Penn State College of Communications

lucy_van_pelt
Sat, 10 Feb 2018 14:09:53 +0000

@Andrew2018 Andrew, trying to be gentle here, but might be a dose of tough love.

Honestly, if you transfer to UP “early”, you will be over your head. Last spring, you first took the SAT and got in the 700’s. You were going to study to improve your score to the 1200’s… and you did improve (good work!), but only into the 800’s. Do you understand that most kids who start at UP are waaaaay higher ? You also mentioned that AP courses would be too rigorous for your senior year. They are a great estimate of what a college course will be.

You have mentioned political science as a major… and then found Astronomy and Astrophysics that would require you to go to UP as a sophomore. And now you are trying for Film to get to UP as a sophomore. (oh yeah, nursing was in there, too).

Stop spending all this time on message boards and researching majors to get to UP early. Spend the time preparing for college - find a way to improve your study skills, your English skills, and math. THAT will be way more helpful. Because at this pace, you may get to UP as a sophomore, but might be out as a junior.

College is hard. It requires self-study and motivation. I think it is great how independent you are, but you may be over your head. I see the PSU parents age all the time with “my kid was a great student and just failed Math 140”. Strong students get easily overwhelmed.

Figure out WHAT you want to do. While college is fun, it is also a lot of work. It is not the end, it is the means to the end - being successful for the rest of your life. Worry less about 1 year at Brandywine - save that money so you have a cushion if you need an extra summer or extra semester.

good luck to you.

re-read these (credit to the authors… @MYOS1634 @jlhpsu @bodangles )

So, don't pick a major simply because it gets you to UP campus faster. They know all about that. And if you are thinking you can stay in Astronomy and Astrophysics and then change only after 2 years...you can do that too (depending on major, ETM and credit windows)....but you will be behind and will likely have to go summers or a 5th year.

The only possible way to change into nursing after original acceptance is to switch your campus to Altoona or Harrisburg. Nursing at UP is a direct entry program...only available as an acceptance as a freshmen. My junior daughter wanted to change into nursing last year but since she can't, she is taking all of the nursing school pre reqs and will apply to a post bacc program after PSU. Clearly, she was also unwilling to go to Altoona or Harrisburg. Both are really nice campuses though. Also, whatever campus you start at, you must finish at for Nursing. So if you go to Altoona or Harrisburg for nursing, you stay here all 4 years. You do not do the 2+2 and go to UP. Nursing at UP is freshmen admit only.

Yes…they will make you go back. This is so that you don’t intentionally mislead them as to what major you want just to get up to UP campus. Consider going to UP conditional in that case. The condition being that you are in a major that you NEEDED to be there for. If you aren’t, they will send you back to the commonwealth campus at the start of the next semester and you won’t be able to find housing etc…

It won’t work. Believe me, they’ve made it impossible for it to work. Because of the ETM requirements, you won’t be able to take other classes from your major towards your “real” intended major so if you don’t change your major, you are working towards a degree that you don’t want. If you wait to change your major until the end of your sophomore year, you are very limited by credit windows and ETM requirements. With 600,000 living alumni, they have seen, heard and had it all tried on them. They are pretty adept at making it pretty darn hard to game the system.
Even true transfer students can’t get to UP sophomore year. If you go to another University and wish to transfer to UP your sophomore year, you can’t. You have to transfer to a commonwealth and then go up in your junior year. Penn State UP campus is freshmen or junior admit. That’s it. With the exception of the very few majors that require you to go to UP early.