<p>Hi everyone, I'm brand new and am impressed how polite and helpful everyone is on this board. My daughter is hoping to go to U Park next year and also hopes to get into the Honors College. She will have two years of Dual Enrollment at a regional PSU campus with 15 credits by the time she applies next year. Her Penn State GPA is 3.8. Her high school GPA is 3.8 as well with very difficult courses (all honors or AP's) and she's in the top 5% of her class (would be higher but a lot of students take easy course loads to get higher GPA's - she took the harder classes to challenge herself). She has more out of school EC's than in school, but she is on Challange Bowl Team (like a Jeopardy team?),National Honor Society, Who's Who, National Society of High School Scholars, etc and long list of honors from teachers. Out of school she has raised a lot of $$ for disadvantaged children since 9th grade (she spends about 100 hours or so a year on this if not more) and volunteers at a local hospital. Her initial shot at the SAT's she got a 1350. I expect she will get very good recommendations from her teachers as she has won numerous high school faculty honors and has a great relationship with her teachers at Penn State and her high school. </p>
<p>What do you think her honest chances will be to get into the Honors College? </p>
<p>Thank you for your time and best wishes to all who are in, or are waiting to get into PSU.</p>
<p>Your daughter has a great record - but it is really hard to predict Honors College admissions since it’s not numbers based. The strength of the applicant pool this year (I’m sure it varies a bit each year) will also have an impact.<br>
One thing I know they look for is leadership experience. It’s not clear if the ECs you listed include this type of experience (for example - leading volunteers or volunteer projects). </p>
<p>I wish you and your d the best. PSU is a good school with or without the honors college. Plus you can get into the honors college later if you don’t make it the first time.
Good luck!</p>
<p>I agree with toneranger, SHC is a tough one to predict admissions wise, I have met other freshmen in my class that are all scholars with a wide range of GPAs and SAT scores. The admission staff really looks at the student’s record as a whole when making their decision, so I would think that by taking college courses and doing well in them would work in your D’s favor in that her course selectionsin HS are very vigerous. However, this is not a for sure that she is going to get in. </p>
<p>Good luck, and expect a long wait to get the decision back from Schreyer. Mid Feb I think I received mine…</p>
<p>I want to thank those who have responded to date. Again I am so IMPRESSED with how nice and polite everyone here is. If those on this board and those who are responded are typical of the Penn State attitude, I know my daughter will be very happy. She has been invited to Harvard and U of Pennsylvania to interview for Presidential Scholarships, but she is Penn State in her heart from her dual enrolled classes. I really hope she gets in. As to the first person who asked about leadership - just about all her activities are leadership positions - she’s senior leader of her Girl Scout Troop, she started her fund raiser and leads teams of teens in raising the money (close to $25,000 in three years), she’s a captain on her vollyball team, and is Senior Volunteer (meaning she was elected by the other volunteers) to train in coming volunteers at the hospital where she spends a lot of time. I know the Honors College is a very special place, and I hope there’s a place for her there. Again, thank you to all on this board and to those who have taken their time to offer us some help. Have a wonderful holiday (and a GREAT Rose Bowl! (: </p>