What about University of Pittsburgh?

[Anonymous]

Aww, thanks!

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Hail to Pitt! DD was just admitted! Love how they made her feel so good about herself today.

Woo hoo! Congratulations to her. Four years of awesome in store.

My daughter also admitted, she wants to go but the admittance letter she felt nothing. UPITT is EXPENSIVE for OOS. They are cutting back big on OOS Merit this year, going more Need Based. So unless we see merit aid she cant go.

It is not like prior years where they handed out tons of merit aid to OOS.

Is it, though? I get that cost is all relative to what you can afford, but compared to others:
Pitt OOS- $44K
UVA OOS- $66K
UMD-$53K
U Mich- $67K
U Wisconsin- $55K
UNC- $52K
Rutgers-$59K

+1. Especially if your premed or health sciences, pitt is incredible.

You missed the point. Those are full-pay prices. Pitt has become stingy with merit. My daughter is at OSU for just over half of what Pitt wanted. Love Pitt (and so did she) but they don’t discount but for a tiny group of their best applicants.

Did not miss the point but you are being incredibly cheap. And Pitt would be miles better than OSU for premed, which is what that PP referenced.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Hail to Pitt! DD was just admitted! Love how they made her feel so good about herself today.

Woo hoo! Congratulations to her. Four years of awesome in store.

My daughter also admitted, she wants to go but the admittance letter she felt nothing. UPITT is EXPENSIVE for OOS. They are cutting back big on OOS Merit this year, going more Need Based. So unless we see merit aid she cant go.

It is not like prior years where they handed out tons of merit aid to OOS.

Is it, though? I get that cost is all relative to what you can afford, but compared to others:
Pitt OOS- $44K
UVA OOS- $66K
UMD-$53K
U Mich- $67K
U Wisconsin- $55K
UNC- $52K
Rutgers-$59K

+1. Especially if your premed or health sciences, pitt is incredible.

You missed the point. Those are full-pay prices. Pitt has become stingy with merit. My daughter is at OSU for just over half of what Pitt wanted. Love Pitt (and so did she) but they don’t discount but for a tiny group of their best applicants.

Did not miss the point but you are being incredibly cheap. And Pitt would be miles better than OSU for premed, which is what that PP referenced.

Saving about $100k is incredibly cheap. Gotcha.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Love it! It’s a popular school for just less than stellar students in the area. For stellar students, there’s great merit aid available.

You just couldn't help yourself with the put down, could you? Asshole.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid attended Pitt.

The positives were that it’s a good school with lots of solid kids in a very student-friendly area in an interesting city that is convenient to the DC area. There are many different majors. There is a sizable contingent of students from the area and Pitt runs buses from Pitt to Montgomery Mall before and after major holidays. For the most part, the kids seem happy to be there.

The kids are less spoiled than at some of the public and private high schools in the DC region. DS started working part-time while there, because he saw his friends working part-time, even though we hadn’t pushed him to get a job. That work ethic stayed with him post-Pitt.

The negatives were that it wasn’t always easy to get the classes he wanted; some classes were taught by grad students who lacked teaching skills; the weather can be very gloomy; and some of the off-campus housing in Oakland exemplifies a “student ghetto.”

PP do you know if dorms are available for 4 yrs?

There are also other neighborhoods besides Oakland. Shadyside and Squirrel Hill are lovely and there is a bus service that (at least it used to be the case) is free with Student ID.

[Anonymous]

DC was accepted two weeks ago but not a word on merit/financial aid. How long do they make you wait?

[Anonymous]

DS was accepted in mid November and got merit aid notification three weeks later ($15k a year x 4 years).
Stats 1560 SAT and 4.8 W gpa.
Now waiting to hear if he gets into the honors college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid attended Pitt.

The positives were that it’s a good school with lots of solid kids in a very student-friendly area in an interesting city that is convenient to the DC area. There are many different majors. There is a sizable contingent of students from the area and Pitt runs buses from Pitt to Montgomery Mall before and after major holidays. For the most part, the kids seem happy to be there.

The kids are less spoiled than at some of the public and private high schools in the DC region. DS started working part-time while there, because he saw his friends working part-time, even though we hadn’t pushed him to get a job. That work ethic stayed with him post-Pitt.

The negatives were that it wasn’t always easy to get the classes he wanted; some classes were taught by grad students who lacked teaching skills; the weather can be very gloomy; and some of the off-campus housing in Oakland exemplifies a “student ghetto.”

PP do you know if dorms are available for 4 yrs?

I think the answer is yes, but a few things to consider. It’s (old) city living. The dorms are 100 years old. Towers A B C are tiny pie-shaped rooms. My DS scored (by lucky lottery) an “on campus” apartment at Forbes Craig where he lived closer to CMU than Pitt (similarly, CMU has a dorm closer to Pitt). The next year he moved to an ancient house with buddies. The house was closer to campus than his Pitt apartment and directly on the free Pitt bus route.

^^Regarding housing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DS was accepted in mid November and got merit aid notification three weeks later ($15k a year x 4 years).
Stats 1560 SAT and 4.8 W gpa.
Now waiting to hear if he gets into the honors college.

The 75th percentile SAT at Pitt is around 1430 so your kid will be a standout student.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Super hot at TJ. Which tell you something about their STEM. Last year more TJ kids applied to Pitt than VT and more ended up attending. First time ever that UVA/ Vat and WM were not the top three schools by far. Mostly engineering. Quite a few guaranteed admit med. Last year 110 kids applied and 109 were admitted. And the one red X on Naviance had good stats, so it would have been an honor code issue or something.

Selective? Maybe not. But offering full tuition to TJ kids who apply and great word of mouth. The word from Alums is that TJ kids love Pittsburgh (who knew? It’s really come back) and love that they can cross register at CMU. Counselors are saying the TJ kids who have gone through love it and are doing very well in grad school admissions.

We visited with DC and checked it out. I’m impressed. DH is impressed. DS is impressed. I’m not sure it’s his best option. But it’s not a bad option.

I don’t know how much kids loved Blacksburg, per se. And VT is on a new mission to make VT “more reflective of the demographics of the state”. They are also Coalition only. So kids just stopped applying. Pitt has aggressively recruited at TJ and benefitted from kids deciding VT was headed down/ just not worth it.

My kid is a senior. Rolling admissions is wonderful. He has already been accepted. Should hear about merit aid in the next month. Honors college in December. It’s not his top choice. But getting an acceptance to a school he liked, we liked and we could afford even with no merit (OOS it’s about 5k more than WM full freight) was such a relief. It also cut down his list some. We asked, what are better options than Pitt? His other two safeties aren’t and were dropped. And he has a strong case for why it’s better than a match. So that was dropped too. No need to apply when he knows he has a better option.

I’m obviously a big believer. But Pitt was the sleeper shock of college admission for me.

More than a bit late to the game, but just wanted to reinforce this poster's commentary with my own.

DD also a current TJ senior. Majority of TJ kids are applying to Pitt/have already applied to Pitt as their safety or match. Pitt gets praise from previous seniors since they're great for engineering and/or guaranteed med, and they're really nice to TJ kids (practically guaranteed acceptance, lots of financial aid and scholarships). Add all that on top of rolling admissions, and you've got everyone hailing Pitt as the "nice" school with a great rep.

In my DD's case, she's got pretty high stats (36 ACT/4.5 UW) and her counselor more or less told her that she was guaranteed UVA (solidly in the green based on Scattergrams, but they're still not allowed to call UVA a safety). Despite this, she still applied to Pitt because she liked the assurance and the general culture of it. She received her decisions with a few weeks and was offered $80K a few weeks after. One of her best friends from Centreville also got in, and she's told me how happy she was that she got in. Where she'll end up will depend on the next few months, but for the time being, she's happy with Pitt.

I might sound like a braggart in that last paragraph, and I'll admit I'm proud of how far she's come, but my point is this: Pitt has a GREAT reputation at TJ, among all tiers of students. With the number of kids getting into Pitt/receiving generous aid so far this year, I won't be surprised if Pitt's upward trend with TJ students continue on into the next year.

Of course, this praise isn't to say that Pitt gets anywhere the same appreciation as, say, CMU or Berkeley, but TJ classmates have become quite positive and understanding for those who choose this "safety" school over other schools like VTech.

My only "complaint" would be that the aid Pitt offered, while generous, isn't enough to make a huge difference from instate UVA tuitions. If it comes down to "just" a difference of a few thousand dollars a year, DD will probably still choose UVA over Pitt. So it seems that Pitt is pulling away the lower tier engineering track students away from VTech and maybe W&M and UMD, but still hasn't managed to get a crack on UVA. Will be interesting to see what path and strategy they follow in a few years.

[Anonymous]

Pitt has started to notify students if they were admitted to their honors college. Good luck to all

[Anonymous]

Anyone know anything about their Honors college? How does it compare to other honors programs (say UMD)?

[Anonymous]

Pitt is a great school. Every kid I know that attends loves it.

[Anonymous]

My kid (4.1W TJ, 1530 SATs) was notified she was admitted to Honors College on a Friday at 4:30. Everyone she knows got in (but it’s a TJ weighted sample). Almost everyone on College Confidential amd Reddit reports bing admitted, a couple were waitlisted, and no one reported being rejected.

I was wondering if they had released acceptances before rejections, or if they had admitted pretty much everyone this year. Last year, it was about a 5% admit rate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid (4.1W TJ, 1530 SATs) was notified she was admitted to Honors College on a Friday at 4:30. Everyone she knows got in (but it’s a TJ weighted sample). Almost everyone on College Confidential amd Reddit reports bing admitted, a couple were waitlisted, and no one reported being rejected.

I was wondering if they had released acceptances before rejections, or if they had admitted pretty much everyone this year. Last year, it was about a 5% admit rate.

Mine with similar stats also accepted (not TJ). We found the acceptance note confusing. Click "accept" if interested but not necessarily committing to Pitt yet??