UPenn Supplemental Essays Guide 2026-2027
University of Pennsylvania recently released its supplemental essays for the 2026-2027 admissions cycle. In this article, we will explain exactly what they are looking for in responses from applicants, so you can write essays that will get you admitted there.
Every applicant answers two universal short answer prompts plus one prompt for the undergraduate school they are applying to. If you are applying to a coordinated dual-degree or specialized program, you will also write additional program-specific essays, and your single-school prompt should address your single-degree school choice. Penn lists a word range for each response, but you should treat the maximum as your target and aim for the top of the range every time.
Prompts for All Applicants
Write a short thank-you note to someone you have not yet thanked and would like to acknowledge. (We encourage you to share this note with that person, if possible, and reflect on the experience!) (200 words)
Whatever you do, don't start this essay with "Dear" or "Thank You." Those are appropriate openings for a letter addressed to someone who only needs to read a single message from you. They are not effective when writing to admissions officers who must read hundreds, if not thousands, of similar essays. Imagine encountering a stack of essays that all begin with "Thank you, Mom."
Instead, go straight into a vivid, first-person moment. You might begin with a time when you needed help, the immediate positive impact of what this person did for you, something you are doing now because of their influence, or any memorable scene that clearly conveys why you are grateful. The goal is for your opening sentence to feel uniquely yours so that you stand out right away.
Afterward, avoid the common trap of making the essay primarily about the person you are thanking. You are the applicant. You are the one being evaluated, and the admissions committee is trying to determine whether you would be a strong addition to the University of Pennsylvania community. You need to remain the central figure in the essay. Focus on what you did, how you grew, and what you learned. Then, clearly but briefly explain how this person contributed to that growth, and express your gratitude.
Ideally, consider thanking a peer. UPenn wants to see that you are capable of learning from and contributing to those around you. Since much of your college experience will be shaped by your interactions with other students, demonstrating that you can benefit from a collaborative environment is especially important.
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. (200 words)
Given that this is University of Pennsylvania, an ordinary community essay won't suffice. Instead, you need to show the reader, clearly and concretely, how you will engage with Penn's social and academic opportunities while contributing to them in meaningful ways. One effective approach is to write the essay as a series of vivid, hypothetical moments you can realistically envision having at Penn. Ivy League schools value applicants who demonstrate a clear, specific vision for how they will spend their time on campus.
Start the essay with a first-person scene. Place yourself in a club meeting, a classroom, a research lab, or a student social space at Penn. Help the reader visualize you there, actively contributing, whether that's through a conversation, supporting a peer, conducting lab work, or asking a thoughtful question in class. From there, continue building out similar moments that illustrate how you will engage with and contribute to the Penn community.
As you do this, weave in brief references to your past experiences to ground your vision in authenticity. These moments should serve as the motivation behind why you see yourself contributing to Penn in these particular ways. Also include instances where you are challenged, and show how Penn's intellectually vibrant and collaborative environment will shape your thinking and growth.
It's essential that the essay highlights a specific, distinctive perspective you bring and clearly explains how engaging in these experiences at University of Pennsylvania will refine and deepen that perspective. Consider what perspective drives you to contribute to Penn in the way you've described, and how participating in those activities will further shape it. Finally, do your research. Reference specific professors, courses, student organizations, campus spaces, and institutes that are unique to Penn.
Single-School Prompts
In addition to the two prompts above, you will answer one short answer prompt for the undergraduate school you are applying to. If you are applying to a coordinated dual-degree or specialized program, this prompt should address your single-degree school choice, and the program essays come later.
College of Arts and Sciences
The College of Arts and Sciences is designed to foster discovery and connection. Describe something you are curious about—something you'd like to learn more about or find a new approach to—and how you might pursue that curiosity in the College. (200 words)
This is both a "why major" and "why college" essay. You want to start with a vivid hook showing yourself engaging in your favorite academic activity. Give readers a front-row seat inside your mind as you demonstrate how you engage in this activity. From there, you should establish a strong personal connection to the type of learning that led you to develop the academic passion you'll be applying to further explore at UPenn.
Next, show readers how much you love learning through first-person anecdotes of going above and beyond coursework to learn more about a particular topic. Then explain how this demonstrated passion for learning led you to fall in love with your chosen area of study. You should try to establish either a personal connection to a technical problem in that area of study or a practical application of it. You want to give readers a compelling reason why there needs to be another person studying that academic field. Make the reader want to see you study that area so you can impact the world positively.
From there, discuss specific opportunities at UPenn that will allow you to accomplish your vision, some life goal related to your area of study. Such opportunities include academic centers at UPenn dedicated to studying your field, professors, clubs, and electives you'd like to take, and how those electives outside of your major will better prepare you to accomplish your goals related to your stated major. Also mention programs that allow you to curate your own field of study.
To conclude, choose one of three approaches. Provide a vivid picture of how you will use your UPenn education to improve the world in a tangible way. Reconnect with one of the personal experiences that sparked your passion for learning or your chosen major, and discuss how your exploration of this field has deepened your understanding of that formative moment in your life. Or show the reader how your studies have transformed you compared to how you presented yourself earlier in your essay.
The Wharton School
Wharton prepares its students to make an impact by applying business methods and economic theory to real-world problems, including economic, political, and social issues. Discuss a current issue of importance to you and how you hope a Wharton education would help you explore it. (200 words)
You want to start this essay with a personal, vivid description of an event in your life that gives you a powerful motivation to tackle a real-world problem. From there, show yourself engaging in specific ways with unique opportunities at Wharton, and explain how doing so will help you better understand different aspects of this problem.
Research specific professors, distinctive Wharton courses, academic programs, study abroad opportunities, internships, and research initiatives, and clearly articulate your vision for how you will engage with them.
Conclude the essay with a strong vision of how you will leverage a specific Wharton program to take your first step toward addressing this real-world problem, ideally in a way that tangibly improves the life of at least one real person. You want to demonstrate that you will take full advantage of Wharton's unparalleled experiential learning opportunities to begin making a meaningful real-world impact even before you graduate.
The School of Engineering and Applied Science
Penn Engineering prepares its students to become leaders in technology by combining a strong foundation in the natural sciences and mathematics with depth of study in focused disciplinary majors. Describe how you plan to pursue your engineering interests at Penn, particularly within the intended major you selected. (200 words)
Write this as a hypothetical in which you show the reader what your life at UPenn Engineering looks like. Show yourself engaging in specific work with certain professors in research groups, and allow the reader to visualize you as a member of their labs. Include moments where you are attending talks at on-campus institutes and asking thoughtful questions. Also, be sure to share how you envision taking part in experiential learning opportunities and Capstone projects. As you vividly show the reader in the first person how you will engage with these engineering opportunities at UPenn, explain how engaging in these activities causes you to reflect on certain lived experiences, which you should convey, and how those experiences motivate your engineering interests and how you would like to pursue them at UPenn.
School of Nursing
Penn Nursing intends to meet the health needs of society in a global and multicultural world by preparing its students to impact healthcare by advancing science. Why are you applying to Nursing, where do you see yourself professionally in the future, and how will you contribute to our mission of promoting equity in healthcare? (200 words)
For this essay, you want to immediately establish the personal experiences that drive your commitment to advancing healthcare through science. Begin with a vivid, first-person scene that crystallizes why nursing, rather than a more general healthcare path like medicine, is the right calling for you. The reader should feel from the opening sentences that nursing chose you as much as you chose it.
After your hook, briefly explain the lived experience that revealed the inequities in healthcare you now want to address. This could be witnessing a family member navigate a confusing system, observing language barriers in your community, or seeing how social determinants shaped outcomes for someone you cared about. Penn Nursing wants applicants who already understand that the science of care extends far beyond clinical skill.
From there, show the reader exactly how you will use Penn Nursing to advance science and equity. Reference specific opportunities like the Penn Nursing Center for Health Equity Research, the Hillman Scholars Program, simulation labs, global clinical placements, or research with faculty whose work intersects with the population you want to serve. Name names, and explain why each opportunity matches your personal motivation.
Conclude with a vivid picture of where you see yourself professionally in five to ten years, and tie that vision back to the equity gap you identified in your hook. The essay should leave admissions officers convinced that you will be a future nursing leader who advances both the science and the social mission of the field.
Coordinated Dual-Degree and Specialized Program Essays
If you are applying to one of Penn's coordinated dual-degree or specialized programs, you will write additional program-specific essays on top of the two universal prompts and your single-school prompt above. These programs are among the most selective at any American university, with admit rates that often run below the overall rate of the schools they draw from. Penn is explicit about the division of labor: your single-school prompt should address your single-degree school choice, and the program essays below should focus on what makes the dual-degree or specialized path uniquely necessary for you. Penn also asks that each program essay be distinct from your single-degree application, so do not recycle the same material.
Huntsman: The Huntsman Program in International Studies and Business
Huntsman applicants submit three responses in addition to the two universal prompts: a target language selection, a short essay about that language, and the longer dual-degree essay.
Target language selection: Huntsman applicants choose one of eleven target languages. Select the language that matches the region you are genuinely drawn to and can write about with real conviction in the essays that follow, not the one you think looks most impressive.
Describe your experience with the target language you selected, including how you have learned it, the skills you have acquired, the skills you still wish to develop, why you are interested in studying it, and the region(s) of the world where it is spoken. (200 words)
This is short, so every word counts. Open with a specific moment that captures your relationship with the language, not a general statement about loving languages. The moment could be the first time you read a poem in the original, a conversation with a relative who only speaks that language, or a misunderstanding that taught you how culture lives inside grammar. From there, briefly explain how you have pursued the language outside required coursework, the skills you have built and those you still want, and what you hope to gain by deepening your fluency. Because the prompt now asks about the region where the language is spoken, name that region and show why it draws you. The essay should make clear that the language is not a checkbox for you but a window into a worldview you genuinely want to inhabit.
The Huntsman Program supports the development of globally-minded scholars who become engaged citizens, creative innovators, and ethical leaders in the public, private, and non-profit sectors in the United States and around the world. What draws you to a dual degree in international studies and business, and how would you use what you learn to address a global issue where these two domains intersect? (400 words)
Huntsman wants future global leaders who understand that international affairs and business are inseparable. Your essay needs to demonstrate that you already think this way. Start with a vivid hook tied to a real-world issue that genuinely matters to you, ideally one that crosses borders and involves both economic and political forces. Climate-driven migration, supply chain ethics, currency instability in emerging markets, technology export controls, and global public health financing are all examples of issues where the international studies and business lens is necessary, not optional.
After your hook, explain the personal connection that drew you to this issue. Maybe your family's business was affected by trade policy, you spent time in a country grappling with economic transition, or you read something that reframed how you see global capital flows. The personal grounding is what differentiates your essay from the dozens of others that will name similar issues.
From there, demonstrate that you have studied Huntsman closely. Reference the integrated curriculum across Wharton and the College, the language requirement, the semester abroad in a country where your target language is spoken, and faculty whose research bridges the two domains. Discuss specific Huntsman traditions like the senior thesis and how you envision using it to investigate your chosen issue. Mention specific courses that would equip you to think rigorously about both the policy and the financial dimensions of the problem.
Then show the reader what your contribution to the cohort would look like. Huntsman is small and tight-knit, so the program wants students who will actively shape it. Discuss what perspective you bring that other students may not, whether that comes from your linguistic background, your family history, your previous research, or your work experience.
Conclude with a strong vision of what you would do after Huntsman. The program produces students who go into international development, sovereign wealth, multilateral institutions, and globally minded firms. Ground your vision in the issue you opened with, and show that Huntsman is the specific path that prepares you to address it. The reader should finish your essay convinced that you will use what you learn at Huntsman to make a measurable difference somewhere in the world.
LSM: The Roy and Diana Vagelos Program in Life Sciences and Management
The Vagelos Life Sciences & Management (LSM) program brings together two powerful modes of understanding—scientific inquiry and strategic thinking—to prepare students to engage thoughtfully and creatively with some of the most complex challenges of our time. What questions, problems, or opportunities would you hope to explore through LSM, and how might the integration of life sciences and management shape your approach to them? Focus on the ideas, values, or questions that draw you to this intersection, rather than how LSM might advance your career, and make sure this essay is distinct from your single-degree application. (400 words)
LSM is one of UPenn's most selective dual-degree programs, and the program explicitly tells you to focus on ideas, values, or issues that animate your interest, not on career outcomes. Take that instruction seriously. The strongest LSM essays read more like intellectual statements than career plans. Penn also asks you to keep this essay distinct from your single-degree application, so make sure it does work that your College or Wharton prompt does not.
Open with a vivid hook that places you at the intersection of life sciences and management, even if you didn't realize at the time that's where you were standing. Maybe you were fascinated by why one promising drug failed in trials while a less novel one succeeded commercially, why certain rare disease treatments remain undeveloped despite the science being feasible, or why the same biological discovery can become a billion-dollar company in one country and remain locked in academic publishing in another. Your hook should reveal that you naturally think in both languages, the scientific and the strategic, even if you didn't always have the vocabulary for it.
After your hook, explain the lived experiences that brought you to this dual mode of thinking. This could include lab research where you noticed translational gaps, family experience with healthcare access challenges, exposure to biotech entrepreneurship, or independent reading that opened your eyes to how science actually reaches patients. The reader should understand that your interest in LSM is not opportunistic but the natural result of how your mind has always worked.
Next, articulate the questions or opportunities you would explore at LSM. Be intellectually ambitious and concrete. You might want to investigate how regulatory frameworks shape which therapies get developed, how value-based pricing models could expand access to gene therapies, or how academic-industry partnerships could be restructured to accelerate translation in neglected disease areas. Whatever you choose, frame your interest as an inquiry, not a job description.
Then show that you have studied LSM specifically. Reference the integrated curriculum across the College and Wharton, the LSM thesis, the cohort experience, the program's industry mentorship structure, and faculty whose work spans both schools. Discuss courses that would equip you to think rigorously about both the molecular and the market sides of your chosen question.
Conclude by reflecting on what kind of thinker you hope to become through LSM. The program is preparing a small cohort of leaders who will sit at boardroom tables where billion-dollar decisions about human health are made, and who can also walk into a lab and understand what the science actually says. Show that you grasp the weight of that role and want to grow into it because of values you hold deeply, not because of the prestige.
M&T: The Jerome Fisher Program in Management and Technology
M&T applicants submit two responses in addition to the two universal prompts.
Explain how you will use the M&T program to pursue problems or opportunities that require both engineering and business perspectives. (400 words)
M&T is for students who refuse to choose between business and engineering because they see the two as inseparable in shaping the future of technology. Your essay needs to demonstrate that you already operate this way. Start with a vivid hook that captures a moment when you were thinking simultaneously as an engineer and a business strategist, even if you didn't label it that way. This could be debugging a project and realizing the bottleneck was actually a market signal, building something users wouldn't pay for and understanding why, or studying a successful product and realizing the technical decisions were inseparable from the business model.
From there, walk the reader through the experiences that shaped this dual mindset. Discuss specific projects, internships, competitions, or independent ventures where you had to think across both domains. If you have built something that users actually adopted, or led a technical team while also handling go-to-market decisions, describe that work in detail and explain what each side of the work taught you.
Next, demonstrate that you have studied M&T closely. The integrated curriculum across Wharton and SEAS, the M&T community, the senior projects, and faculty whose work bridges technology and business strategy are all worth referencing. Talk about specific courses, like ones in operations and information management or technology entrepreneurship, that would deepen your ability to think across both schools. Reference the M&T summer research and the cohort dynamics that make the program distinctive.
Then show the reader the kind of work you want to do. Are you drawn to founding a deep-tech company, leading product strategy at a frontier AI firm, building infrastructure tools for emerging markets, or working at the intersection of hardware and software in a specific industry? Be concrete, and ground your vision in the experiences you opened with.
Conclude with a strong sense of why M&T specifically prepares you for what you want to build. The program is small and intense, and it produces students who become technical founders, product leaders, and operators who can talk to engineers and investors with equal fluency. Show that you grasp what M&T offers and bring something distinctive to the cohort, whether that comes from your technical depth, your operational experience, or the perspective your background gives you on which problems are actually worth solving.
Describe something you created, designed, improved, or built. What motivated you, and what did you learn from the process? (200 words)
This is a short maker essay. Open in the middle of the act, the moment you were creating, designing, improving, or building the thing, so the reader sees your hands and your mind at work, and be specific about what it actually was. Then show the personal motivation behind it, the lived experience or the itch that made you want to build it in the first place. Walk the reader briefly through the process, including the point where it broke or failed and how you iterated, because the process and what it taught you is what M&T is evaluating, not the polish of the final product. Conclude with what you learned, ideally something that changed how you approach the next thing you make. Choose the project you can narrate with genuine, specific detail over the one that merely sounds impressive.
NHCM: Nursing and Healthcare Management
Describe your interest in nursing and health care management, and how Penn's coordinated dual-degree program in nursing and business would help you meet your goals. Please ensure that this essay is distinct from your single-degree application, if applicable. (400 words)
NHCM is the rare program that takes nursing and business equally seriously, and your essay needs to demonstrate that you understand why both perspectives are essential to fixing healthcare. Start with a vivid first-person scene that captures the moment you realized clinical excellence alone is not enough to deliver good care. This could be watching a skilled nurse spend more time fighting insurance authorizations than at the bedside, observing a hospital unit where patient outcomes were excellent but the system around it was financially unsustainable, or seeing a community clinic close not because the clinicians failed but because the management model did.
After your hook, explain the lived experiences that drew you to nursing as your clinical foundation. NHCM is built on Penn Nursing's BSN curriculum, so you need to convince the reader that you genuinely want to be a nurse, not that you are using nursing as a credential. Discuss the moments that revealed the unique value of the nursing perspective in patient care, whether through volunteering, family experience, shadowing, or your own healthcare journey.
Then explain why you want the management lens alongside the clinical one. Discuss the systemic problems you have observed and why you believe they require leaders who understand both bedside care and operational decision-making. Maybe you are interested in redesigning how nursing teams are staffed, how hospital systems integrate community health workers, how value-based care contracts shape clinical practice, or how digital health tools are deployed at the unit level. The specificity of your interest is what differentiates your essay.
Next, demonstrate that you have studied NHCM closely. Reference the integrated curriculum across Penn Nursing and Wharton, the cohort experience, healthcare management courses at Wharton, clinical placements through Penn Nursing, and faculty whose research spans both domains. Discuss the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics if your interests align with health policy and economics, and the Penn Nursing Center for Health Outcomes and Policy Research if your interests are more clinically operational.
Conclude with a strong vision of where you see yourself in healthcare leadership and how NHCM prepares you for that path. The program produces nurses who lead at the executive level of hospital systems, healthcare startups, and policy organizations. Show that you grasp the responsibility of that role and want to grow into it because the patients and clinicians at the heart of the system deserve leaders who actually understand both sides.
VIPER: The Roy and Diana Vagelos Integrated Program in Energy Research
VIPER applicants submit two responses in addition to the two universal prompts.
VIPER students pursue dual degrees in science or math and engineering. Which major combination(s) interest you most right now and why? Your response is not binding, as students often shift majors as they learn more through the program. (200 words)
You now have room to name your science or math major and your engineering major and briefly explain why that pairing fits you, so use it. The choice should align with the energy issue you find most compelling. If you want to work on energy storage, materials science with chemical engineering, or physics with electrical engineering, both make sense. If your interest is solar, materials science with electrical or chemical engineering aligns naturally. If you are drawn to nuclear, mechanical engineering with physics is a strong combination. If your work would be in computational energy modeling, computer science with mechanical or chemical engineering fits well. The pairing is not binding, so be strategic, and make sure it matches the vision you describe in the next VIPER essay.
Describe your interest in the VIPER program, including how any past experiences have shaped your interest in energy science and technology, and how you envision participation in VIPER fitting into your future goals. (400 words)
VIPER is for students who already know they want to spend their careers tackling the energy transition through the lens of integrated science and engineering. Your essay needs to make clear that this is the case for you. Start with a vivid hook that captures the moment you understood that energy is not just a technical problem but a civilizational one. This could be a research experience where you saw a promising material's limits, a trip to a region grappling with energy poverty, or a project where you tried to optimize something and realized that the deeper constraints were thermodynamic.
After your hook, walk the reader through the experiences that brought you to energy science specifically. Discuss research projects, science fair work, summer programs, internships, or independent reading that built your technical foundation. If you have done lab work, describe a specific experiment and what it taught you about how science meets engineering reality.
Next, explain why the integrated VIPER model is right for you. Most students at Penn pick one school, and you need to convince the reader that you genuinely need both the science and the engineering training. Reference the VIPER cohort, the funded summer research, the senior thesis, and the integrated curriculum across the College and SEAS. Discuss faculty whose work resonates with the energy issue you opened with, and specific courses that would prepare you to contribute meaningfully to that area.
Then show the reader what you want to work on. Be concrete and ambitious. Maybe you want to develop better solid-state battery chemistries, design grid-scale storage systems, advance carbon capture materials, build computational models for fusion plasma, or work on the materials science of next-generation photovoltaics. Whatever you choose, ground it in the personal motivation from your hook, and explain why the dual-major pairing you selected in the first VIPER prompt is the specific combination that prepares you to do this work.
Conclude with a strong vision of how VIPER prepares you for the work the world urgently needs. The program produces graduates who go into energy research, advanced materials development, climate technology entrepreneurship, and energy policy. Show that you grasp the scale of the energy transition challenge and that VIPER is the specific path that equips you to contribute at the technical depth required.
VIC: BSE in Visual and Interactive Computing
Discuss how your interests align with the Visual and Interactive Computing (VIC) program at the University of Pennsylvania. (650 words)
VIC is a Bachelor of Science in Engineering housed in Penn's Department of Computer and Information Science, built for students drawn to the technical heart of how computers create, render, and respond to visual and interactive experiences. It spans computer graphics, computer vision, human-computer interaction, and immersive and interactive systems. This essay needs to demonstrate that you already live in that technical space and think like someone who builds in it.
Start with a vivid first-person hook in the moment of creation. Maybe you are debugging a renderer at 2 a.m. and the lighting finally resolves correctly, training a vision model that at last recognizes what you built it to see, or refining an interface until it suddenly feels alive under a user's hands. Whatever the moment, it should immediately convey that you belong where code meets the visual and the interactive.
After your hook, walk the reader through the trajectory that brought you here. Explain how your interest evolved from a single spark, perhaps a video game that shaped your childhood, an animation that moved you, a computer vision demo that stunned you, or a piece of generative art that surprised you, into a serious technical practice. Show your growth through specific projects and the skills you developed. If you have built games, graphics engines, vision pipelines, interactive installations, AR or VR experiences, or visualization tools, describe one or two in real detail, focusing on what you learned and where you struggled. The struggle is important, because VIC wants students who push past the point where the tutorial ends.
Next, demonstrate that you have researched VIC specifically. Name the faculty whose work resonates with you, the courses and labs that would deepen the exact skills you have started building, and the research areas within Penn's graphics, vision, and interaction groups that map to your interests. Discuss how you would use the program's project work to build something ambitious, and be specific about which corner of visual and interactive computing you want to push into, whether that is real-time rendering, procedural generation, computer vision for a particular application, immersive interfaces, or tools that help non-experts engage with complex data.
Then show the reader what you want to make and why it matters. Ground your vision in a personal motivation, and explain why the world needs someone building this particular kind of work. Conclude by showing that you already think like a creator who can hold both the engineering rigor and the design and perceptual sensibility that visual and interactive computing demands, and that VIC is the specific environment where you will turn that dual capacity into professional-level work.
If you want your college admissions essays to be the decisive factor that gets you into your dream school, schedule a free consultation with an admissions expert today to have all of your questions answered.
