University of Pennsylvania Mayor’s Scholarship

About this scholarship

The University of Pennsylvania Mayor’s Scholarship is an institution-funded, need-based award for Philadelphia residents who attend high school in Philadelphia or in the contiguous Pennsylvania counties of Bucks, Delaware, or Montgomery. Students do not submit a separate Mayor’s Scholarship application. They apply to Penn for first-year admission and complete every required prospective-student financial-aid form and tax document by the deadline for their admission plan. After admission, Penn Student Financial Services determines demonstrated financial need and automatically considers students who meet the residency and high-school-location rules. Award values vary because Penn calculates the scholarship within each recipient’s individual need-based aid package rather than offering a fixed dollar amount. Selected students are notified in April. The scholarship may renew during later undergraduate years as long as the recipient continues to demonstrate need and submits a complete annual financial-aid application. A student must remain a Philadelphia resident; merely attending a Philadelphia-area high school without Philadelphia residency is not enough. Penn also states that it meets the full demonstrated financial need of admitted undergraduates, so the Mayor’s Scholarship works as one component of the broader university grant package rather than as an additional cash prize paid directly to the student.

Eligibility

• Be a resident of the City of Philadelphia
• Attend high school in Philadelphia or in Bucks, Delaware, or Montgomery County, Pennsylvania
• Apply for first-year undergraduate admission to the University of Pennsylvania
• Complete all prospective-student financial-aid applications and tax-document requirements by Penn’s deadline
• Be admitted to Penn
• Demonstrate financial need as calculated by Penn Student Financial Services
• Reapply for financial aid and continue to demonstrate need each year for renewal