Call now!
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I agree. Call admissions and confirm that you are considered as EA and will be receiving a decision tomorrow.
Iām an international so I canāt do that 
I would email admissions then and see if someone is working and will respond.
Be politeā¦ āgood afternoon. I would like to confirm my status as an EA applicant and confirm that I should be receiving a decision by Dec. 24th. From my portal, it appears that everything has been received and was submitted by Nov. 1st. If this is different than what Admissions is seeing, please let me know, otherwise, I will continue to check my portal for a decision in the next 24 hours. Thank you.ā
or something along those lines.
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Any word?
Thank you for all the good info regarding foreign proficiency test. Looks like I have good knowledge to guide my son now.
On Math Part you said Smeal finance requires only MATH 110 .so my guess I am understanding is if you have taken IB SL A and A you automatically get placed in Math 110 and no aleks placement test required
you need to take aleks test only if you want to place at Math 140. Also Math 140 is not required for Smeal finance and if you want to go to private equity or Investment Banking. Is my understanding correct?
Also, if you donāt take Math 140 in Smeal will it hurt in future if you want to go to grad school in finance.
Thanks again
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Hi! She also did ED for UVA and got accepted and so thatās where sheās headed. PSU is a fantastic school though so itās a great option!!
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TO doesnāt mean that they make that decision as if test scores donāt exist - thatās ātest blindā.
TO means the applicant is free to determine what presents the most favorable picture of their application, whether with or without test scores.
If the test scores are āin lineā with expectations for socio economic class (the biggest predictor) and grades/rigor, they donāt add anything; they can be supplemented with other external verifications such as AP or IB scores, or other external certificationsā¦ Or not. So really sending the score or not doesnāt change anything.
Have a 4.0 with 10 AP classes and a bunch of 4s&5s? Submit, donāt submit that 1400, itās not going to change things.
But sometimes a score is out of line - either too low because the student is a poor test taker despite good academic performance (Iāve seen it many times) or much higher than predicted (more rigorous HS than average, performs well under pressure.. or efficient test prep ..), or can validate ability in case of strong jr grades but lowish GPA due to a poor freshman or sophomore year that dips the GPA but doesnāt reflect overall potential as the tests shows.
Then TO makes sense : the student chooses to submit, or not, because they feel it would unfairly weaken or on the contrary strengthen their application.
Have a 4.0 with 10 AP classes and a bunch of 4s&5s? Donāt submit that 1250.
Have a 3.5 due to a bad sophomore year, with 3 APs with As jr year, 4 APs sr yearā¦ And a 1360? Submit. Itās one more data point theyāll appreciate.
Always keep in mind the decision is 2/3 (GPAĆrigor).
This is unrelated to the TO trend and has been this way for at least 20+ years, due to their data showing a lot of good grades in rigorous courses over 4 years is more predictive than just a test score. The test score is additional data for a student with a 3.5, not a game changer for a student with a 3.1.
Keep in mind Pennsylvania has another āflagshipā, Pitt, which weighs test scores much more strongly into their decision and scholarship process (they really like 1500 SATs, whereas Schreyer doesnāt even consider test scores at all), so that PA students with strength in test taking DO have a very good alternative.
As for the last 1/3: if the decision isnāt clear from the GPAĆrigor, that last third is whatever else you submit: primarily test scores if you do submit them, essay, location, anything else (ātalentā being anything exceptional, such as being a recruited athlete.)
Admissions have data on applicants that chose TO vs. Submitting scores and the key findings were relative to having math scores vs. not, for majors that require Math courses. IOW, an A in precalculus can mean the student aced a rigorous class .. or was allowed extra credit and make up tests ten times over in a less-than-rigorous class. Math achievement has been a big problem at many universities including selective public universities, with many more students needing precalculus or even a transition to precalculus, than before COVID. So if your college or major requires calculus in particular, and youāve not taken calculus in HS nor AP Precalculus (and/or donāt have a precalculus AP score), having a SAT Math score can help them figure out if your B+ in precalculus makes you Calculus-ready or not.
As a result, students on the bubble with decent Math test scores should submit them rather than not (unless their HS is known for being rigorous) if theyāre applying to Smeal, Engineering, Eberly, IST, and EMS.
Their strategy for ~10 years has been to consolidate the main campus numbers, from about 6,500-7,000 freshmen to 8,000 then a plateau to stabilize housing, dining, etc.. and in the past couple years the next goal has been growing from 8,000 to 10,000 at UP.
In parallel, some of the 24 branch campuses were closed.
Despite keeping in mind the need for territorial development and access, theyāre closing 7 more branch campuses.
Students overwhelmingly want to attend UP, although itās not always to their benefit (large classes, rapid pace, expected solid academic background can trip many freshmen whoād have done better with a slightly slower, closer knit transition). Altoona, Behrend (Erie), Harrisburg are all residential, full-fledged 4-year colleges; Abington is āsuitcaseā, with many students going home on weekends. Choosing them can make sense for instate students but doesnāt for out of state students who typically have in their own state equally as good if not better choices available at a lesser cost.
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Thereās not even a test, heāll just be placed in the appropriate class.
For math, Iād recommend he take Math 110 (Applied calculus) then Math 111 (a 2-credit, more advanced class class). Students who took Math SL AA do have to take ALEKS and do well enough on it to prove theyāre Calculus-ready, which should be a piece of cake with that class. The Math AA SL class also gives him an advantage in Math 110 since he already knows some of the concepts, though not all obviously. Getting good grades (preferably As) in 110-111 does matter.
Heās free to take Math 140 but thereās no expectation he will need to at any point.
He does need to take STATS200 or SCM200, a statistics class, unless he got a 5 on AP Stats (and even then itās a good idea to take Stats 200 anyway) because at least one further finance class considers that class a pre-req. It can also be good to take an IST/data science class if thereās space in the schedule.
I cannot believe that is accurate. The Fall 2024 UP CDS states 88,478 total applicants. 53,579 were admitted. 9,169 enrolled. There is no way the number of applicants almost doubled.
The numbers are drawn from presentations given at accepted student days as well as info directly from university. Even online you can see the number of applicants to Penn state with the bulk of them asking for UP. Their acceptance rate to UP is much lower than reported online due to sheer number of applicants. Donāt know about this incoming 2030 class yet but can say on presentations directly from the university the last two years have seen almost 150k applications and about 120k asking for UP. A simple google for Penn state class of 2029 will show similar data, but I canāt attach the photo Also have photos from the university showing these numbers 
You may be looking at 2020 applications (class of 2024) which due to Covid were lower.
No, its last years CDS. This year CDS reports arenāt produced yet.
I donāt know a lot about this stuff but every admission officer has told me to look at the CDS to tailor applications to the school. There is a wealth of information.
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Itās just not accurate. The CDS is everything about the school. Maybe 150k applying across all campuses but only 88478 applied to UP.
Right in presentation it specifically said 120l asked for UP and also confirmed by Penn state admissions.
I donāt deny they said that but itās not true. They arenāt allowed to publish a false CDS and that says 88k
Yes, unfortunately my son did not submit his stars( I think I am saying it right) / transcripts in time despite being reminded a million times to double check everything. It was not a happy home here yesterday, when this was discovered. Now we have to hope he is offered regular admission. He is still doing the honors college interview next week.
Hopefully a lesson learned on responsibility and the pitfalls of complacency. PSU UP Smeal was his first choice. Now he has to hope it works out and has to live with the consequences if it does not.
Thank you for checking in!
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If you think he can qualify for honors he will have no problem even if he doesnāt get into the honors program
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Sounds like a flurry of activity tonight regarding application decisions. Iām guessing the admin officials were working thier hearts out to get them all done today.
Good luck all.
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