<p>I’m in 9th grade, looking at different PSEO programs in the Twin Cities. At this point my top choice is UMN full time during my junior and senior year. MCTC would be good too - I’d rather attend MCTC full time than UMN PSEO part time.</p>
<p>According to their website, the UMN PSEO acceptance rate is around 50% and the student body is about 64% part time.</p>
<p>I’ll have just above a 3.9 in the following courses when I apply:</p>
<h2>9th grade</h2>
<p>Spanish III-IV (3rd year)
Pre-Calculus
Pre-AP English 9
Pre-AP Geo 9
Biology H
Electives
UMN College-in-the-Schools course 1001 for credit (taken outside school, grade: B+)</p>
<h2>Summer</h2>
<p>Online health/gym requirements
UMN regular course for credit (hopefully A)</p>
<h2>10th grade</h2>
<p>AP USH
Alg II/Trig (don’t ask - this is the track my school offers)
Pre-AP English 10
AP Spanish
Chemistry H
Electives
UMN College-in-the-Schools course 1002 for credit (hopefully A, taken outside school)</p>
<p>I’m also very involved in extracurricular activities and volunteering. I won’t go into detail since I don’t think UMN PSEO bases admissions too much on ECs or special talents.</p>
<p>Anyway, my question is: how qualified are PSEO applicants? Do I fit within the range of those accepted? Also, if anyone happens to have any knowledge about the PSEO program I’d love to hear it. Thanks.</p>
<p>Not knowing a whole lot about PSEO’s requirements and just basing it off people I know, you are a definite yes. I don’t think you have anything to worry about.</p>
<p>Excellent, thanks for replying. That’s a relief. What do you think of the competition into St. Thomas PSEO? It seems more competitive than UMN. Is St. Thomas a better school?</p>
<p>I don’t know anything about the differences in competition but personally I’d choose St.Thomas. PSEO is free right? Why not take advantage of a much more expensive school while you can?</p>
<p>True, but I’d rather base my decision on which school will offer me a better education (if I’m given the decision, hehe). What do you think of St. Thomas v U of M? I don’t really have any idea how good St. Thomas is.</p>
<p>St. Thomas limits the credits allowed for PSEO students. It could also be argued (as it would be by me) that the U of MN offers many more challenging courses to PSEO students.</p>
<p>^ That was the tone I was getting from the St. Thomas PSEO website. Even if it is a better school, it doesn’t seem to match up to the freedom UMN gives PSEO students.</p>
<p>Also, MCTC offers PSEO to anyone age 15+. I would already qualify for that. The application due date has passed but I’m guessing admissions isn’t too competitive and they may have open spots. Should I call and ask about signing up for next year? Or is sophomore year kind of early for dual enrollment? I’d love to get some transferable credits.</p>
<p>I say just take AP classes your sophomore year and then do PSEO full-time junior year. The AP classes will prepare you for the academic rigor of college classes. Especially writing college papers, which depending on which professor you get, can be pretty challenging.</p>
<p>S1 just got his admission news in the mail that just came. He is in and can take a full-time load. Whew! </p>
<p>He was an AP scholar with honor after ninth grade and had an ACT score of 34. He submitted transcripts from six different external programs (including the U of MN talented youth mathematics program) besides our family master homeschool transcript. I think he’s in a good situation now for eleventh and twelfth grade. </p>
<p>I’ll try to pass on news about other applicants from this year as I hear it. Most of the people I hear from will be homeschoolers or public high school students from the Twin Cities suburbs.</p>
<p>D was just accepted to UMN PSEO for her junior HS year but also has an app in at Macalester which takes only a small number of PSEO students, is very selective, and restricts PSEO students to 1 class/semester. Macalester says they’ll let her know by July. If accepted she may go there because there’s a particular course with a particular professor she really wants to take.</p>
<p>UMN requires ACT, PSAT or SAT scores for homeschoolers, but these are optional for school kids. Their PSEO admissions office says average GPA for Fall admission is 3.70 unweighted; 3.80 unweighted for Spring admission. Your 3.9 should be an easy admit if that’s unweighted. </p>
<p>We’ve known other homeschoolers who have done/are doing PSEO at UMN and most really like it. One problem: lots of popular courses close and PSEO students are the lowest priority in course registration, but the U offers so many choices that you can always find something else. One bit of advice: when you start, start slow, maybe just one PSEO course first semester until you get up to speed at the college level, then build up from there. We know a few kids who launched into a full college load right off the bat in the beginning of their junior year and they were miserable trying to keep up with the work. Also, I’d strongly recommend doing 10th grade at your HS and save PSEO for 11th and 12th. I believe the state will support you in PSEO for only 2 years; if you burn one of them in 10th grade, what are you going to do in your senior year? Besides, you’ll be better prepared for work at the college level with another year of HS under your belt.</p>
<p>That is a correct statement of current Minnesota law. The statute setting up the program specifically refers to eleventh grade and twelfth grade as the two years of eligibility.</p>
<p>I have actually attended PSEO full time in U of M two years ago (graduated last year from high school).
I had a gpa of 3.76 when I was accepted into PSEO
and got 27 (or was it 28) on my PLAN test. I had pretty hard classes in high school most were honors and pre-ap classes. In high school I remember a few times where I did not sleeping for consequitive days to study for my exams. </p>
<p>Looking at your scores and the classes that you took I believe that you will get in. However, you need to have a great essay… oh I just noticed that you are in 9th grade…
Sorry but I have to ask, if you are taking pre-calculus now in 9th grade, why are you taking trig (which comes before pre-calc) after pre-calc. I am definitely AGAINST THIS unless you are failing pre-calc, but your GPA does not show this. Definitely take calc 1, if you believe that you can get at least a B. So when you are doing PSEO, you can take calc 1 again and it will be much easier ( I took pre-calc in 10th grade and in PSEO my first year I took calc 1 and it was hard- most of the students in my class had taken calc in high school and they knew what to do but I did not have that chance). Also, you should try to take classes in 10th grade that is required for your high school that you don’t have to take in the major that you persue in college. So in your junior year when you are doing PSEO you can take the classes that are in your major.
Hope that helps!</p>
- this is the track my school offers)