“Between filling out countless forms that your future depends on and keeping track of every school’s process, applying to college can be a challenge. But Penn State is making it a little easier by joining the Common Application starting with the 2018-2019 application season for the Class of 2023.” …
According to the article, the MyPennState and Coalition applications will open in August while the Common App will open in September.
Does anyone have insight regarding upsides/downsides of waiting until September for Common App? If the student is ready to apply in August, would it be best to go with MPS?
@InfiniteWaves Based on presentation by Penn State rep at our high school, this is first year they are opening applications August 1 (used to be September 1). In the rolling admissions universe, I think earlier is always better, if possible.
Thanks so much @houndmom . My S19 wasn’t considering PSU back when the presentation was made at his school. Now, PSU is at the top of the list. The Aug 1 date must be because of the new(er) rolling admissions process.
I mentioned this on another thread, so forgive me if I’m repeating myself, but PSU rep also made it clear to show some interest. Nothing crazy, but tour, get on mailing list, attend a college fair, etc.
I hear you, @houndmom . S19 has already been to main campus for a tour. It was part of a field trip. His German teacher took the class up there this spring for the College of Liberal Arts’ German Day. And it was on that day that the PSU love affair was sparked. LOL!
We are going back up to main campus next month for one of the “Summer Days” so he can attend presentations by the College of Liberal Arts and ROTC. And he is on the mailing list. Will visit Altoona campus as well. 
@houndmom I’m not sure who told you that Penn State cares about interest in their school. They don’t consider that. When you go for a tour there is really no way that they “link” you to your application where they’d see that you attended 1, 2 or 10 tours. If you go to the Penn State Common Data Set that the school publishes to determine what is considered and not considered in an application, you will see that “interest” is not considered. They assume everyone who applies is interested. Unless something drastic has changed for this upcoming admission cycle, they have never considered interest before.
https://budget.psu.edu/CDSRedesign/cds.aspx?reportindicator=FreshAdmn&Location=UP&AY=20172018
@jihpsu. I heard this from a Penn State admissions rep speaking to parents and students at our high school. Parents from last year’s admission cycle were told same thing. A student from another area high school seemed to think PSU cared about interest as well (but I didn’t ask her where she got that info).
@jlhpsu Thanks for commenting here. I have very much appreciated the MANY insightful comments you have made throughout the PSU threads. It’s interesting that the CDS states one thing while apparently some ad reps are saying something else.
Either way, we are “showing interest” because S19 wants to learn everything he can about the school that’s at the top of his list and experience what he can prior to applying. If that counts as showing interest. cool. If not, S19 is going in feeling really good about why he is applying.
@InfiniteWaves Absolutely! Interest is a great thing and can be good for the student to really feel like they’ve done everything they can to make sure it’s a good fit! Visit as many times as needed to be sure - but Penn State specifically doesn’t care how often you visit. Penn State is such a huge school with SO MANY APPLICANTS that they just cannot keep up with who’s interested and why and who’s more interested than whom. They don’t even really consider extra curriculars for the same reason. There is no way to actually link students to interest anyway - even though you sign up for tours with your MyPennState log in - that info isn’t translated to admissions - or never has in the past at least. Groups come, people stop in etc…No way to keep track of who’s who.
@houndmom My guess is that the rep that spoke to your group was the same one that spoke the year before and in both cases they were mistaken. Reps are usually parent or alumni volunteers that go to different events to recruit students. Unfortunately, they don’t work for admissions and they don’t always have the right info - which is hard because even though they do try to be uniform, you have reps in different states telling kids and parents different things. It’s best to go by the official documentation put out by the school and as you can see from the common data sets from the last many published years, they have never considered interest before. It’s just too big of a school to do that. As it is, Penn State gets roughly 100,000 applications between all of it’s campuses. They just don’t have the resources to track interest.