My GPA is a 3.4 weighted, and I have taken 4 AP’s, 1 honors class, and 3 years of foreign language
SAT: have not taken it yet
ACT: 22 first time, might retake
Awards: AP Scholar Award, two awards for the National French exam, honor roll freshman year
I do not have many extracurriculars since I live over an hour away from my school which made it harder for me to do activities. The only EC’s have are President of the Auto-Club, student ambassador, various volunteer work, and hopefully I will create the club I wanted to make this year but COVID is getting in the way.
Since Penn State is going test optional and I’m not the best test taker, should I just write an essay? I am a very good writer, but I’m worried that Penn would see I didn’t submit scores and automatically rule me out. I plan to apply as a Psychology major and I live out of state.
3.4 weighted…what is your unweighted GPA? Your GPA is in the bottom 25% of students accepted. That being the case, a high test score would help you. But a 22 ACT probably won’t. With your GPA, the likelihood is that you will be admitted to a commonwealth campus - HOWEVER, psychology being a liberal arts major might give you an edge in that it’s not a very competitive school to gain admission.
Penn state doesn’t accept essays in the traditional sense. They ask for a personal statement and you can write that, but otherwise, they won’t read additional essays or teacher recs or anything like that.
In a typical year, EC’s don’t really matter that much because PSU has always been a numbers game. However, if you apply test optional AND your GPA is on the lower side AND you don’t have EC’s…you aren’t giving them a whole lot to go on.
an OOS psychology major…do you have any options for in state psychology study? Considering that it doesn’t really matter where you go to school for a psychology undergrad (grad school is what matters), it seems like you will be paying huge OOS costs for a degree that would have as much meaning at any other school. Do NOT take on a lot of debt for an undergraduate psychology degree.
Your gpa is indeed a bit low, but if you are not a great test taker I would opt for not submitting scores. Hundreds, if not thousands, of applicants will choose that option. Better to rely on the rest of what you have to counter low grades than confirm that with equally low test scores.
Personal essays are “strongly encouraged” and unlike other years, are very likely to be read in ambiguous cases. Even though you are an hour from school (not because) you have managed to participate meaningfully outside a classroom.
But – the previous poster is correct – a psychology degree from a very expensive OOS – seems like there must be an equally good choice for less cost. Why Penn State?