differ only in their areas of academic interest – and each person is valued for whatever their contribution might be!
Also I don’t know that it’s harder to get into Wharton than Engineering-- i think both attract very specific students who are all extremely well qualified and competing for a limited number of places among other very qualified applicants. And once in the schools, you really don’t see a lot of transferring so it is unlikely that it is harder to stay in Engineering for an engineer or easier to stay in Wharton for a whartonite-- they’ve each attracted students well suited to the type of work they’re doing and for students with those interests and abilities sharing a classroom with other students who are equally interested and able is probably equally difficult.
Yes, the academics of Wharton students should be as strong as SEAS. Many of Wharton students were cross-accepted by HYPSM. Like SEAS, Wharton may lower the bar for special students with major hooks.
Yes, many wharton students were harvard, yale, princeton, columbia cross admits, just like many SEAS students were harvard, yale, columbia, princeton cross admits. You’ll find that a great majority of students at Penn either chose to apply ED because it was their absolute top choice and they didn’t care to find out if they got into Stanford because they didn’t want to go-- and many others chose it during the RD round over equally wonderful schools as well. I personally chose Penn over Yale and Columbia among other schools and I certainly wasn’t alone. My roommate chose Penn over Columbia and Brown to study biology. One of the girls across the hall chose Penn over Harvard and Princeton to study classics. Another boy down the hall chose Penn over Yale and Cornell to study engineering. The point I’m trying to make is that all of Penn’s four schools are full of incredibly bright, interesting, and unique people. Broad generalizations about any of Penn’s four schools in 2016 don’t make a lot of sense. They were more appropriate back in the mid 20th century when Penn was a very, very different place. Today, however, student/faculty quality is pretty incredible across the board.