University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine
Penn's health-related programs—including the Schools of Medicine, Dental Medicine, Nursing, and Veterinary Medicine, and programs in bioengineering (School of Engineering) and health management (the Wharton School)—are among the university's strongest academic components. The combination of intellectual breadth, research funding (each of the health sciences schools ranks in the top 5 in annual NIH funding), clinical resources and overall scale ranks Penn with only a small handful of peer universities in the U.S.
The size of Penn's biomedical research organization, however, adds a very capital intensive component to the university's operations, and introduces revenue instability due to changing government regulations, reduced federal funding for research, and Medicaid/Medicare program changes. This is a primary reason highlighted in bond rating agencies' views on Penn's overall financial rating, which ranks one notch below its academic peers. Penn has worked to address these issues by pooling its schools (as well as several hospitals and clinical practices) into the University of Pennsylvania Health System, thereby pooling resources for greater efficiencies and research impact.
Admissions selectivity[edit]
The Princeton Review ranks Penn as the 6th most selective school in the United States.[45] For the Class of 2015, entering in the fall of 2011, the University received a record of 31,659 applications and admitted 12.26 percent of the applicants (9.5% in the regular decision cycle), marking Penn's most selective admissions cycle in the history of the University.[46] The Atlantic also ranked Penn among the 10 most selective schools in the country. At the graduate level, Penn's admissions rates, like most universities', vary considerably based on school and program. Based on admission statistics from U.S. News and World Report, Penn's most selective programs include its law school, the health care schools (medicine, dental medicine, nursing, and veterinary), and its business school.
Research, innovations, and discoveries[edit]
Claudia Cohen Hall, formerly Logan Hall, home of the College of Arts and Sciences and former home of the Wharton School
Penn is considered a "very high research activity" university.[47] Its economic impact on the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania for 2010 amounted to $14 billion.[48] In 2011 Penn topped the Ivy League in research expenditures with $814 million worth of research,[2][49] of which about 70% comes from federal support and in the most part from the Department of Health and Human Services.[50] Penn also enjoys strong support from the private sector, which in 2010 contributed almost $400 million to Penn, making it the 6th strongest US university in terms of fundraising.[51] In line with its well-known interdisciplinary tradition, Penn's research centers often span two or more disciplines. In the 2010–11 academic year alone 5 interdisciplinary research centers were created or substantially expanded; these include the Center for Health-care Financing,[52] the Center for Global Women’s Health at the Nursing School,[53] the $13 million Morris Arboretum’s Horticulture Center,[54] the $15 million Jay H. Baker Retailing Center at Wharton,[55] and the $13 million Translational Research Center at Penn Medicine.[56] With these additions, Penn now counts 165 research centers hosting a research community of over 4,000 faculty and over 1,100 postdoctoral fellows, 5,400 academic support staff and graduate student trainees.[2]
