Look into this
https://agsci.psu.edu/academics/undergraduate/majors/biological-engineering
(There are three options)
Could you to drive by, perhaps contact a student , see if you can walk around and have a “sort of”/informal private tour? If you go from the Arboretum to the Stadium and to the westernmost side od the campus, you’d have a good 2-3 hour visit.
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We could do that. However we live 6 hours away, and the other schools that she is deciding between have in-person tours, and we have signed up to to those in March. It’s just really reducing the desire to commit to the most-expensive school out of her final 3 without a real tour, where we can’t see inside of where she will be living and studying.
It is what it is, but will be part of our decision process.
Just so you know, most tours don’t include the inside of buildings. They walk you around campus for about 45mn, starting or ending at Admissions with a Q/A session.
Sometimes you can eat in one of the dining halls, you can typically see the inside of the gym and student center, you may be able to walk inside academic buildings such as labs and classrooms or lecture halls as long as theyre not in session. Students admitted to Honors may get an “honors”, tour where they meet with a professor and other students.
In order to know what to expect, you can ask what the tour includes and request things such as whether you’d be able to eat in the dining hall, meet with students in that major, talk with a professor or 1st year Dean…
If you have a student contact, asking for an informal but thorough tour may interest you more.
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This is my 3 child heading to college in 4 years, so we have lots and lots of tour comparisons. She is able to do in-person tours this winter at other universities.
I just know there are ways to still give some form of an official tour, even with COVID restrictions. I just think it’s short-sighted of PSU (and other schools, to be sure) to think that Zoom tours will cut it for admitted students making decisions by May 1 (even though they can’t control some restrictions, per se.)
We will navigate through it, but it’s definitely a negative in our pros and cons column. If at the end of the day we are unable to make apples to apples comparisons on both academic and student life levels, that will be a factor. But maybe a self-guided tour will be good enough. We will give it a go! I appreciate the suggestions!
We have done other in person tours this year as well, but in all cases, the tours were outside of buildings only due to COVID. I’d assume most universities are the same.
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So what I’m seeing is NO in person tours even for admitted students? Yikes. The campus is open though if we want to walk around? What if we get a current student/friend to tour us?
so it is still an engineering degree, right? Now I"m confused. My daughter was accepted for environmental engineering…
Yes, having a student take you on a tour is what I’d suggest (against a nice meal perhaps lol).
Yes, Engineering degree.
If youre worried, you can email the dept to ask if they’re ABET accredited (THE Engineering accreditation. As far as I know, all engineering degrees at psu are.)
Does anyone know when Schreyer decisions come out? Just got an email about an invitation to the paternal fellows challenge, but I’m not sure if that means that I got rejected or not.
*paterno. My bad.
Does anyone know when I can expect a decision? I applied on Dec 5 for psychology
It sounds as if your stats are exceptional, so when I say that engineering at PSU does some serious weeding out, please know I’m not implying that you can’t handle it. A few years ago, I believe it may have been at Accepted Students Day, the college of engineering made a point that only 1 out of the 3 students who intend to major in engineering actually graduate with the degree. The course work is brutal the first year and many students have to change majors when they realize they won’t make the GPA requirement. I don’t want to scare you off, but it would be tragic to go into this level of debt only to find out that you may not earn the degree you really want.
The weed out process is particularly unfair to students who might already be struggling to pay for their tuition. Students with strong financial backing can 1) pay extra for private tutoring…their better grades could throw off the class average, which could impact your grade, 2) late drop and retake courses, which could spread their course of study out over 5 years…an extra year of tuition is nothing to them, 3) late drop courses that they aren’t doing well in, and then pay to retake the class over the summer at PSU or a community college and transfer those credits in, and finally 4) those students may not need a PT job and so they are afforded the luxury of more study time compared to those students who must work in order to eat. Engineering is one of the tougher majors to gain acceptance so you are going to have a lot of high achievers with 4.0+ GPAs who will be weeded out. It happens even to smart kids.
For these reasons, I would encourage you to reconsider where to invest your money for your undergrad degree. I love Penn State but it’s not for everyone.
WVU is more generous, has the big football/big campus feel, and has a strong engineering program.
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are there certain days that penn state updates their portals or is it completely random
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My son just declined his offer of admission into the College of Engineering. Hope this frees up a spot for someone waiting for an admission decision! Best of luck to everyone wherever you land!
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Does anyone have experience with the LEAP summer program?
You said he was accepted to University Park so he could start at the flagship?
My son just declined Political Science. OOS tuition we decided to stay instate FSU. Good Luck all
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My son did LEAP in person 2 summers ago. He chose one of the Business Prides. It worked out great for him. Knocked out 2 classes required for his major. Set him up to be a few Penn State credits ahead of other kids, which allows opportunity to schedule classes a few days earlier each semester. Also big advantage was starting off with 2 A’s to pad his GPA for Smeal. He’s never had an issue getting the exact schedule he needs to stay on track for Supply Chain major. I’ve never heard anyone say their kid regretted doing it, even though initially most kids are upset to lose that time at home. Obviously cost to attend and reduced summer income are drawbacks. My son met one of his current roommates in his LEAP Pride. We allowed him to have his car that summer, which made it easy to come home 2 weekends for graduation parties and to break it up. He also had friends come visit 2 times. He and his roommate were able to move their belongings to their fall dorms which made moving in so much easier for fall. There was no stress and uncertainty with the fall semester. He knew where everything was and had so much confidence returning after the short break between summer session and fall. It was also a nice transition for us as parents having smaller blocks of time with him away. It sort of took the “sting” out of him leaving in the fall. We knew he was already happy at Penn State which made saying goodbye in the fall so much easier!
Our daughter will be applying in the next admissions cycle and would 100% accept a summer start if needed after seeing the positive experience my son had!
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So great to hear about such a positive experience. My son was accepted for summer and the LEAP program is one of the things making me less nervous about him attending such a large school. As he finalizes his decision between Penn State and his other top choice, a much smaller school, I was hoping you, or some of the other veteran PSU parents might be able to tell me how your kids have adapted to such a big school and how they have been able to “make a big school small(er)” and whether they have been able to build any relationships with faculty along the way. He would be a DUS student, which I think would also help in the transition and advising.
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