Hello, I am currently stressed out over my future. As applying to colleges and my step into adulthood nears, everything is coming up so fast. My dream school (top choice) is Penn State Main Campus and has been since a young age. I want to major in journalism. I am a junior in Southeastern Massachusetts. My GPA is roughly a 3.6 GPA on the 4 scale. At my school, the course levels go by order of difficulty…AP (Advanced Placement), Honors, College Prep 1, and College Prep. Although I have excelled in history and English at the Honors and AP levels, but my main concern is the three Cs I have gotten. I got a high C+ in geometry, a C in chemistry and a C+ in physics. Is this hurting my chances at main campus ? I have not taken the SATs yet. On the side, I am in DECA, Key Club International, Student Against Destructive Decisions and Portuguese Club and I play tennis in the spring. I don’t know if these play a factor.
The three Cs I got were all in College Prep 1 courses as well 
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Penn State is 2/3 GPA typically. Is 3.6 your weighted or unweighted GPA?
Please ask a mod to let you edit your post- & don’t use your real name!
3.6 is my unweighted GPA. It’s a 4.0 weighted.
Penn State gives virtually no financial aid to out of state students. Can your parents afford to pay $50,000/year?
They won’t be paying the whole 50,000 a year, I will be pitching in some of it. That stinks but understandable on their side of the table, because out of state students bring in more revenue.
You have resources to make up the difference?
MODERATOR’S NOTE:
Edited out user’s name and the name of his HS
Yes.
My best advice - nobody on these boards can tell you your chances, especially until you take the SAT. However,if your school uses Naviance, you can look at past admissions data for your specific high school, and see where you fall on the chart. Naviance has been extremely accurate for my son… it can give you a very good idea of your chances at a given university, especially if a significant number of students are applying each year from your school.
Not all schools use Naviance (I wish they did! Our HS does not). If your school doesn’t use Naviance, you can also look at the Common Data set to see the profile of enrolled students in previous years. Here it is for 2017-2018 https://budget.psu.edu/CDSRedesign/cds.aspx?reportindicator=FreshAdmn&Location=UP&AY=20172018
While it’s good to look at Naviance to get a very ballpark idea, it really didn’t hold true this year. I’m also guessing it considers 2+2 to be an admit, and I don’t think many students realize that that’s a possibility. Everyone that I’m aware of that applied from my son’s high school were either admitted into the 2+2 program or were waitlisted and now none of them are considering accepting.