Vice Provost and Dean of Admissions Whitney Soule announced a 4.9% acceptance rate for the Class of 2029 — Penn's most selective year on record — at the University Board of Trustees spring meeting on June 13.
Out of the 72,544 students who applied to Penn this application cycle, 3,530 were accepted. The Class of 2029 consists of 2,420 students from 49 states and 95 countries, with 15.1% from Pennsylvania. 13.6% are legacy students.
"We are especially impressed with the accomplishments, the resolve, [and] ambition demonstrated by the students we have admitted to the Class of 2029," Soule said at the meeting. "We look forward to their contributions to the multiple dimensions of diversity in the University."
This year’s application cycle was the final one to include the test-optional policy that Penn first implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The University has since announced that applicants in the upcoming 2025-26 admissions cycle will be required to submit SAT or ACT scores as part of their application. Penn's decision aligns with other Ivy League universities — including Dartmouth College, Harvard University, Cornell University, and Brown University — who have similarly reinstated standardized testing requirements.
Admissions decisions this cycle came after Penn announced expansions to their financial aid policies for the 2025-26 academic year. The University will aim to increase student eligibility for financial aid by raising the income threshold for full-tuition scholarships to $200,000 from $140,000 for families with typical assets.
Additionally, Penn will also exclude primary family homes from being counted as an asset when calculating a student’s financial aid.
This year marks the second full application cycle in which Penn has not been able to consider race in its admissions decisions. After a 2023 ruling from the United States Supreme Court declared race-conscious admissions unconstitutional, Penn’s Class of 2028 saw a decline in students from historically underrepresented races and ethnicities.
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