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<p>Is it a guaranteed transfer? Penn State will sometimes offer admission in a satellite (CC) campus, but the student has the APPLY to transfer to the main campus.</p>
<p>This offer is surprising, usually the satellite admissions are for students who just did not ‘make the mark’, yet this kid has been awarded merit scholarships and grants by PSU. Time for a phone-call …</p>
<p>I agree with the person who suggested trying to go to a campus with dorms, such as Altoona. Also, it’s only an hour from Univ. Park, so a few road trips for football games, etc, may be very doable.</p>
<p>Choco – I think there is a big.big difference between the PS “satellite campuse” which do guarantee transfer and the CCs and schools in the PSSHA system.</p>
<p>Yes, there is an automatic transfer provision for those kids in satellite campuses once they reach junior year status. They do not have to apply as transfers. It is an automatic. And, yes, the satellite campuses do offer some award money as they too compete for students. In the OP’s case, it appears that his son is a viable candidate for Penn State main campus and a number of other competitive schools. But there are limited seats in certain programs, and his program of choice is one of them. Once the seats are fulled, no one, EInstein, himself can get into such closed programs. With Penn State an early application is imperative for such limited seat programs, and in general, the date your application is received is a number just as important or more than your test scores and class rank. </p>
<p>The OP should inquire if there is anyway he can start in the summer. My SIL’s nephew did get summer entrance. It means he has to start college in the summer with no aid in order to do this which squelches his plans for the summer including his job, but he is going to do this. Also Penn State main campus is not an inexpensive school. It’s one of the priciest in-state schools in the country, in fact, and gives very little in aid. So going in the summer means about a $40K cost for the first year alone for the young man in the situation I have described. They are doing it, but it hurts, and is still cheaper than Drexel.</p>
<p>Re BME - I would encourage someone interested in BME to consider going a slightly different route. The problem with BME students is that they know a little bit about a lot of things but not enough about any one thing to be useful in many environments. I know someone in the medical technology industry and he said many BME’s he knows have to go to grad school; he knows one that went for a MS in EE. In this particular environment, BME’s don’t know enough engineering to do product development. Some get shunted into technical support or technical marketing. He has seen the same thing at several other companies in this industry.
Also, on our college tours we found it interesting that Carnegie Mellon does not offer BME as an undergraduate degree. You would major in EE, ECE, ME with a concentration in BME for the very reason mentioned above. They also don’t think the regular BME path is worthwhile.
Still, it seems to be a very hot major in many schools. I’m sure there are some sectors where BME’s can come in with a B.S., but it is not as golden as many think…</p>