Whitney Soule began her tenure as Vice Provost and Dean of Admissions on July 1, 2021.
Vice Provost Soule has three decades of experience in admissions at highly selective institutions, including most recently as Senior Vice President and Dean of Admissions and Student Aid at Bowdoin College, where her leadership advanced both diversity and selectivity, with an increasing number of students of color, first-generation students, and students on financial aid, alongside a decreasing admit rate and a growing yield rate.
A national leader in envisioning the future of college admissions and the role of higher education in driving societal progress, Soule is a member of the Board of Directors of the Common Application and the College Board Enrollment Leaders Group; a recent board member of the Coalition for College and the Enrollment Management Association; and a former chair of the executive admission committee of the New England Small College Athletic Conference. At Bowdoin, she developed and implemented a wide range of innovative new admissions initiatives, including new evaluation tools to help students from historically underrepresented or under-resourced backgrounds demonstrate their preparation for college, new methods of recruitment and selection to better serve students and families, and new ways of organizing the work of the admissions office to increase its efficiency, flexibility, and accessibility.
She began her career in college admissions at her alma mater, Bates College, followed by an 11-year tenure at Connecticut College, where she led the implementation of new student information systems, among numerous other initiatives. In addition to her bachelor’s degree from Bates, Soule holds a master’s degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
You can contact Penn Admissions at: info@admissions.upenn.edu
