We won’t know that answer until people start getting decisions this year. Historically, this has been the case but there have been new hires that oversee the process so it remains to be seen if things will shake out the same way they have the last several years.
Thank you for the information!
Last year’s thread some students found out decisions the first Friday in November. Has anyone heard anything yet?
No. Haven’t heard and my son’s app has been in for several weeks now.
Only received various emails encouraging applying to honos college and Eberly scholarships -app has been compete for well over a month.
TO link still in portal
The last 2 years I think it’s been the first Saturday in November not the first Friday
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Just a reminder to any newcomers:
~MOST decisions will come out right before the deadline - Dec 24.
~The only decisions you will see this early are to commonwealth campuses or VERY high stat kids
~Honors college works completely separately than admissions - meaning, an invite to apply to the honor college has nothing to do with your likelihood of being admitted
~Decisions are RANDOM and are not in first in/first out order
~Some people will wait from August 1-Dec 24 if they applied the first day. Others who applied Oct 31 may hear earlier. IT MEANS NOTHING.
~If you applied for fall start with summer option, that means they evaluate you first for fall and then second for summer if you if they couldn’t offer admission for fall. This means that if you get in for summer, there is no process for asking for reconsideration unless something major has changed with your application (different major; test score; etc)
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Agreed. My older son applied Oct. 30th EA last year, received his SRAR a couple days later and filled it out thinking he was okay. When Dec. 24th rolled around and he didn’t hear anything we called (after January 2nd) as to why. We were told the SRAR needed to be completed by the timeline, as well, to be considered EA. He was admitted in January. This year, for my next son, we made sure to apply by mid-Oct. to make sure we hit the EA timeline.
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I already applied to Early action and submitted all my materials by October 31st but I’m just now realizing I made a mistake on my SRAR and common app current courses section. I’m taking an English dual enrollment class but only put the first semester class (English 100). What I didn’t put was the second semester class (English 103). I’m wondering if I should call/email to fix this mistake on both my common app and SRAR since I can no longer make edits? I was also wondering, since this is for early action, if I request to make changes, will my application be switched to regular decision?
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At this point, just let it ride. Especially if you have stellar a SAT/ACT and GPA, with a high school transcript of already completed APs or DEs.
Penn State admissions uses a “composite score” cutoff for the earliest of early action applicants.
SAT/ACT x (GPA x 10 or 100) = “a score” ABOVE you are IN, UNDER they do a “deep dive” on the rest of your application. Obviously, this is not advertised or published.
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Never heard of this before. How do they calculate for a TO applicant? Mind sharing where you learned this info?
Nope won’t share. Sorry, not getting anybody into a pickle. Most TOs get deferred to regular decision. Our local PSU recruiter OOS told us “straight up” to Submit scores, regardless of what Admissions says. Also, without scores you are NOT eligible for Early Action Merit Scholarships, that’s clearly stated online.
Where online did you see that without scores you are not eligible for merit scholarships?
The following is word for word directly from the Penn State website (Test-Optional FAQ):
Will SAT/ACT scores still be required for scholarship consideration?
Scholarships that are awarded based on academic performance will no longer factor in test scores as part of the consideration.
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OOOPS SORRY, MY BAD, looking at my son’s Class of 2026 Scholarships.
Penn State “recruiters” are parent volunteers who have no contact with Penn State admissions and have nothing to do with reviewing applications nor are they privy to the process used for determining an applicant’s admissibility. Unless you spoke to a live admissions rep in the admissions department (not the person who answers the phone - but an actual person who reviews applications) I wouldn’t trust the information as a hard and fast rule.
I’ve never heard of this process you describe and I’ve been one of the moderators on this board for a long time and we have several people very “in the know” here.
It is absolutely NOT true that most TO’s get deferred to regular decision. A quick look at the decision threads in the previous years will disabuse that idea.
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soooo then what’s the earliest then that a high stats applicant would potentially hear…based on years past. I do recall from child #1 a couple of years ago that the high stats students def did hear back sometime in Nov vs others that heard back in mid/late Dec.
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If a student hears early, they are generally a high-stat kid. HOWEVER, not all high-stat kids hear early and if they don’t hear early, it means nothing regarding their admission status. In fact, most high-stat kids seem to hear later.
High-stat kids start hearing in November. But many very high-stat kids hear right before Christmas. It’s frustrating, but Penn State decisions are random. There are so many things that differentiate applicants (major, GPA scale at their school, rigor, etc…) and at each step they get sorted into different buckets. Then it depends on which bucket gets dumped on which admission officer’s desk and how fast that particular person works.
That’s why I tell people every year that it doesn’t matter when you applied, when your friend applied, what major etc…You will hear when you hear and beyond telling anyone that they should hear by Dec 24 (which is the only thing PSU promises), anything more specific is just guesses.
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thanks
certainly seemed that a few years back it was a nice chunk of high stats kids who seemed to apply to Eberly that heard sooner than others.
agree that even high stats kids applying to Smeal were waiting well into December.
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@jlhpsu Any thoughts on the Schreyer Honors college? My kid is trying to figure out whether he wants to write several long essays by Dec 4 when he could be working on other apps. Right now, he’s tending against…
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My d got her acceptance the morning of November 12, 2021 to engineering. Good luck!
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