My son initially wanted to select 2 classes of his choosing for summer session, however after thinking it through realized choosing a LEAP Pride offered smaller classes with exact same kids in both which made making friends easier since you are together a few hours each day. The LEAP mentor also plans activities for the group outside of class time. Also I’m pretty sure doing LEAP eliminated need to complete 1 credit Orientation class incoming Freshman were required to do.
My son was fortunate enough to have the full Penn State fall experience. He attended lots of games for several sports with other kids. He participated in Intramural activities like basketball and flag football. We hosted 2 football tailgates and told him to extend the invite to large group of kids. In return, some of those kids invited him and his roommate when their parents came to games. He also attended the traditional Club fair with 100’s of booths to check out. The clubs met in person until campus was shut down. Unfortunately most of the clubs have been limited through this time, though this isn’t any different from most other schools. He’s hoping fall will return to more in person activities!
No relationships developed yet with faculty, though he’s certainly had a few he’s really liked. Now that he’s moving into major specific classes, and also hopefully having them in person in the fall will make it easier to connect with the faculty.
Thanks for your response. We live in Florida so coming home occasionally isn’t a great option and the fact that there is only one week between when summer session ends and fall begins, is unfortunate. I do think that this program will help my D have an easier transition into such a large school. They want a deposit and acceptance around March 15th but she was deferred by 3 schools which she is still interested in and waitlisted at 2. I’m taking her during our spring break (end of March) on a road trip to visit all the schools she got in to and is interested and also to see the deferrals just in case. The timing starts to get tricky! Thanks for all the great information! It will be fun to see where she ends up!
I have had one daughter graduate from UP campus and my son will graduate from UP campus in the spring. My kids always say it’s the smallest big school you can find. Meaning, once they make their friends in their areas and get into their classes, it’s like little neighborhoods among a big neighborhood. My oldest daughter started at UP and had no problems adjusting - although she did go for the LEAP program which I can’t recommend more. My son started at Altoona which is small (4000 students) and he needed that small start, but loved UP one he got there. Both my kids have had excellent opportunities with professors. In fact, my son who graduates this spring has had an internship with the university for the last year and was just hired at PSU for employment after graduation doing the same thing he’s been doing as an intern!! We are so excited for him.
It is a big school - but it doesn’t feel so after you get there and have your group. There can be 40,000 people on campus but kids end up being with the same 20 kids regularly making it their own little community within a huge community that has ample opportunities to get involved.
Accepted to summer start program for bioengineering RD with 1460 SAT and 93.5 gpa, full IBDP, ok extracurriculars, good recommendations, decent essay
Some questions: Anyone know why it was summer start as opposed to regular considering the fact that at least my SAT was 50 pts higher than 75th percentile?
Is attending Penn State with summer session better than attending a school with a slightly lower ranked engineering program?
@WXPeregrine Sounds like you were another person in the rolling pool? I would venture to guess that timing is a major part of the response. I’m not convinced that Penn State has any clue what yield will be. Remember, there are also significant kids that have deferred from last year.
If you are interested in bioengineering, summer start could be great for you. I think you can take the Engineering Design class over summer (an extremely time consuming class) and it would be a great way to make connections in your field so you can work into some research opportunities.
As to your specific questions, only Admissions can answer the first, but my best guess is that it was timing.
For the second question, that is only a question you can answer. Are you going into significant debt? Will your parents support a summer start? Where do you want to go?
@jaglvr I think she was in the rolling pool then.
EA: due - 11/15, response - 12/24
RD: due - 12/1, response - 1/31
rolling: due - after 12/1; response 6-8 weeks later
At this point I am not so sure I believe much of what any of them say, this is crunch time for them to get kids to commit. They will say what people want to hear!
I also think that most schools have the best of intentions that they will be in person and things will go well but they don’t know for sure that they will. If they end up with outbreaks they may have to go virtual again. I wonder how far along we will all be with vaccines at that point.
I am currently taking dual enrollment and have made it through many of the weed out courses at PSU that will transfer through the PA State system (Physics, differential equations, programming, and general chemistry). I have learned that financial aid is easier to earn once you have proved academic achievement in a PSU major. Hopefully I can earn a scholarship once I have made it through my first or second semester.