Penn State Early Action for Fall 2024 Admissions

OOS. We are in MA

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Great, same here. Still waiting for Political Science major

Matt Melvin at Penn State is relatively new at Penn State and oversees enrollment Mgmt. He comes from University of Kansas which uses orthot. He started implementing that at Penn State. Accept the data or not.

ugh-that stinks that we may not hear by Dec 24th even if we submitted early September
the wait is the hardest part. Thanks for the info.

I think I’m gonna need some serious wine if my son doesn’t get a response by dec 24. I’ve been telling him to hang on despite his friends getting acceptances to Penn state granted it’s not the smeal business school but none of them applied there, most did cs and dus.

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Most will receive by 12/24. They admitted “some will trickle after”

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Hopefully it will be all of us. They are closed over the holiday break so it would suck if kids were still waiting in Jan.

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If they are not able to get out all decisions by 12/24 as promised then they need to be forthcoming and transparent with the applicants. Better to publicly say they may not get them all out and be pleasantly surprised than the other way around. Very disappointed in the admissions office’s lack of communication.

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I’m a Firefighter/Paramedic and an RN.
BSN IS AN ABSOLUTE Requirement in South Florida, Miami/Fort Lauderdale to work for one of the “BIG 4” Hospital Systems. Ones without the BSN are mostly recent immigrants who “challenged” for state licensure. Took the NCLEX and then filed for FL State Licensure and these RNs work mainly in outpatient facilities and clinics.

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deferred is a decision. It happens every year that a few will be deferred.

(why would you be disappointed in the lack of communication? no deadlines have been missed yet in spite of the rumor-mongering going on).

There are also students that are indignant every year that they have heard nothing 
 not even deferred. When further information is requested, it eventually comes out that test scores or SRAR were NOT completed by Nov. 1 and the student was not EA.

but apparently I don’t know what I am talking about.

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No rumor-mongering here. As some may suggest. Let me ask all a question
.has anybody that has been admitted received an email “to check your portal”?
.there is an inherent issue with the system here. EVERY other school my kids applied to received some sort of notification. Penn State, for whatever reason creates unnecessary havoc with students. Just check how they do football ticket sales. My information is based my research
 checked and then re-verified. Feel free to consult your college coach if you’d rather. Again, I am all for Penn State. I’m a smeal grad ‘93.

I hate the anxiety that the need to check the portals brings about. The idea of just checking once on December 24 is not going to work for lots of kids. They’re hearing about classmates getting admitted and want to know their status. Kids are comparing admissions, etc. You would think in this era of being more aware of mental health that Penn State could do a whole lot better, instead of doing something that seems to intentionally lead to neurosis! They don’t have to change their process, but sending an email update would be an act of grace and kindness to applicants and families. Like you, I have been through this college process several times now and have probably helped my kids with apps to more than 40 colleges. Penn State is the only one I know of that doesn’t bother to send an email and just tells kids to check their portals. Terrible system!

@On327 @KeystoneState64 Penn State has never said “you will receive an email”. I’m sorry you don’t like it, but that’s the way it is. Maybe their systems are just too outdated to send emails and update portals. You can always just wait for the snail mail that comes a few days after the portal is updated. Can you imagine the old days when we didn’t get instant gratification? omg. how did we survive?!?

Kids learn from their parents. Take the stress out of the process. Don’t encourage the incessant portal checking. Find something else to do. Play a game, do a puzzle, walk the dog. walk away from the madness.

In spite of you not liking it, they haven’t missed a commitment yet. They may. But just because someone else heard before a different kid doesn’t mean admissions has screwed up.

Absolute rumor-mongering. “I was told on the phone
”

Why do I have to consult my college coach? what the heck are you talking about?!? And I know exactly how they do football ticket sales. What exactly does Ticketmaster’s process have to do with admissions?

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For the record, my son was already accepted to 3 other colleges. All three of them were located in the school’s portal, he received no email. One of them, he was accepted in early November and we have yet to receive his acceptance via “snail mail”.

However, I do agree it would be nice if there was some sort of notification sent. Last year, when my older son was accepted to RIT I received an email (as a parent) saying, “your son should check his email for an important message.”

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I’m stressing because I have not seen one TO for engineering yet.

My older son went TO and got into many good engineering schools last year. This year, my other son’s stats are much higher, more APs and more extra
I am hoping PSU opens the window soon.

Son applied in state
GPA: 4.0UW/4.56W
9 APs
SAT: 1520
Applied: August 25
Decision: December 5
Major: Architectural Engineering

First of all, you took my post way more personally than intended. I was simply educating you on the level of knowledge here based on a post YOU previously made. Nobody is “voting” you off - but we are also going to challenge information that goes against all of OUR collective information. Personally, I think adding in the lionpath option just adds to the frenzy - but that’s up to each individual and I certainly understand the draw to check it.

Second of all, Penn State is NOT a state school in PA. Those are the PASSHE schools. Penn State receives minuscule funding from the state in comparison to state schools. Hence, PSU tuition is so much higher than state schools and offers little merit aid. It’s also why the distribution of OOS vs In state vs international will look drastically different than a PASSHE. Penn State is a well known research institution. That will draw people more than a local state school might. Still, you said that admissions is heavily skewed towards OOS students and that’s just demonstrably incorrect.

By your posts and how often you are stating things that admissions say - it sounds like you are in constant contact with admissions. Calling and e-mailing admissions for information that they have already supplied and have not deviated from only keeps them answering calls and e mail and NOT working on the admission files.

Dec 24 is the decision deadline. Decisions can be Accepted, Deferred, or admitted to a commonwealth campus. Those are ALL Decisions and until after Dec 24, I’m not sure what the purpose is in emailing admissions to ask about their progress.

I’m not going to address your comments on college coaches. I’ll let those here who are college coaches answer if they choose to. But we have a few here who have been MONUMENTALLY helpful in answering questions for kids. They get NOTHING from it except helping a kid navigate the complexities in college admissions. They don’t even advertise that they ARE a college counselor. Those of us who have been here since 2014 and longer have seen changes every year - but the meat of the decision process has remained the same.

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FYI my son applied TO. He got in to “College of Engineering with the intended major of Computer Science”.

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Rutgers, another Big10 school, does not send emails. If you do get an email its about a month after the decision is posted. They also trickle acceptances out so you have to refresh that portal too. Thankfully with Penn State you should hear by Dec 24, Rutgers you need to keep refreshing till the end of January.

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Thank you for your reply. I saw that and wasn’t sure what CS was at first
 is that one of the programs they say are “really difficult” to get into? I know the chemical, aerospace, and biomedical engineering programs are super competitive. Just trying to understand if CS is considered in a different area when evaluating?