Penn received 44,960 applications for the Class of 2023 — the largest pool to date

Penn received 44,960 applications for the Class of 2023, which was more than a one percent increase from last year's applicant pool. 

This is the largest applicant pool Penn has seen to date. In 2018, 44,482 people applied to the University. This year, 37,850 people applied regular decision and 7,110 were early decision applicants — an increase of 478 total applicants from the Class of 2022.

Dean of Admissions Eric Furda said the admissions office has already narrowed down the regular decision pool in the first evaluation stage, where two admissions officers perform initial reviews. The office will now begin committee sessions in which groups ranging from six to 20 members will be reviewing applications.

"Where we are in the cycle right now is really kind of zeroing down towards that initial [group] evaluation period," Furda said.

Furda added that a specialized committee composed of undergraduate advising staff and school faculty will soon begin evaluating Penn Nursing applications.

In December 2018, Penn set a record-low admissions rate after it admitted only 1,279 of its early decision applicants — just under 18 percent of the pool. After years of steady growth, Penn's early decision applicant pool plateaued for the Class of 2023.

For the Class of 2022, the total applicant pool saw a drastic increase of 4,069 total applicants from the year prior, which was near a 10 percent increase in applications.

By comparison, the growth in total applications for Penn's Class of 2023 was slight. Furda said the 2017 SAT redesign partly accounted for last year's dramatic increase.

“I think last year's increase really was because students saw themselves in a different light once they received their SAT scores, because the scores went up, then the revised SAT scores went up along certain areas of the distribution,” Furda told The Daily Pennsylvanian in December 2018.