@Techtheatrewiz - thanks for posting your story, and congratulations to you. My kid’s pressure cooker school has a lot of kids like you who are talented and articulate - and a lowish GPA. I totally get it.
I would just reiterate a concern made earlier about the core requirements at Penn State. Make sure you do your work in those math/science core classes. I think your English/humanities classes will be okay. But you still need to keep on top of your work.Make sure you find out the math you have to take. The fact you don’t have any math right now could place you at remedial math when they give you the math placement test. (It’s easy to forget all that stuff…) So look into that before the placement test.
I think you will be fine - but you do need to be aware of things that can potentially derail your goals.