DS received a letter from the chancellor last wk saying he recently became aware of his application and hoped he would attend. I interpreted this to mean he was reviewed for merit aid and not awarded any. He has very high test scores but is ranked outside the top 10% of his HS. He has already been admitted to UHC. Any hope for merit?
I don't know but was a little surprised at my DS and Pitt. He was admitted to Pitt's UHC and received $5K merit aid but I thought he'd receive more based on stats (1550 (CR/M) and 2280 one sitting (2300 superscored) with 3.94UW/4.3W. School doesn't rank and we're in-state and others at his high school received full tuition with similar numbers in past years. I'm not sure if they cut back on merit aid this year or the requirements got raised.
Well that's even more worrisome. DS had a 1600 CR/M and a 2320 in one sitting. But an unweighted 3.75 and 4.2 weighted. Class rank top 20%, hate that school ranks.
MommyDearest,
He submitted the same things he did for the common app and other schools, including essays and letters of rec.. He got a Presidential scholarship/Honors from Tulane (27K) and 11K from Indiana/Honors so it likely wasn't the application. I wonder if the school not ranking affected it... The other possibility is that they limit the number of full tuitions per school and there were a few kids with 2380s and at least one 2400 in my son's class. With 100 from his class applying there, some of the higher performers use it as a safety (sorry if anyone is offended by that comment) and without class rank, they used other benchmarks.
I looked at your link and his classes were all Honors/
AP and he had some decent ECs......so we thought he had the requirements. Goes to the unpredictability of the process.
Thank you for the positive comments, and I hope your child does well and excels in whatever they want to do.
@ everybody who previously posted
I feel bad that you guys have really amazing stats. I'm not sure how it happened. The process does seem a little random, but did you try contacting people there? I know some students were mailed letters that said if they visited Pitt and showed them unofficial test scores and a transcript, they'd receive an admissions decision within 3 hours. I talked to an admissions counselor while I was there and kept showing interest by emailing periodically. I asked about when they would be deciding merit aid in October or so, then I checked in in early November. I think the key is to just show them you are truly interested. Now, if you did all that, then maybe it is random.
Janjdad...ahhh, that would make sense if they limit the number of scholarships in each school. Sorry your son wasn't one that got a big one. Sounds like he has some good options, and I imagine more to come.
Jsmathwiz...agreed that you have great stats! Maybe I'll have my son call this week, but I think it's a little soon to worry.
If they are sending out awards that are less than full tuition, I guess no news is good news at this point.
Keeping in mind that the vast majority of scholarship recipients probably do not participate at CC, I would bet that Pitt had a large number of scholarship quality students and could not award aid to all of them.
Also older DS did not get his full tuition letter until after the Thanksgiving holidays, everyone was posting their awards already and I thought he wasn't going to get anything....don't give up hope!!!!!
Congrats to everyone! I hope you will consider going to Pitt. It is a great school and older DS has LOVED his time there (although not enough to consider grad school!!!).
