@ChineseInUSA Anything is possible, but you submitted before the priority deadline for domestic students. If you applied as an International student than those deadlines do not apply. The deadlines and timelines for you would be the Feb/April timelines. If you want to know whether your application is in the international or domestic pool, you’d have to call admissions and ask.
It has been well after 8 weeks since I applied and I thought they guarantee decisions by 6-8 weeks…anyone else not hear back after applying over 2 months ago??
I applied 11 weeks ago and haven’t heard anything except deferral to regular decision group.
@mayaaad @cheerlover14 Penn State does not guarantee decisions within any time frame except to say that if you apply by Nov 30 you get a decision by January 31. With EA this year, there was the added timeframe of applying by Nov 1 and you’d get a decision by Dec 24, but that decision could be a deferral to the regular decision - which would mean a final decision by Jan 31.
LOTS of people don’t hear for months - Some people that applied August 1 are still waiting which is over 5 months at this point. Penn State is “modified rolling admission”, not regular rolling admission. Hang in there, only a few more weeks left at max.
Have there been anymore decisions since the infamous deferral/delay posts in mid December?
does anyone know for this new priority filing group if you year the same way for early action? I was one of the people that got deferred and I know that those that got accepted in ea first received an email with something like “thank you for applying youll be receiving a decision soon”, then their portal was shut down, then they received a decision that night at midnight. is this going to be the same for the next round of decisions?
@jlhpsu just to clarify, in the case of my DC and others that we know who were “deferred”, the applications were submitted well before the Nov 1 deadline; however the SRAR was not listed as “complete” until January, at which point the application portal changed to “under review”. In our case it’s clear that my DC’s application was not reviewed by the admissions committee at any point leading up to Dec 24, and no admissions decision was ever made.
To me, a deferral means that the university has substantively reviewed a student’s application and either would like additional information about the applicant, or wants to reassess the applicant against the entire RD pool. This may be the case for some PSU applicants, but in many cases this “deferral” simply means that PSU couldn’t process all the EA applicants by its own EA decision deadline, so moved the goalpost accordingly.
It is what it is… we were perfectly happy with the modified rolling system, but were a little annoyed by the fact that the admissions office didn’t even verify DC’s credentials until January. At this point we’re just looking ahead, and I’m sure the admissions office is working hard to catch up. However, I worry that some applicants might see this “deferral” as a judgment on their credentials, when it’s really just a byproduct of an administrative hiccup…
@UKexpat88 That’s interesting…for us, application was submitted early December and SRAR and all other documents were listed as “complete”. The application portal has been “under review” since then. I wonder if there were some issues with the SRAR system for it to only show as “complete” in January.
Is anyone else having issues logging into the My Penn State Portal starting at around 9am this morning? It was working earlier.
@kansha at some point DC called to check why the SRAR wasn’t complete and was told not to worry. So I think it just happened to be where the application was stuck in the queue. So many variables on timing, between the assigned admissions officer, the college applied to, majors, etc. It just confirmed for us that the “deferral” was administrative not substantive. We’ll all have an answer at some point!
Yes, same issues with the portal. Maybe an update is coming!!!
same issue here portal not working
Portal is down been trying for the last ten minutes
Yes, the portal is down. Hopefully a fresh batch of decisions coming out soon. Fingers crossed. Good luck everybody.
Portal is up now. Still no decision for me.
Folks, from what I understand the portal is updated one per day - not throughout the day. I believe it occurs after midnight at least that’s when we received our initial decision prior to Christmas.
@Spqr70nj That is true for the majority of the time, but as the decision timeline gets closer, they will update several times a day. The day that my daughter was accepted a few years ago, there were about 6 updates that day - she was in the last one!
@collegegirl2023 Yes received same letter that was dated Dec 18th. Contradicts the message on portal and all of the dialogue read regarding that they did not have time to review all of the applications. It may be true in many cases that they ran out of time, but this letter clearly states that they reviewed app materials. Which one is it? Portal says something different than the letter.
@pama3115 @collegegirl2023 It may be both. They may have “reviewed for completion” but haven’t “reviewed for decision” … Honestly, the admissions office is having a tough year of it. I hope they are all working massive overtime to get applications through by Jan. 31st and don’t end up deferring some of those candidates.
I still don’t understand why they would add EA and common app the same year. And last year was the first year of SRAR. And the year before that, they underpredicted yield and had too many freshmen and offered them money to go to a branch for 1 year. They have NO baseline for yield over the last 3 years!
We received the same letter @pama3115 and I agree with you, it kind of ticked me off because we know full well that my DC’s application wasn’t verified when they mailed that letter. To say that they had reviewed his application and decided to defer on that basis was untrue and inconsistent with the message on the portal.
I appreciate that they are overwhelmed but in that case, I expect a letter that says “We apologize, due to an unprecedented number of EA applicants we are unable to issue a decision on your application at this time.” This is a stressful time for all applicants and transparency would mean a lot. PSU’s handling of the situation has left a very poor impression.