U. of Pennsylvania Signs On to Common App

"Penn Switches to Common App"
By Megan Steiner
The Daily Pennsylvanian - March 15, 2006

Penn is exchanging its individualized application form for a more generic one.
The University plans to switch to the Common Application -- a standard form accepted by 300 American colleges and universities -- this July.

Penn denied the common application for years while its peer schools accepted it, but now the Admissions Department says that the Common Application will help Penn to attract a new demographic.

In February of 2005, Stetson told the Daily Pennsylvanian that Penn did not accept the Common Application because "the seriousness with which students use the common application is suspect."

Until now, the University accepted only its own individualized application, which included two essays and several short answer questions.

The University will now require a supplement to the more bareboned Common Application. It will likely include previously used questions such as why applicants are applying to Penn and what the 217th page of their autobiography would say, according to Dean of Undergraduate Admissions Lee Stetson.

Stetson said that the switch was prompted by research and discussion with other schools that found that the application has been successful in reaching racial, ethnic, geographic and economic groups that are typically underrepresented. Reaching more students in those groups was the primary motivation for the change, he said....