Founded in 1740, the University of Pennsylvania is the fourth oldest institution of higher education in the United States and claims to be the nation's first comprehensive university in the modern sense. It was also the birthplace of many educational innovations: North America's first medical school (1765), the first university business school (Wharton, 1881), and the first student union (1896) were all born in University of Pennsylvania. In 1779, the University of Pennsylvania changed its name to the University of the State of Pennsylvania, becoming the first university in the United States to be named "University"; in 1791, the University of Pennsylvania officially changed its name to the University of Pennsylvania.

The University of Pennsylvania is a leader in the arts, humanities, social sciences, architecture and engineering education, most notably business, law and medicine. The school has about 4,500 professors, nearly 10,000 full-time undergraduate students and more than 11,000 graduate students. In 2012, the school's scientific research funding reached 923 million US dollars, and the research personnel included about 4,200 faculty members, 870 postdoctoral fellows, 3,800 graduate students and more than 5,400 technical staff. At the same time, the school's annual construction investment has reached more than 400 million US dollars, ranking among the best in the famous Ivy League schools.

The University of Pennsylvania has a large number of students of various ethnic and cultural backgrounds. 40% of the admitted freshmen are Asian, Hispanic, African or Indian. Girls accounted for 51.3% of the students in the school. In 2004, 2,440 international students applied for undergraduate admission, of which 489 were admitted. 13% of the first-year undergraduates are international students. Of these international students, 15.8% were from Africa and the Middle East, 48.1% were from Asia, 0.4% were from Oceania, 11.7% were from Canada and Mexico, 10% were from Central and South America and the Caribbean, and 14.1% were from Europe. There were 4,192 international students among all students admitted in the fall of 2004.