Reviewed on Mar 3, 2025(Enrolled 2022)
What Students Say
Likes
- The Size of the campus 19051$
- The diversity across the campus you have people from all around world
- The various options for extra curriculars
Dislikes
- Sizes of class for some courses exceed 500-600 students per class
- Some classes are very poorly structured
- Main campus has very little to do like places to visit or hangout we only have clubs, lasertag and bowling
Course Curriculum
10
- If you don't like physics, mechanical engineering is not for you, it will get harder through your sophomore year and a little easier through junior year, i am a junior so i cant speak about senior year.
- The positive aspects would be the amount of resources, the professors, the learning experience and everything I didn't find any negatives. I have 6 classes on monday, 7 classes on wednesday, 3 labs on tuesday, no classes on thursday, 4 classes on friday. I am taking 19.5 credits and each class is 50 minutes exactly.
- Mine starts at 9:05 am and end at 3:20 pm with a 15 minutes break between each class. Right now in junior year the average would be around 50 for each class. Some classes have bigger lectures and smaller labs, 30 for labs and 15-20 for one lab. This class has a bigger lecture and smaller lab. I don't know how many Indian students are enrolled in my course.
Admission Experience
- ASU - i was accepted also received a 15k$ scholarship
PSU - i was accepted
UW Wisconsin - i was rejected
Purdue main campus - got into branch campus
University of Minnesota - accepted
UT Austin - i was rejected
TAMU- i was rejected - I might have been rejected from this colleges because my essays might not have been too strong and I was also a test optional student so the essays might be it.
- Penn state is ranked 16 in the world for mechanical and I wanted to be in a really good school for mechanical. That's the reason I chose Penn state over others.
- We had to apply, pay application fees, write essays, submit supplementary documentation like extra curriculars, resume etc, and when you get accepted you had to pay a fee to accept your admission and receive an I-20 basically even if you don't pay your admission was confirmed unless you deny it, after that there wasn't much university process involved.
- Penn state also does early admissions and rolling admissions. I applied for early admissions and heard back within 2 months as far as I remember.
- I don't remember the required GPA but you needed to have a good gpa, a high toefl or ielts score. I gave the toefl, I scored 103/120. When i was applying they had a test optional option due to covid. You needed to have strong extra curriculars.
- The overall experience was really easy, no challenges and the university was pretty responsive and helpful throughout the process.
- I applied for early decision for fall 2022 intake and i applied in september 2021, heard back from the university by nov 2021. I admission process was around two months you submitting your application and just waiting to hear back from the university. Then if you get accepted pay the admission fee and get your I-20 then start your visa process. There isn't a much detailed timeline for this.
Faculty
10
- I dont what the faculty to student ratio is but i would say for a good amount of classes its pretty good but for some classes it is the ratio for example for one of the classes which took was 1 professor :500 students, but it had multiple recitations and a lot of teaching assistants, the TA ratio was 1:15.
- Yes i would say they go in pretty detail and if you want even deeper knowledge you can always go to their office hours and yes i would be getting a job with this knowledge. The faculty might be helping but as of now I haven't heard anything. I don't have a particular admiration for anyone i like them all equally and everyone was unique in their own ways of teaching
Campus Life
10
- My university has 24 campus
- University Park – Penn State University Park
- Abington – Penn State Abington
- Altoona – Penn State Altoona
- Beaver (Monaca) – Penn State Beaver
- Behrend (Erie) – Penn State Behrend
- Berks (Reading) – Penn State Berks
- Brandywine (Media) – Penn State Brandywine
- Carlisle – Penn State Dickinson Law
- DuBois – Penn State DuBois
- Fayette (Lemont Furnace) – Penn State Fayette, The Eberly Campus
- Great Valley (Malvern) – Penn State Great Valley
- Greater Allegheny (McKeesport) – Penn State Greater Allegheny
- Harrisburg (Middletown) – Penn State Harrisburg
- Hazleton – Penn State Hazleton
- Hershey – Penn State College of Medicine
- Lehigh Valley (Center Valley) – Penn State Lehigh Valley
- Mont Alto – Penn State Mont Alto
- New Kensington – Penn State New Kensington
- Schuylkill (Schuylkill Haven) – Penn State Schuylkill
- Scranton (Dunmore) – Penn State Scranton
- Shenango (Sharon) – Penn State Shenango
- Wilkes-Barre (Lehman) – Penn State Wilkes-Barre
- Williamsport – Pennsylvania College of Technology (Penn State affiliate)
- York – Penn State York
- All the facilities you could imagine are available at my campus sports, food, health related, gyms, swimming pools, everything.
- The major events would be the THON which is an event for charity which happens for i think 48-72 hours straight without stopping and the penn state whiteout which is a sport event where everyone wears white to the game.
- There are well over 500 clubs at my university, for extra curriculars you have gyms, pool tables, tennis courts, pickle ball courts, soccer courts, rock climbing , badminton, swimming pools and few other sports which I don't remember.
Part Time Jobs
- I dont know how many but usually people who study well and crack the interview secure it. I think between 15$- $20. Other jobs would be dining, proctor, commons desk, it desk and their pay starting is at 13$ and for proctoring its 10$. You can work a maximum of 20 hours per week and when there are semester breaks like the summer you can work upto 40 hours a week. It is very easy to get a job in the dining industry but it is tougher to get other jobs because the open positions usually fill out pretty quick.
- They earn 13$. It is very easy to get a job in the dining industry but it is tougher to get the other jobs because the open positions usually fill out pretty quick. You need to apply through the penn state workday portal, then you need to go physically pick up an offer letter, sign a few documents, complete online paid training and physical training at the job.
Placement
8
- Around 90% of the students receive some or the other kind of employment within 6 months of graduating from penn state, the average salary depends from major to major.
- There is not fixed average each college has a different average. Students get jobs through career fair, and online applications. There networking receptions, linkedin, career fair.
- I am a junior so i dont know about the placement experience but finding an internship right now is tough due to the market. Major companies would be phillips, honda, volvo, webtec, cmta, Johnson and johnson, kimberly clark to name a few.
Accommodation
Off Campus
8
- I live on campus and there is a website where you need to apply for living on campus. You don't have a monthly rent for on campus, you pay it semester wise and i have already listed that before.
- The challenges were not getting the roommate I wanted and also not getting the building I wanted but later I could exchange for the room in a different building so it wasn't a problem.
- Make sure to know which side of the campus you wanna live on this is the only advice i'll give because some dorms might be further for engineering students and closer for different majors so. I live on campus so all of my classes are a max of 10 minutes walk from my dorm and the indian students are split equally between on campus and off campus.
Exams
-
For undergrad Toefl or ielts for english proficiency and when i applied SAT was optional. I needed a CV, LOR, SOP, transcripts of my whole highschool time, extra curricular certifications, community service atleast for a month or two longer the better.
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There was no interview in the application process, it was just to apply and wait to hear back from the university.
Fees
- There is a 5% increase in your fee when you hit 59 credits or more. We had semester wise fee.
- All the fee i am listing below is from my freshman semester from 2022 fall
I had a room and board fee 6600$
Tuition was 19051$
Insurance was 1059$
International fee was 750$
UP (campus) student fee was 274$
Erollment fee was 130$
Total was around 27600$ for the first semester - My monthly expenses living on campus would be around 300$-400$ and it varies from person to person depending on how much you are spending on food outside the campus, how much you were partying or travelling etc.
Scholarship
- I did not receive any scholarships I wish I did. As far as i know NONE from the university but there are external scholarships linked to the university eligibility depends from scholarship to scholarship.
- Yes my roommate received a scholarship of around 7000$-8000$ but he was an american citizen but also indian. American citizens have a lot more options for scholarships compared to international students. As far as i know none of the international students from my batch received a scholarship.
