How to write the Why Penn essay

EEric Furda, Penn's dean of admissions from 2007 to 2021, did not count campus visits or email opens as evidence that a student cared, a line he took in a 2017 conversation later published by Penn's Wharton School. Penn, he said, required no set number of interactions; if a student applied, the student was interested.

Many families still spend the year before applications collecting exactly those interactions, on the theory that every college keeps score. At Penn the answer to why this school, in particular, had a different job to do, and Furda had a clear idea of what that job was.