Log in to LionPath and on your Home Screen, towards the bottom of the page, you will see "My Adviser". If there is no one listed, you have not been assigned an adviser yet. All first-year students will be assigned an adviser within the first few weeks of the semester. Contact the Advising Center if you have not been assigned an adviser after the first few weeks. 

As a first- or second-year student, your intended major will determine whether your adviser is a professional or faculty member.  Professional advisers are located in the Advising Center, 220 Sutherland, and are well qualified to help you reach your academic goals. They advise mainly first- and second-year students. Faculty advisers usually advise students already in majors, but in some cases, they advise students heading toward specific majors within a college. Faculty advisers deal mostly with issues directly related to specific majors, whereas professional advisers usually work with students deciding among many possible majors. 

Cumulative credits include the number of credits scheduled at Penn State for a letter grade, even if a final grade of an "F" is earned.

If you have been accepted into a major, log in to LionPath and click on on the "hamburger" icon on the top left corner of the screen. Then select "Academics" and Academic Requirements.

If you have not yet been accepted into a major or you are exploring different majors and want to see how your credits apply, log in to LionPath, click on the "hamburger" icon on the top left corner of the screen and select "What-If Report". Use this step-by-step video to run a "What-If Report" https://tutorials.lionpath.psu.edu/public/S_RunningWhatifReport

Courses can be added and/or dropped during the regular Drop/Add period, which is during the first week of the semester. You can drop courses through Saturday at 11:59 p.m. at the end of the first week of classes. You can add courses through Sunday at 8:00 a.m. after the first week of classes. 

On Monday of the second week of classes, the Late Drop period begins. It runs from the eleventh day of the semester to the end of the twelfth week of the semester. Courses can be late dropped but not added during this period. If a course is dropped during the Late Drop period, it will show up on your transcript as "LD". Contact your adviser before late-dropping a course because there may be financial aid ramifications depending on individual student situations.

Part-time students (taking fewer than 12 credits) will be assessed a tuition penalty for dropping or adding during the Late Drop period. See http://www.bursar.psu.edu/adjustments.cfm for details.

First-year students and first-semester transfer students who are doing poorly in a course during the third to sixth week of a semester may receive an Early Progress Report detailing the reasons for their poor performance. If you receive an Early Progress Report in a course, you should talk with the professor about how to improve your performance in the course.

Go to the Academic Advising Portal, Entry to Major requirements page. Choose the college and then the major you’re interested in. To find out which college a major is in, go to University Bulletin: Course Descriptions, Four- and Two-Year Degrees.

Contact your adviser to discuss your options.

Set up a meeting with your professor as well as a separate meeting with your professional adviser. They will be able to help you get back on track in your courses and connect you with campus resources.

There are two kinds of internships: professional and exploratory. Professional internships are required in a major; check your Academic Requirements or What-If Report to see if an internship course is required; it will be numbered 495 in a major discipline, e.g., PSYCH 495 or B A 495. Exploratory internships are voluntary and may be done in connection with any major. For more information about internships, contact your adviser in your major and/or The Center for Career and Professional Development, which is on the second floor of Lares.

Learn more at the leave of absence webpage. 

Your professional adviser will be sending you Academic Reviews at the end of each semester, reminding you of upcoming responsibilities. Depending on your major of interest, you will be able to enter your major as early as Fall semester of your sophomore year. Please meet with your professional adviser to ensure that you are on track to declare your major in a timely, efficient fashion.

If you have already declared a major and would like to change it, please set up an appointment with a professional adviser to ensure you are going to complete the degree in an appropriate time frame.

A minor can be declared after you attain third-semester classification or after you have been accepted into a major. The procedures for entering a minor depend on whether the minor has entry requirements:

  1. Minors that do not have entrance requirements can be declared using Lionpath, Update Academics
  2. Minors that have special entrance criteria (e.g., prerequisite courses, a portfolio, an audition) require an application (see Special Considerations listed by minor in the University Bulletin. Students applying for a minor with entrance criteria should meet with the faculty contact provided in information about the minor.

Double majors are called “concurrent majors” at Penn State. After you are in a major, you must submit an Application for Approval of Concurrent Majors form to declare your intent to complete a concurrent major to the department or division of your first major.

See our Abington majors. 

If you have been a degree student and then became a nondegree student, you must earn at least a 2.00 CGPA (cumulative grade point average) by the time you complete 40 credits in NDEGR status. As soon as you have a 2.00 CGPA, submit a Reenrollment form in the Scheduling Office, 121 Sutherland.

World Campus courses are listed in the online Schedule of Courses. If there are seats available in a course you want, contact World Campus’s Adult Learner Enrollment Services at 800 252-3592 and select option 1.

In general, you will not be able to schedule the course(s) until one week before the start date of the class. There also are some courses that are restricted to world campus students. Contact [email protected] for more information.

A prerequisite course is one that must be completed before taking another course. You should not try to take a course that has prerequisites without having completed all them first. Prerequisite requirements are to be taken seriously; they help you from enrolling in a course in which you cannot possibly do well.

However, if you believe you have the knowledge that the prerequisite course provides and feel able to handle the course for which it is a prerequisite, you should talk with the instructor of the course for which you have not met the prerequisite.

The instructor should be able to judge whether or not it’s appropriate for you to take the course. If the instructor is not inclined to allow you to take the course, you should respect the instructor’s judgment. If you enroll in a course for which you have not met the prerequisites, you may be disenrolled at the request of the instructor

Your Registration Dates appear on your LionPath homepage. Once the Registration Dates become available, you will see a date to fill your Shopping Cart and a date to officially register. 

Academic Renewal is taking up your Penn State academic career after having spent four years away from the University. Existing courses in which you earned less than a C grade are separated from other courses, which remain in place on your degree audit. Your cumulative grade point average (CGPA) is reset to 0.0, which makes it easier for you to succeed.

Beginning with the summer 2020 semester, Penn State is implementing a new grade forgiveness option for undergraduate students. Under this new policy, if a student earns a D or F grade in a course but then repeats the course and earns a better grade, the original grade can be forgiven. If a grade forgiveness request is approved, the original course still will appear on the student's official transcript, but will not earn credit or count towards the student's term or cumulative GPA. More information can be found here: http://www.registrar.psu.edu/grades/grade-forgiveness.cfm

If you are transitioning to University Park, you will need to be accepted into a major before changing your campus. You may be able to transition to another Penn State campus without first being accepted into a major, but you should consult your Academic Adviser before making any adjustments to your campus assignment.

When students fail to make adequate progress towards meeting and maintaining a 2.00 grade-point average as required for graduation, various academic progress statuses are used to serve as notification of such failure and to assist the students in correcting their academic difficulties. These statuses include Academic Warning (54-20) and Academic Suspension (54-40). This website will give more information: http://www.registrar.psu.edu/academic-progress/

Contact your adviser or go to the Scheduling Office, 121 Sutherland, to complete a Withdrawal form. All your courses for that semester will be canceled. You will receive a W on your transcript for those courses. You must withdraw from a semester no later than the last day of classes.

Contact your adviser or go to the Scheduling Office, 121 Sutherland, to complete a Withdrawal form. You can also withdraw through eLion. All your courses for that semester will be cancelled. You will receive a W on your transcript for those courses. You must withdraw from a semester no later than the last day of classes.

First, go to the Transfer Evaluation Guide to see if the course is accepted by Penn State. It is recommended that you meet with your Academic Adviser before registering for a course at another institution. 

Transferring courses into the major requirements areas of your degree audit can only be done once you are in a major. In order for courses to be transferred to Penn State, you must have the other college or university send your official transcript to:

Penn State Admissions
201 Shields Building
University Park, PA 16802

Note: The final grade of the course must be a "C" or higher in order to transfer. Also, grades of transfer credits do not count towards your GPA.

Please fill out the Adviser Request Form and someone from the Advising Office will be in touch in about a week with more information.  Make sure to check your PSU email.