Supplementary Materials

All the information that we feel is crucial in making an admission decision is included within our required documents. Most students who apply to Penn do not submit any supplemental materials. However, some applicants may feel that their application is missing key contextual information representing who they are or their accomplishments.  

We recommend using existing requirements such as the activities section or additional information sections of the application to convey this information.  If, however, there is brief information that you could not include in other required parts of the application, you may submit the information as a supplementary material through your Penn Applicant Portal. Note that most students who apply to Penn do not submit any supplemental materials and we cannot guarantee that supplementary materials will be reviewed during the application process. In most cases, too many extra documents can take away from the strength of an application. In short, keep it simple! 

Portfolios

Portfolios will only be reviewed in two instances: 

1. Visual and Interactive Computing (VIC) applicants are recommended to submit a portfolio composed of pieces that highlight the applicant's visually creative abilities. Examples of such pieces (but not hard requirements) are: 

  • Drawings or paintings in traditional media 
  • 3D-modeled or animated compositions made with software such as, but not limited to, Blender, Autodesk Maya, or Houdini 
  • Designs for wearable technology 
  • Video games programmed by the applicant and/or with art assets created by the applicant 
  • Architectural renderings 
  • Visual effects compositions 
  • Procedurally-generated images produced by code the applicant wrote (importantly, NOT pieces created through generative AI prompts) 
  • Mobile phone apps programmed and designed by the applicant 
  • User interfaces designed by the applicant 

What is most important is that the works you submit demonstrate your creative aptitude. As Visual and Interactive Computing is first and foremost an engineering degree, we encourage applicants to explore how the computer transforms their artwork and design ideas. Please limit your selection to 5-12 pieces, or a maximum of 5 minutes of video. 

2. Transfer students applying to enroll as second-year students in Architecture are required to submit a portfolio. There is no specific number of submissions that must be included. Third-year transfers are ineligible to apply to the Architecture major. 

Learn more about undergraduate programs available in the arts, design, and architecture. 

File Sizes and Types for Portfolios 

We support media files as large as 5GB, but please be advised that larger files will take longer to upload from your internet connection and may stall if you are on a wireless connection or one that cannot sustain a connection uninterrupted. Uploaded documents may contain no more than 75 pages. We support the following file formats: 

  • Video: .3g2, .3gp, .avi, .m2v, .m4v, .mkv, .mov, .mpeg, .mpg, .mp4, .mxf, .webm, .wmv 
  • Audio: .aac, .m4a, .mka, .mp3, .oga, .ogg, .wav 
  • Slide: .bmp, .gif, .jpg, .jpeg, .png, .tif, .tiff 
  • Document: .doc, .docx, .odg, .odp, .odt, .pdf, .ppt, .pptx, .rtf, .wpd 
  • Upload Link or URL