Can you send your test scores well before you submit your application? My D26 is struggling with her common app essay so I donāt think sheāll be ready to submit until Oct 15. We donāt want to risk CB delaying the scores being sent so want to send them asap.
Yes, absolutely.
Donāt agonize on the essay wrt PSU: 2/3 decision = GPA Ćrigor.
The remaining 1/3= mostly test scores, everything else (essay, ECs..) is used if those elements indicate borderline.
His GPA is 3.51/3.59. His country club job has interaction and supervision of kids. So, it is sort of relevant to Education.
He hasnāt exactly figured out what he wants to do. I think he may like a sales job with a large company. But he has always liked the idea of being a teacher. It is probably smart for him to start with Education and then pivot after a year if he decides it isnāt for him.
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Just looking for some advice from the hive mind on this one. My daughter sent in her application for Penn State (common app) last week. Also had her SAT scores sent, though they hadnāt arrived yet from what I understand. She was doing the STARS and when it comes to World Language, got stuck. Her HS changed the way they name the World Language classes last year and so on her transcript, it looks like she took French 3 twice (sophomore and junior year). Sheās in AP French this year. She emailed her counselor to ask what to do and they said that the school profile documents the change in terminology for the language courses, but that she should list her junior year French class as French 4. This seems wrong to me since that isnāt what it says on the transcript. I think she should email admissions and ask the question, but she said that since her counselor told her to list it as French 4, she should do that. Is this something worth ME emailing admissions about (I generally let her take the lead) or do we think itās fine and just do what the counselor says?
I think itās okay, especially since it makes sense.
If she chooses to enroll, theyāll have the transcript which will indicate the change in numbers and theyāll understand French 3 in the new system = French 4 in the former system. As a result, it wonāt differ from the SRAR. 
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Yes we did and they are there
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He can go into Sales from any college or any major, especially if he tacks on the business certificate.
Maximum overlap would mean the Middle Years Math track, with English 15/30H, Math 140, Econ 104 (among the many offered, taking that class would guarantee an easier switch to other majors while counting for Education), an Education seminar, and one gen ed science from this list:
If he wanted to switch to Agribusiness, English 15/30H, Math 140, Econ 104 are all major requirements and the gen ed science would also count for Agribusiness gen eds.
Just got the link to the portal and it says you can self report scores. Do we still need to request from College Board?
Well, this is new, and different from the Admissions websiteās FAQ.
Would you mind emailing admissions and reporting back?
If others have already received this information, could you share it here?
Yeah - we are noticing the same. We found the Q&A saying we need to, the portal (after you submit application) says we donāt have to and can self report. We also saw a video from Sara Haberson saying that they made a change this year about self reporting but the PSU Q&A website is not updated. Will email and find out. Thank you for your help!
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We didnāt email, but my daughter submitted her application, and a couple days later (after she had set up her portal), she got another email saying āyour application is missing materialsā or something like that and the missing item was āOfficial SAT/ACT Test Scoresā. This would indicate they want the official scores, but WTH do I know?
So there is a screen on the portal that says you may self report and send the scores in if deciding to go there. So bizarre that they would have that screen but then still require the official scores. Anyone else seeing that screen?
I had read (not sure where, but I think it was on the Penn State website somewhere) that you could self-report them now, but then my daughter got that email after submitting her application, so I was like, āI guess you should send themā. She had already sent them, so it was a non-issue for us, but itās definitely confusing.
What do you think chances are for UP with these stats:
college of education- has lot of ECās and leadership in this field (even though they donāt look at ECās)
3.72 W, 3.58 UW core academic classes only
In state- competitive district where everyone applies to PSU and has high stats
Fall with summer back up
I have a question regarding community classes taken in high school. My kid took one this summer from a local CC and he wanted to know if he needed to send the transcript to Penn State. At our high school kids need school to sign off before they can enroll in a CC class, our school does not list the CC class on the high school transcript. Thatās why the question. He did email the admissions about this question. I thought Iāll ask here too, as there are a lot of experienced people here.
I would be interested in their feedback, so please report back here if they do respond.
My daughter is in the same situation and she has listed the CC under the āColleges and Universitiesā section of the Common App and selected āCredit awarded directly by collegeā. Then she also added a mention of the class taken and grade in the āAdditional Informationā subsection of the āWritingā section. Since there was nowhere to really report the class and grade in the Common App, that was her best guess as to how to report the information. She does plan to request all transcripts from 2 different CCās (both Dual Enrollment and independent study).
She is still dragging her feet on the final submission to Penn State, so if that is not correct, we have time to fix it.
This is exactly what my kid has done on Common App.
He got a response and that have me more confused. They basically said that they will only review courses that appear on the high school transcript as part of their admissions evaluation.
My kid has done only one class which was introductory, so it doesnāt make much difference to him. But what about some kids who take a whole lot of higher level math and other STEM classes from CCs? That is not taken into consideration when looking at their application?
Thanks for reporting back, that answer is honestly not surprising to me. It doesnāt impact the GPA, and it is pretty clear GPA and rigor rule the day. Perhaps when entered in the STARS system (which I think pretty sure she also did) perhaps it will gain some level of consideration toward rigor. This is why I am encouraging her to really think about her safety list and be comfortable with it, because the goalposts seem to move every year.
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My son still hasnāt applied to Penn State yet, so we donāt know how STARS look. Is there a place to put college courses ?
There is. Very similar situation, she took an Intro Psych class at CC this Summer outside of her high school curriculum, and it will not be shown on her high school transcript. She has that input in her STARS. She setup her STARS login with the same email as her Common App email and has it pretty much ready to go.
She just canāt link it to Penn State until the app is submitted and accepted. It is my understanding that once you have your MyPennState portal login which will be generated once the application is accepted, you can link to STARS at that point.
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