The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State)
University Park, Pennsylvania · Founded 1855
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Get your matchTesting policy
Test-optional
Penn State is test-optional: on the application you choose whether to apply test-optional or to have your SAT or ACT considered. If you send scores, Penn State uses your highest combined score from a single test date and does not superscore, and it does not accept the optional science section of the enhanced ACT. Scores are mandatory only for the accelerated premedical-medical program. In its own Common Data Set, the academic GPA is rated Very Important, the rigor of the high school record Important and test scores Considered; 29% of enrolled first-year students submitted an SAT score and 5% an ACT. Transfer applicants do not need scores. Source: psu.edu - Steps to Apply and Admission Requirements for first-year students; Penn State University Park Common Data Set 2025-2026, sections C7-C9 (verified October 2026).
About
Pennsylvania's only land-grant university, with about 42,800 undergraduates at University Park, its main campus in the part of central Pennsylvania known as Happy Valley. Business is its largest field, followed by engineering. Students are admitted to a campus rather than to a major and officially enter their major in the junior year. About 40 percent of first-year students from the United States come from outside Pennsylvania.
History
Penn State was chartered by the Commonwealth in 1855 as a college of agricultural science, on 200 acres in Centre County given by James Irvin, an ironmaster from Bellefonte. Its founding president, Evan Pugh, was among those who championed the Morrill Land-Grant Act of 1862, and the legislature then named the college Pennsylvania's land-grant institution. In the 1880s President George W. Atherton broadened it into engineering, the sciences and the liberal arts, and in the 1930s it opened branch campuses for students who could not leave home during the Great Depression, the start of today's statewide system.
What stands out
- Test-optional; if you send scores, Penn State uses your highest combined score from a single test date and does not superscore
- You name a first-choice and an alternate campus; applicants not offered University Park for the fall may be offered its summer session or another Penn State campus
- The 2+2 Plan lets students begin at another Penn State campus and finish their degree at University Park
- Admission is to a campus rather than a major, except for programs such as nursing and many in arts and architecture
- Early action by November 1 brings a decision by December 24; after that, applications are reviewed on a rolling basis and University Park becomes more competitive
- 92 percent of first-year students come back for a second year
Popular majors
Campus life
Students are Nittany Lions, a mascot named for nearby Mount Nittany, and the school colors are blue and white. There are more than 1,000 student groups, and THON, a 46-hour dance marathon first held in 1973, is the world's largest student-run philanthropy. About 110,000 fans dress in white for White Out football games at Beaver Stadium, and the Nittany Lion Shrine, carved from a 13-ton block of limestone in 1942, is a must-see on campus visits.