Updated August 10, 2026

How to Write UPenn’s Supplemental Essays for 2026-2027

Bonus Material: PrepMaven’s 50+ Real Supplemental Essays for Ivy+ Schools

Expert guidance provided by Mike Kleynman (PhD in English, 10+ years’ experience coaching admissions) and reviewed by Kevin Wong (co-founder PrepMaven, 20+ years’ experience coaching admissions).

Last year, the University of Pennsylvania received a record number of applications, accepting only 5.8% of applicants! That means if UPenn is your dream school, your application needs to be very impressive to stand a chance.

Fortunately, at PrepMaven, we’ve helped thousands of students craft compelling college application essays. It doesn’t hurt that many of our expert tutors have been admitted to elite schools like Princeton, UPenn, and Harvard themselves, and so they know exactly what works. We’ve summarized that expertise in our Ultimate Guide to College Supplemental Essays.

In this guide, we’ll break down how to write the UPenn supplemental essays for the upcoming admissions cycle, explaining how to maximize your chances of acceptance.

As you read on, check out our free resource linked below: it contains real, successful examples of supplemental essays written for Ivies and other top schools–including real essays that got students admitted into UPenn!

Jump to section:
UPenn’s 2026-2027 Essay Prompts
How to Write UPenn’s First Essay
How to Write UPenn’s Second Essay
How to Write UPenn’s Third Essay
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UPenn’s 2026-2027 Essay Prompts

UPenn has 3 required supplemental essays. The third prompt depends on which of Penn’s colleges or programs you apply to, but is essentially the same, asking you to explain “Why Penn” in 50-200 words.

Here are all of the essays, prompts, and word counts for UPenn’s supplementals:

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!) (50-200 words, only required for first-year applicants)

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. (50-200 words)

School specific prompt:

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.  (50-200 words)

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?(50-200 words)

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. (50-200 words)

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. (50-200 words)

Below, we’ll dive deep into how to approach each of these supplemental essay prompts, laying out the tips, tricks, and strategies to help your essay stand out from thousands of others.

We’ll also be taking a look at real sample essays that got students admitted to UPenn and breaking down what allowed them to succeed.

As you read on, we’ll often be encouraging you to spend time looking through as many real supplemental essays for Ivy League schools as possible. Writing is easiest when you have a model!

Below, we’ve collected over 50 real supplemental essays that got students accepted to Ivy+ schools (including UPenn). You can download that collection for free by clicking the link below.

How to Write UPenn’s First Essay: The Thank-You Note

Writing Penn’s “Thank you note” essay requires balancing two key components.

First, you have to make sure you’re addressing the prompt and writing the essay to someone who’s influenced you in your life, sincerely thanking them.

Second, you need to make sure that the story you tell in this essay is still mostly about you.

If you spend most of this essay simply thanking someone for what they’ve done for you, you’ll be doing the first part. But you won’t actually show admissions officers at Penn anything about you.

The best way to approach this essay is to spend most of it describing the impact that the letter recipient had on you.

In other words, show readers what you did with this person’s advice or influence. It might feel awkward, but this is still your college application: your thank you letter needs to be about you.

It can be hard to strike the right balance here, which is why we’d suggest having a trusted writing expert look over your essay before submitting!

When everything has to come together perfectly like it does here, we recommend working with one of our experienced college essay coaches, the majority of whom come from Ivy League schools themselves.

In the meantime, download over 50 sample essays for free below!

How to Write UPenn’s Second Essay: Community

As you can probably tell by the prompts, this essay question really wants you to reflect on how your background will contribute to a strong community at UPenn.

To a large extent, the advice that we give in our detailed post on the Common App personal statement also holds true for this kind of supplemental: be specific and tell a story!

The good news is that you don’t have to write about a particular identity for this essay to be effective.

In fact, one of the best ways to approach this UPenn supplemental is by writing about a meaningful community you’re involved with.

That could mean a number of things: it could be a religious or identity-based community. But it could just as easily be a community you’re part of through sports, extracurriculars, or your interests.

The key to this essay is to show UPenn how you’ve been a good community member, and how you’ll be a good community member at UPenn.

While you should begin this essay with an anecdote about yourself or a past community you’ve been a part of, at least half of this essay needs to focus on UPenn’s offerings.

Just as you should do with a “Why Major” essay (like Penn’s third essay–see below!), you need to carefully research what opportunities there are at UPenn that speak to your interests.

If you have a strong commitment to service, look up the volunteering programs that Penn has available: the more specific you can get, the better!

Or, if you have a religious, racial, or other identity that’s important to you, perhaps you plan to get involved with affinity groups and mentoring organizations on campus–again, just be sure that you’re doing the research into Penn’s specific community offerings and citing that.

Here’s the magic formula for this first essay:

50% personal anecdote about your background/community involvement
50% discussing specific community initiatives you’ll engage with at UPenn

Do both, and you’ll have a winning essay on your hands–just like the 50+ successful supplemental essays we’ve organized for you in the free resource below!

How to Write UPenn’s Third Essay: Why Major/Why UPenn

UPenn’s third essay prompt is a classic “why major” essay, on which we’ve written a comprehensive guide here: How to Write the “Why Major” Essay. Like we mentioned, it’s really similar to Penn’s second essay!

The key to answering this supplemental prompt about your intended area of study is to answer three key questions:

What specifically are you interested in?
Why, using specific details from your life, are you interested in that subject?
How, using the specific resources available at UPenn, will you pursue that subject?

If you’ve already written a Why Major essay for another school, you should be able to save a lot of time by reusing the basic structure of that essay, and simply replacing the school-specific portions.

If you don’t already have a template, here’s what it should look like:

Start with a brief anecdote from your life or academic question that interests you.

Start by telling a story!

The anecdote should show where your interest comes from, the moment you realized you wished to pursue this subject, or simply dramatize an important learning experience related to your chosen field of study.

You can use this portion of the template for any school that asks a Why Major supplemental.

Use that anecdote to launch into a discussion of why the subject matter interests you/why you want to pursue it as a major.

Whatever your major, you need to convincingly convey your passion for a particular subject to the admissions officers at UPenn.

Do so, and they’ll be far more likely to see you as someone who will seriously pursue your interests–which is, of course, what they’re looking for.

As with the anecdote, you can reuse this portion of the essay for any school with a similar prompt.

Explain how you’ll use specific resources at UPenn to pursue your academic interests.

This is the school-specific portion of the essay, which you’ll have to modify for every school you apply to. And the first step here is research: identify specific, unique offerings of UPenn that you hope to take advantage of.

Your best friend here will be the departmental website of the program/major to which you’re applying. Invest time in exploring that website: you’ll find all the information you need about curriculum, research, and work opportunities there.

Then, you’ll take this specific information and focus on 1-2 key points at the end of the essay, favoring depth over breadth. Don’t just rattle off the first 10 things you see on the website: pick just a couple and spend a few sentences on each, explaining how the particular resource aligns with your academic interests and goals.

Some great things to focus on would be:

Research programs
Work/internship/coop opportunities
Unique curricular offerings
Unusual minors or specializations
Service learning opportunities
Thesis/honors opportunities

Take a look at our free resource below: it contains over 50 real supplemental essays that got our tutors admitted into Princeton, UPenn, Harvard, and more!

And, if you want to work with a college essay expert like the one who wrote this essay, contact us.

Next Steps

Once you’re ready to start writing supplemental essays for UPenn and your other schools, we have two main pieces of advice.

First: read real, successful sample supplemental essays that helped get students into elite schools like UPenn.

Most people don’t really know what colleges like UPenn actually want from the supplemental essays, and the best solution is to spend lots of time reviewing successful sample essays. We’ve collected over 50 of these essays in the free resource below.

Second: get expert help. Whether you’re a brilliant writer or just an okay one, you’ll benefit tremendously from the advice of someone who’s already successfully navigated the high-stakes college application process.

Unfortunately, not all college essay tutors are created equal: picking the right one can be the difference between getting into your dream school or just wasting your money.

That’s why we had our experts come up with the definitive ranking of the 14 Best College Essay Services, evaluating everything from tutor credentials to customer reviews. Check out that list, and make sure you only work with the best.

And when you’re ready to work with our team of college essay experts–who earned admission to elite schools like Princeton and UPenn before undergoing a rigorous training process–contact us to get matched with a tutor!

How to write UPenn’s Supplemental Essays