Hey guys. So this year Penn changed their essays and the prompt is now “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”. (300-450 words)
All the examples I have seen for Penn essays were for the old prompt that was only asked about exploring your academic interests and not discovering them. Should we divide this into two parts talking about both equally? If so. we wouldn’t have that many words to talk about all the courses, professors, research opportunities, and study abroad programs that distinguish Penn. Who are we supposed to answer this prompt?
Sure looks like a Why Us? to me. A somewhat tricky one. You don’t aswer this with a list of courses, profs, etc. Anyone can flip through a directory or course catalog and come up with names.
You need to be flexible and aware when applying to a tippy top. If they change the prompt, you should still be able to answer.
What I personally interpret the prompt as is an opportunity to give your genuine interest in the subject matter that you intend to study, and then relate it to how UPenn would be a good fit later on instead of demonstrating interest towards Penn as a whole. Effectively expressing intellectual curiosity towards your major might help your chances of admission. Then again, this is just my opinion on where you might want to take it; I did not read this from anywhere official.
I also viewed the question as both a “WhyPenn” question, and a “Why Do You Like This Major” question.
I would compare it to asking a football player why he wants to go to Alabama, and what does he like about playing football.
For Penn, I think it’s a ploy to weed out the students who are applying only because it’s a top-10 ranked school on all the lists. When a school has 45K applicants vying for 2500 spots, it can afford to try to figure out which students really have a deep passion for the school and not just for its prestige.
Penn wants to make sure you want Penn for who Penn really is, not just for how pretty Penn is.