Don’t read too much into the message. My son was accepted a few days ago and his portal has the same technical issue language under financial aid.
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They could be loading them in the order received. We filled out the FAFSA October 1.
Mine hasn’t changed either
Mine says the same. Hoping that means a decision is coming soon?? Crossing my fingers for good news soon for all of us!
Interesting conversation today with admissions. Nothing super surprising, but since I haven’t been actually in the application cycle for a while, I hadn’t spoken directly to admissions in while.
I was calling to get advice on switching my daughter’s application out of DUS to IST (since she has decided - at least for now!). In the “old days” I would have told her to stay put as it was thought to be the least competitive major at PSU. Since more and more people (maybe thanks to us here?) are realizing that you can apply DUS and still get into Smeal, Engineering, etc…at a later time without sacrificing anything - I knew that wasn’t the case any longer. So I called for advice.
Basically, what I was told was that DUS is very competitive and the competitiveness changes every year. So as more and more people with high stats apply DUS as a “back door” to what they think of as higher stat majors, the competitiveness in DUS goes up. She also told me that DUS has a HUGE bucket of applicants. She also stressed that it’s not ONLY GPA they look at! She said that they look at what classes you took and how much you challenged yourself. That said, and we’ve said it here a lot over the year. All 4.0’s are not created equal - which is why you should not compare your GPA to others that get in (harder done than said, I know).
They can’t tell my daughter what to do of course. She did tell me that DUS is no less competitive than any other major and it would be comparable to IST. She even said DUS is sometimes MORE competitive than Smeal.
She also said people think if they are denied DUS that means they’ve been denied for the “bottom of the barrel” major at PSU and it’s a lost cause. It is not. She said it all depends on how many people applied for certain majors. So DUS may not let you in (lower stats compared to the others applying), but another major may have had less applicants and therefore you can get in.
At the end of the day, she decided to change to IST undecided. I am gambling that it’s a smaller bucket. She applied for the college of IST but not a specific major within that college. She has a 3.85W GPA, high rigor, physics, and has completed Math 140 (Calc and analytic geometry 1) at Penn State new ken this semester as a dual enrollment student ( She’s taking calc 2 in the spring but it’s not on her SRAR because we didn’t know she’d be taking it this spring). Both her parents and two siblings are legacy (which only matters a scant amount). Hopefully it’s all enough to get her in. She also selected summer option. Behrend is second choice campus and she actually really likes it there also.
We will know soon enough but it’s good to know that there are other options if she’s denied.
Long story short - I’ve been here helping students for over 5 years along with many others who’ve been here longer, and “DUS and Summer” used to be the advice we’d give here to give students the “best chance” of getting in. That’s just not true anymore and there doesn’t seem to be formula that will work year to year.
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Ugh mine went in DUS as she truly wasn’t sure what she wanted to major in!
That’s why mine did as well originally. It’s a very popular major for two reasons:
- Most 18 year olds do not know what they want to do with their life
2)Many students apply to DUS because they think it gives them a better shot than Engineering or Smeal because of grades, class requirements, whatever…
It fills that DUS bucket pretty high! That said, it’s not like no one gets in DUS. MANY MANY students are accepted via DUS. That said, I think we’ve suspected for a while that DUS isn’t the least competitive major any longer. I don’t know what is. Or if there is one. It likely changes each year. For example, she could not tell me how competitive DUS is this year because she hasn’t seen the stats for acceptances yet.
What’s important to know is if you applied EA, it is less competitive than after when less spots are open. The place is wide open right now and that’s good for all of our kids.
@jlhpsu: Would Behrend be the best alternative campus for Biochemistry/Biological Sciences?
So is it even worth it to switch at this point?
You can do the first two years of any major at any commonwealth campus as long as it’s not a direct entry major.
That said, Behrend has several biology degrees as well as biochem as 4 year options there. So the research facilities should be well developed there as compared to some of the other commonwealths that do not have that option as a 4 year degree.
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I wouldn’t unless your daughter knows what she’d want to major in. Just because you pick another major does not mean that major will be less competitive. If your daughter is truly undecided, keep her there and then if she doesn’t get in, call and see what her options are. DUS is competitive, but as the admissions counselor told me “Every major at the UP campus is competitive”.
@jlhpsu do you know how competitive the majors in the college of HHD are? I don’t hear a lot about it on this page
It’s not one of the more competitive colleges but biobehavioral health requires a lot of science so there may be more requirements there. A good way to GUESS how competitive a major is, is to look a the entry to major requirements for that major. The higher the GPA requirement and the higher level classes needed to qualify for admission at the end of sophomore year, the more competitive of an applicant you need to be to get into PREMAJ as a freshman. But like I said, it’s all guesswork. If one year everyone applies to HHD with over a 3.7, well then, it’s a more competitive major. It’s all in relation to your fellow applicants.
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Hi! I applied undecided but I am pretty sure I want to major in communication sciences and disorders. Should I call and ask to switch since I haven’t received a decision yet?
Since I’m not looking at your application I can’t really say. It’s probably best to call and ask to talk to an admissions counselor.
One thing I want to mention - if you are going to major in CSD, you will need to get excellent grades to get accepted into grad school for speech pathology. They don’t tell students this. There are hundreds of speech path undergrad programs and far less grad programs which are limited by clinical location. When I was a Penn Stater way back in the 90’s I learned this the hard way as it was my major and I didn’t get into grad school. My daughter who graduated in 2015 also started in CSD but changed to Psych when she realized her GPA would be lower than a 3.7 - which is the minimum needed for most grad schools. The grad school will say you need a 3.0 or over to apply- but those getting accepted have 3.7+. It’s a wonderful field - but know the obstacles and requirements before you commit to that.
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I applied to Health Policy and Management and I can tell you my stats if you want 
I think they are having a technical issue on their end. I saw this on their student aid page.
Thanks! I’m applying to human development and family studies
that looks like it was fixed because I just logged into the portal and it now finally shows that my fafsa was received and that they have everything they need from me…now if they could just share my decision that would be greeeeaaaattttt
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Thanks for the info!
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