My son applied EA and has been under review since 9/8
In state
Direct to PSU
Summer option checked
DUS
@spqr70nj @242mom. FWIW Iām starting to think that when we EA were deferred 12/22 that we were actually deferred to the priority review regular decision group by 1/31
Our applications may not have made the cut to get a decision up or down by 12/22 so we were deferred and lost any date related EA status
Maybe the portal message was poorly worded and confused us all to mean it was just due to the high volume because thatās how I read it
However the letter that one poster got actually referred to being deferred as a decision
Maybe thatās what happened to all of us EA deferred
Would explain why priority review (submitted after 11/1 but by 11/30) decisions are coming out ahead of some EA
After all maybe thousands of EA did get their decisions by 12/22 and took many spots
We just donāt know and admissions told some people EA were still separate after deferral 12/22 but that may not be accurate
Just thinking explanation may be different than that we EA deferred are just being screwed
Hope not
^^ Admissions told me that all the EA applications not reviewed prior to December 24 WERE just mixed in with the other applications from after November 1, and now all of that pool is being randomly reviewed, not in order of receipt.
@ziveli513 I think my son may be in a unique situation. He did receive a decision by 12/22 with admit into Engineering but 2+2. We are OOS. I called and asked for reconsideration for Summer start with no change to the other application criteria. So his portal was never ādeferredā like most others. It still and has always read EA, Engineering, Under Review, except that now the Summer option is noted.
@vamom4 thanks, exactly my point. Other people posted they were told EA kept separate after the 12/22 deferral but it now seems clear that was a misunderstanding
Psu admissions didnāt make that crystal clear in the portal message imo
So now people are understandably upset about EA deferral and what it meant
So many helpful posts, esp. those who report after calling in. I guess at this point, checking the āEAā box doesnāt mean as much to PSU as putting the whole class together in a way that makes sense to them institutionally (filling majors in particular ways, etc).
I do think that their communication has put a lot of students off, and I think itās fair to put that on PSU. They probably make a lot of yes-and-no decisions all day long and donāt get questioned much. Because theyāre doing things in this totally different way (!) this year, I think itās just going to come down to whatever they do, they do. If your child gets in and wants to go there, then they should go.
I went through this process with the Univ. of California schools and, to be honest, itās so much worse. Donāt get me started.
no change from yesterday morningā¦
DD OOS
Common App
Nursing UP
EA 10/13
various portal āerrorsā & different Application Staus messages
Dec 22 moved into the āJan 31ā group
as of Thu. 1/24 portal App Status ācurrently under reviewā
oh, yes, shame on PSU for having screwed up this already emotionally hard on the kids process. Not taking away anything from those w whom applied after the Nov 1 EA cut-off date, sincere congrats if you got in, it just wrong that EA applicants donāt have an answer yet.
what are you basing your many people will get accepted from waitlist?
@pama3115 I did yesterday and they said that D could choose any other campus now, or be waitlisted for UP. Asked if Summer checkbox was secondary review and said no, basically as something becomes available in major she may come off. I said could changing major impact and was told no. I agree with other parents who said if they were EA, they should get priority before RD applications. Top choice school for my kid, and if ED was available would have totally done that. Seems that PSU didnāt know what they were getting into with EA and electronic application added. Kids that applied after my daughter with lower stats and no real interest or $ to go, got accepted. SMH
@jcs1918 we were told at one of the local meeting with regional counselor that D should chose a major. So hoping that didnāt hurt her chances.
@dmeyers
@gmancc
I think we EA did get reviewed and did get an answer by 12/22
We who are still waiting were deferred
Deferred meaning we didnāt make the cut in the initial pool of EA
But I think psu portal message didnāt make that clear that we were reviewed and deferred
So far, if u look at it that way, all EA may well have been reviewed
Itās just that we didnāt make that first cut
Now we are in with priority review just like psu inarticulately imo posted on our portal
And since we are all in the priority review group, applicants who applied after 11/1 but before 11/30 will randomly get decisions and EA deferred group will too, randomly now
Iām not defending this mess, Iām just suggesting that those of us who applied EA may need to rethink what that deferral meant in fact
Just because we havenāt gotten a final answer doesnāt mean that hundreds if not thousands of EA did get admit or deny before 12/22
These cc forums represent a tiny fraction of applicants
70,000 applications were received between August and 11/30.
@ziveli513 That 70,000 applications - I thought I had seen that # listed for a previous year. Were you able to find that somewhere for this year? This whole time I have been thinking that THIS year was way OVER 70,000ā¦ I was also thinking if they released how many applications they got many of us might feel a little better. But from what I had seen somewhere, if itās 70,000 this year, thatās not an increase. So that would be confusing.
I believe the 70,000 application number is the number received University-wide, not just University Park alone. The PSU website states this fact.
@spqr70nj Yeah, I always believed we were talking university-wide and I think thatās whatās relevant for all these admission decisions now? Or no? Anyway, I appreciate the link because whenever I try to find anything on their web site on my own I canāt and give up! Itās like a maze. But your page did verify that these are old numbers anyway and we donāt know really what the current numbers they are dealing with are. Right?
Soā¦ just to muddle my brain more, if students applied directly to somewhere other than UP, those students/parents arenāt on these forums with us here because they are considered separately and arenāt going through this?
There is one admissions process for the entire PSU system. That being said, you CAN apply to a campus as your first choice. For example, the western PA traditional path to PSU is to apply to Behrend (the Erie campus). I imagine students who chose a campus as their first choice have had a decision by now.
EA
Applied 11/1
OOS
Direct to PSU
Summer option checked
DUS
Still waiting on my decision.
I vaguely recall seeing 70,000 applications received by 11/30 this yearā¦somewhere
Maybe the postcard that was sent before the deferral notices?
And someone posted that 70,000 is normally the total number by the end of the process like April or May , not by 11/30
But I am not sure, in any case we did get notice that it was unprecedented
My point was that thousands of EA applicants who made the ācutā yes or no may have filled the spots ahead
And we who were deferred were reviewed and deferred
Not just paused
Last year there were roughly 56,000 applicants for UP campus alone. Add in Harrisburg, Erie and Altoona and that goes up to about 65,000. There are more than a dozen other campuses as well so likely over 70K for all campuses. My guess this year, with common app there were many thousands more applicants for UP campus. Iām not sure EA had much of an effect because I think those who would apply EA would have applied during RD anyway. But common app, especially without an essay, creates thousands of quick apply applications from kids who may or may not have been seriousā¦which drags down and out the whole process.
Penn Stateās admission process was wrought with transparency problems prior to this year, but this year has been a doozy. Iāll be very interested to see the CDS numbers after this cycle.
I think we who are EA and were deferred need to adjust our thinking and realize we maybe were actually deferred and we are no longer ea
It may help with the frustration we feel, whatever the numbers of applicants are in the end
I think we see people thinking wait list is a rejection which itās not or that ea who were deferred were screwed over
I suggest not, but there are plenty of other things to frustrate us as we wait
Gosh this is so annoying! Five more days but it seems like theyāve forgotten about us.