I think Communications is in general a more competitive school than Agriculture, but it likely depends on which specific major.
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Other than continually bugging people on here whatās the best way to figure out what majors might be less popular enough to make a difference with odds of admission? (Among any that are tangentially related to business/sports/etc)?
They do have something similar to Sports Management (as in, business of sport&activity)
HHD->KINESIOLOGY-> applied option-> national conditioning
Or
Or
These donāt require microeconomics, accounting, calculus and other weedout courses.
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Donāt expect any merit from PSU except the 5k if admitted to Schreyer or Millenium. Theyāre stingy both with need based aid and with merit. Anything at all is a nice surprise because so few get anything. 
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I forgot to mention that one of mine did receive a NMSF award. But it was not until September of freshman year and it magically appeared in his balance as a credit. So nothing to count on and no indication of how much (I think they take the entire allocation divided among the kids who are NMSF).
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Iām not sure that there is a better way. If Penn State publishes a list of more and less popular majors/degrees, I donāt know about it. Even if there is such a list, it wouldnāt necessarily correlate to which majors are easier to get into.
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D25 OOS, accepted to UP for fall start at Bellisario, major in Journalism (preferably sports). 3.6uw, not sure weighted. Not a ton of APs (private well-regarded college prep HS w/o lot of APs), but tons of honors classes. 27 ACT. Good major-aligned ECs: editor of school newspaper, conducted lots of interviews published in various places with local athletes plus generated lots of sports content for school and other social media, and an athlete herself, state champs in field hockey and recruited at the DIII level for track. Also, did a summer camp at Bellisario and loved it.
She says sheās not 100% set on a first choice school, but I came home the other day and she was watching PSU vs OSU volleyball on the B1G channel (I didnāt know we had it) while wearing PSU sweats and a āPSU tailgating teamā t-shirt. Iām not certain, but I suspect weāll be sending in a deposit soon.
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I looked at the common data set which will tell what percentage of students graduated with which degrees. Business and engineering are the highest.
Just my personal opinion that the proportion of graduating class may not necessarily be a good gauge of the competitiveness of a major.
Some majors are limited in class size, but may still be very popular and highly preferred thus making them highly competitive.
Very few universities publish their enrolled class details by college/major like Purdue, UMass Amherst. PSU unfortunately isnāt one of them, so relying on the general consensus of the popularity of a major may be the only option.
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If I were to add, what matters the most is quality of the applicant pool applying to a certain college/major.
Numbers alone can be highly misleading to gauge your chances.
You may actually have a higher chance in a college/major with 30% acceptance rate vs 60% acceptance rate, depending on where you fall in the applicant pool.
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Daughter back in the queue waiting for her 2+2 reconsideration. In the meantime, just got notified that she got a merit scholarship from Altoona. Didnāt know that was a thingā¦ 
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We just learned my son was accepted with a 2+2.
If he asks for a reconsideration under a different major, does he forfeit the 2+2 acceptance to his first choice major?
No. Confirmation email states that if denied, you still receive the original admission offer.
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The Discover Award? I think thatās something PSU is using to try to encourage more out of state students to attend commonwealth campuses. Or is she an instate student?
Yup, Discover Award.
Yes, branch campuses are less expensive to start with and they offer scholarships (both to IS and OOS applicants). 
Congratulations on the scholarship!
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You can go DUS into Smeal after sophomore year as long as you meet the entrance requirements. You must have a certain GPA (depending on major) and have taken the business pre-requisites. My son is a freshman now and taking this route. The only difference is you have a Smeal advisor if you get right into Smeal. He is taking the exact same classes as his 2 friends who got into Smeal. They also need to maintain a certain gpa etc. to gain entrance after sophomore year.
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My son applied DUS with summer and received his decision Friday night of 2+2 Harrisburg. Heās IS with a 3.58 UW and TO so while very disappointed, we figured being under 3.6 would put him on the bubble. On Saturday he submitted his reconsideration for Economics B.S. with summer and changed his alternate campus to Altoona. I thought I remembered reading that an email confirmation would be sent in 2-3 days. He hasnāt received anything yet. His portal still shows āReconsideration Request (Requested)ā. Should we be concerned that he has not received a confirmation yet?
@MYOS1634 one more dumb question. Who exactly is he reaching out to for this request for reconsideration? Is it the email listed in his acceptance, which is snadmissions@psu.edu? The phone number in the acceptance is, I believe, for the Scranton campus specifically. Thanks!
@MYOS1634 also do you think itās ok to basically plead in the alternative? In other words could he say Iād like to be considered for an alternate major (in this case, education) at UP, but if that wonāt work, would request to stay with Smeal but at the Altoona campus? Should he really go with one or the other?