First-Year Admission Requirements

Who counts as a first-year applicant

You apply as a first-year student if you are finishing high school (or a homeschool program or equivalency) and have not enrolled at a college since graduating. College credit you earned while still in high school — dual enrollment, AP, IB — does not make you a transfer student; it just comes with you.

For fall 2027 entry the priority date is February 1, 2027 and the final deadline is August 1, 2027. The application has no fee and no essay, takes about twenty minutes, and most applicants have a decision in about two weeks. If you have been out of high school and away from college for a while, the adult and returning students page is a better starting point; homeschooled students should also read homeschool applicants.

Required high school courses

Porter expects 17 academic units across four years. A unit is one full year (two semesters) of a course.

Some programs want more than the minimum:

• Engineering, engineering technology and computing: four years of math through precalculus, plus chemistry and physics.
• Nursing and the health programs: biology and chemistry, ideally with grades of B or better. See getting into Nursing.
• B.F.A. and Apparel & Textile Design: a portfolio review on top of general admission — see portfolio and audition admission.

Missing one unit is not an automatic denial. Applicants short one unit (most often a third lab science or algebra II) are usually admitted with a plan to make it up in the first year. Two or more missing units almost always means a phone call from your counselor before a decision.

GPA and class rank

There is no minimum GPA. The middle 50 percent of admitted first-year students carried a 3.1–3.7 unweighted GPA. For the fall 2026 entering class, Porter received 6,140 applications, admitted 4,920 (80 percent) and enrolled 2,110 students from 27 states.

• Which GPA: we read the GPA your school reports and look at the unweighted version when the transcript shows one. We do not recalculate it, and we do not penalize a school that weights differently.
• Class rank: optional. More than half of the high schools in our applicant pool no longer rank, so a missing rank is normal and is never held against you.
• Trajectory: a rough ninth grade followed by three steady years reads very differently from the reverse. Readers notice.
• Senior year: admission is conditional on finishing the year in good shape. A failing grade in a required course can change a decision; in practice this happens to fewer than ten admitted students a year, and each gets a call first.

What holistic review means here

“Holistic” is an overused word, so here is the plain version. Every file is read by the counselor assigned to your region (see meet your admissions counselor). The center of the read is academic: the courses you chose, the grades you earned in them, and whether you are prepared for the program you named. Around that, the reader considers:

• Work and family responsibilities — a 20-hour-a-week job explains a lighter schedule, and we count it.
• Career and technical coursework, youth apprenticeships and industry certifications.
• Activities, if you list them, and anything your school counselor tells us.
• The optional “Anything else?” box (150 words, not an essay) for context you want a reader to have.
• Test scores, only if you send them — see test-optional admission.

Files with a GPA below 2.5 or missing units go to a second reader and then to the review committee, which meets every Tuesday from October through June. Possible outcomes are admission; admission with a first-term plan (a 13–15 credit cap, a study-skills seminar and an early-alert adviser); a deferral asking for first-semester senior grades, due January 29, 2027; or a denial, which always comes with a counselor call about other routes in. The longer explanation is on how Porter reviews applications.

What to send, and when

1. The application. Self-report your courses and grades from your transcript.
2. A transcript. An unofficial copy is enough for a decision; an official final transcript showing your graduation date is due by July 15, 2027.
3. Test scores — only if you want them considered.
4. AP, IB, CLEP or dual-enrollment records after you are admitted, so credit can post before orientation. See AP, IB and CLEP credit.

Students admitted by December 1, 2026 are reviewed in the first round of merit scholarships; everyone admitted by February 1 is reviewed automatically. The full list is on scholarship deadlines and priority dates, and the month-by-month version is the senior-year timeline.