UPenn 2024 Waitlist

Do you guys think it’s ok for me to turn in my second update letter after the 19th? My school’s award ceremony happens on the 19th and I want to see if I won any awards before turning it in!

My S received an acceptance notice at around 6PM E.T. on May 7th. He sent a detailed LOCI explaining his latest achievement and strong intention to attend if accepted. We felt very lucky about it. Still waiting for financial package though. Will attend. He was accepted into Brown, Duke and UC Berkeley but Penn has been his favorite.

Article 8n the Daily Pennsylvanian quotes UPenn Dean stating they surprisingly did not use the waitlist to any greater extent this year then last year. States last year they took 9 people off waitlist. You can search the Daily Pennsylvanian online and read it…This seems not realistic as I believe I count 4 to 5 people right here who got off. On the other hand seems unlikely he would be quoted stating an untrue fact…So maybe it is an extremely low # after all.
From what I have seen on here seems people accepted off waitlist are moving up from either non ivies or slightly lower ranked schools. I have not seen anyone post they are choosing the Penn offer who currently are committed to HYPSM . Is this correct?

I think that the big unknown are the Gap Year people. That is why they have not yet closed the waitlist.

Regardless, the article is sobering and discouraging.

Furda is a pretty straight shooter, so I believe him if he says Penn’s using the waitlist to a similar extent as previous years. The article is wrong, however, Penn took 101 students from the waitlist last year according to the Common Data Set. They took 9 the year before.

That’s good to hear! Will there be another wave this week?

There probably will be a wave after May 21, as that’s the deadline for students in the first wave to accept. I expect a lot of spots to open up in June (that’s when admitted students can request a gap year).

Not really. 9 - 101 kids from the waitlist out of >2000.

I like 101 kids vs 9 kids.

Hello everyone, I was waitlisted for the School of Engineering and Applied Science with financial aid. Does anyone know if I am allowed to cancel the financial aid? Also, does anyone know how many waves there will be, approximately?
Congrats to everyone that got off the waitlist!

@AnastasiosPap Are you international? If not, penn is need-blind anyways to residents of the US, Canada and Mexico. Also has anyone on the waitlist received their package yet?

I think the most important thing to take away from the article is that they have not yet increased the number of waitlist acceptances from last year. They haven’t yet. I f you keep reading the rest of the article, you can see that college service experts predict that there will be waitlist waves long into the summer months, as Penn would rather have another full-pay student in its class rather than one less student in its class because they get more money. In my opinion, based on the habits of other schools, as well as the fact that Penn has not increased the number of waitlisted students or accepted students, it is very likely that Penn will accept more than 101 kids this year. If you do the math based on the NY Times predictions that domestic enrollment would decrease by 15% and international by 25%, for a usually expected enrolled class of 2400 kids, 14% international, it would give about 400 waitlist spots open, for about 2000 waitlisted applicants. Of course, yield could be higher at Penn, but still, that would probably be a lot more waitlist spots than usual. I think that Penn sent out only a few acceptances last week to test out their waitlist commitment yield, to see how many acceptances they should offer in total to waitlisted kids. As figures from kids taking gap years become clearer, I think more waves will come out, starting next week after the 21st. Even Penn said in their waitlist email that they expect more movement on the waitlist and that the class would be completed by late June. Don’t lose hope- there’s still a chance.

There may still be a chance but the chance has decreased and will continue to decrease. They say they don’t rank the waitlist, but that’s ridiculous. Of course they do.

That’s obviously the case because they have started taking people off the waitlist. It still should be more acceptances this year than last year tho. I really do not think they rank the waitlist.

In a recent email that updated me about the waitlist it said that I was able to upload more files to the portal, so I uploaded a second one. Will they review it, or should I send an email?
Also, every time they accept a wave of applicants will they send emails?

Has anyone off the waitlist received their financial aid package? How was it? I’m still waiting on mine.

i’m still waiting too

When’s the deadline for the first wave of accepted off waitlist people? I have to get my update in before that, but I’m waiting on my school’s award ceremony

I have a question? I felt like I have the stats and ECs to get into Penn RD with good essays. However, my second essay describing my community presence was in my opinion mot very good and probably the thing keeping me from getting accepted RD. For an additional update, should I just rewrite the essay and put it in the context of a LOCI? I will make it much better and more specific to Penn.

@eashwar1 If you have already demonstrated interest in UPenn through your initial essay and your first update, I would not add in another big paragraph about them. In my opinion, at this point, they’re just looking for people that might have had some big accomplishment. Being UPenn, I don’t think “demonstrated interest” is really what they are looking for.

Additionally, waitlist admissions are largely based on what type of person they need. Meaning an Asian male from West coast or White Female in Engineering from East coast something like that. Usually, if a student has a big achievement like (extreme case) gold medal in the International Math Olympiad, the university would probably accommodate them because well it’s a pretty big achievement.

And honestly, the admissions process is quite random to a degree. I know a bunch of talented people that didn’t get into these schools. I doubt that essay would have made a big difference in the grand scheme of things, especially at such a late stage.

Short Answer: Just tell them about any new activities if you have any. This isn’t one of those cases where it’s said something is optional but it really isn’t. A second update is really just for people who have something more. If you don’t that’s totally fine nothing wrong with it. That’s probably the majority of people. You don’t want to just send in fluff and waste the AO’s time.

Hope this helps!