<p>Hello, I'm a junior in high school and I' d like your opinions on my chances of being accepted into Penn State Main and University of Pittsburgh. Admittedly I don't think my chances are very good. I have a GPA of 3.22, mostly due to my terrible grades freshman year, since then I have gotten all A' s and B' s. I take almost all honors and advanced placement classes including AP Biology, the exception being pre calculus due to an issue from me moving and changing schools. The only extra curricular activities I can cite are winter and spring track sophomore year and art club, I' m planning on joining more, such as student council. Please give my your brutally honest opinions and any advice on what I can do now to strengthen my chances would be so greatly appreciated. By the way I haven't taken SATs or ACTs yet and my intended major is Japanese. Thank you.</p>
<p>Are you in state and do you have any practice scores at least?</p>
<p>I think that both of them are high matches!! What did u get on the SAT of ACT?</p>
<p>Penn State just looks at three numbers, your SAT or ACT score, your class rank, the date of your application. Apply as early as possible which will enhance your application.</p>
<p>Pitt will take an improving trend in grades. Again, applying early in the process is advantageous.</p>
<p>Yes I am in state but no I unfortunately do not have any practice test scores to give you.</p>
<p>Thank you very much, this is very reassuring. I will certainly apply early.</p>
<p>OP is wrong about Penn State, 2/3 of the decision is based on numbers, 1/3 on other things (ECs, recommendations, essays and so on), they loved ranting about this at their information session… Assuming you are not a minority I would call both of them low reaches (in-state is saving you). Apply as early as possible for both, rolling admission will help you. Also apply to another campus for each, you should be able to get into another campus and you can always transfer after a year or two to the main campus of one of the two.</p>
<p>PSU: Score 1800+ on the SAT/26+ on the ACT (really, PSU has turned non-holistic? I knew PSU was very GPA-driven but to say that the remaining 1/3 is entirely taken up by the SAT/ACT?)
UPitt: Score 1800+ on the SAT/26+ on the ACT</p>
<p>Thank you. I am a minority, although born in the United States I am half Vietnamese and half Caucasian. Does this hurt my chances? And could you please explain the other campus and transferring option a bit more?</p>
<p>So that minority won’t actually help you, since it would result in you being classified as Asian…
Anyway for the transfer option it varies from school to school. Penn State has a program called 2+2 which is fairly popular among their students. Basically you go to any campus but the main one for two years and then transfer to the main campus. There is some internal admission you go through, but it supposed to be fairly easy to transfer. As for Pitt, they are just nicer to transfers from within their own network of schools. For both schools you would apply to the main campus and another campus (for Penn State you need to indicate that main is your first choice) and then if you get rejected by main attend a different campus for 1-2 years.</p>
<p>Thank you. The only problem I can imagine with that strategy would be that, if I am correct, Penn State’s main campus is the only one that offers Japanese as a major.</p>
<p>It should not be a major issue, you can get all of your pre-reqs out of the way first, worse case scenario you take some classes over the summer.</p>