Students who are completing their senior year of high school concurrently with their first year of college, or who are enrolled in a dual-enrollment program taking courses in college while still enrolled in high school, should apply as a first-year.
The University does not admit first-year or transfer students to enroll mid-year. Students who leave college at the end of the first term may apply to the first-year class entering in the subsequent September.
Penn maintains a two-year academic enrollment requirement. At least one-half of the total number of courses required for the Penn degree must be completed here, regardless of the number of transferable credits completed elsewhere. If you have completed more than two years of transferable work at other institutions, you are not eligible to transfer to an undergraduate school at Penn. Additionally, the Wharton School and School of Engineering and Applied Science only admit students with one year of credit to enter as second-year students. They do not accept any students to enter in their third year.
Students who have already completed a Bachelor's degree are not eligible to transfer to an undergraduate school at Penn.
Transcript Reporting Requirements
Records from summer school, study-abroad programs, or special college programs must be submitted in official transcript form with certified English translations, if applicable. These records will be considered along with other credentials.
If you have taken courses on a PASS/FAIL or CREDIT/NO CREDIT basis, you must have grades or written evaluations of your performance sent by the professor of these courses for them to be transferrable. If you attend a school that records only PASS/FAIL on your transcript for your first-semester or first-year courses, please request that your grades be released on the transcript sent to our office.
COVID-19 Update: Please note, due to COVID-19 grading changes, various colleges and universities implemented pass/fail grading to accommodate the challenges of online learning. If the applicant's current institution has a policy where pass grades are awarded for a C- or lower, then they will need to reveal those grades prior to enrolling at Penn in order to earn credit.