<p>I’ll add my input on our visit to Pitt. We arrived in the city around noon. Had fish sandwiches at Wholey’s, which was a great place! World’s biggest fish sandwich! Fortunately, I had read about it ahead of time so my husband and I knew to share one. It was really good, too. Wholey’s is a fish market and supermarket, and it was so interesting looking around at everything. We walked up and down the street, which had a bunch of different shops, many with things on display outside. It was COLD on Friday for all of our walking this day! </p>
<p>We headed over to Pitt and then went into the Cathedral of Learning, mainly to show my husband. My two daughters and I had been this past summer when I dropped off my older daughter for the Pitt Pharmacy camp. Afterward, we headed to Alumni Hall to catch the lower campus walking tour at 3 p.m. We had looked at the schedule for the Picture Yourself at Pitt day and found too many things to do in the available time, so we decided to get this one out of the way. There were probably 30 to 40 families there to take the tour, so they divided us into groups of about 10 people or so for the tour. The Pathfinder who gave our tour was truly excellent! Sujormik gave lots of info about the campus, so I won’t elaborate much on it. The tour took about 2 hours, as the guide was very thorough and spent time answering questions as we went along. It is striking how many opportunities are available to students given the location of the university. There are 3 hospitals pretty much on campus, providing excellent volunteering, shadowing, and work options. The kids have unlimited free access to the city buses to get wherever they need to go. Carnegie Mellon is literally right next door and the schools have reciprocal agreements. The only other thought I’ll add is that I felt that the towers dorms were very crowded and the rooms very, very small compared to other schools that I have been to. Not much lounge space and a very small workout area considering how many kids live in those buildings. We ate at Lu Lu’s Noodles in town for dinner, which was fun. Our hotel was out in the 'burbs so we headed out and walked around IKEA, which is also always a treat.</p>
<p>Our day Saturday was a bit different from Sujormik’s. We attended the coffee hour welcome where they had various information tables set up. We spent time at the activities table as well as the band table. In addition, various Pathfinders came up to us to welcome us and chat with us a bit about my daughter’s major and where we were from as well as their experiences at Pitt. We then headed to the Admissions presentation, which was as Sujormik’s described - good, upbeat, and standard information available on-line. </p>
<p>Next we attended the Pharmacy session. The bussed us up to the Pharmacy building and one of the advisors from that department presented admissions information as well as program information. One of the Pathfinders who accompanied the group was in his 2nd year of Pharmacy school and the advisor asked him to cover information too. They presented a lot of meaningful stats about Pharmacy admissions. They showed us one of the Pharmacy labs. Since my daughter went there for the pharmacy camp, she had seen all of the spaces that they showed us. </p>
<p>We then returned to Alumni Hall for the Life Outside the Classroom presentation. This was a panel discussion with 5 Pathfinders as well as the Pathfinder advisor, who asked the students on the panel to share their experiences with Study Abroad, Research, Teaching, Intramurals, Clubs, and their day-to-day schedules/habits. This section was really amazing. These kids are involved! Again, it really demonstrated the wide variety of options that are available to the students at Pitt. Here is one area where I my impression differs with Sujormik - it sounded to me like Pitt is VERY supportive of all types of study abroad programs, from 1 week to 3 week to 1 semester to 1 year programs, during school, or summer, or summer breaks. They also mentioned that the study abroad rate is about double at Pitt compare to the national average. They encourage all kids to get engaged in research, and the opportunities again are widely available. So many teaching and tutoring opportunities - both paid and volunteer. Not to mention all of the available clubs. I want to go back to college at Pitt and be a student there!</p>
<p>We then headed over the Market Cafe in towers. It was a student cafeteria - very busy with lots of kids and visiting families, and lots of typical cafeteria food. </p>
<p>We then headed back to Alumni Hall to catch an upper campus tour. This was are only Pathfinder experience that wasn’t excellent - one of the girls was very sarcastic and tried to be funny, but really wasn’t. It only made us realize even more how professional, outgoing, and informative all of the other Pathfinders are. While the rooms in Sutherland are bigger, it seemed kind of cold with the cement block walls. And, it’s one big hill to climb - I can only imagine what it’s like with slush on the ground and the wind in your face! It’s a tough call for me as to which dorm situation is better. I think I’m going to side with location and say the towers would be preferable to me. Lots of great athletic facilities on upper campus. Also there is the ability to take P.E. classes to insure an exercise routine.</p>
<p>We finished up by talking to an Admissions counselor about scholarships. This is when we learned that applications are reviewed only on Fridays for scholarship consideration. Also, some students files may be presented to the committee several times before an offer is extended.</p>
<p>All in all, an excellent visit! A very well done day by Pitt. My daughter is even more excited about going to Pitt now than before. We just are awaiting scholarship offers!!! I’m happy to answer any questions…</p>