Raising the Bar

October 5, 2012 - The 2012-13 academic year marks the largest, most academically able, and most diverse cohort of master’s students in the history of Penn GSE.

Applications to Penn GSE master’s programs were up 24% over the prior year. The quality of the master’s cohort continues to rise, with the acceptance rate now dropping 14 percentage points from five years ago. In the new cohort, the average student GRE verbal score rose four percentile points from last year, and quantitative scores jumped 16 percentile points. Median scores for GSE master’s students also rose above last year’s University of Pennsylvania median for the social sciences.

Students in Penn GSE's Teach for America program at the
2012 orientation session.

Our master’s cohort continues to be one of the most diverse on the Penn campus. Schoolwide (including doctoral students), 33 U.S. states are represented. Twenty-nine percent of the students are from other countries, up 4% from last year, with seven more countries represented. Among domestic students, 38% are students of color, marking a 5% rise over last year’s class. A full snapshot of the incoming cohort is available here.

Penn GSE is currently ranked ninth among graduate schools of education in the country by U.S. News & World Report.

Media Contact: Kat Stein, Executive Director of Commmunications, katstein@gse.upenn.edu, (215) 898-9642