<p>Hello, I’m a first generation college student (or I guess as of now, applicant) from an extremely low income family. I live with my disabled mother and little brother and I have a mild case of cerebral palsy (no wheelchair or anything, but I used to walk with a limp until years of physical therapy cleared it up). I’m very interested in Pitt and I’m going to the “Picture yourself at Pitt” seminar on 10/3 but I don’t really know where to go from there.</p>
<p>My SATs are 1380/2000. I have a 3.2 GPA, I’m the president of my school’s discussion club and VP of my school’s french club. What are my chances of getting in (and would any of the things mentioned in the above paragraph help or hurt my chances) and how would I go about applying for financial aid? Would I be able to get a full/close to full ride off of need?</p>
<p>That said, you should get a decent amount of need aid. It really depends on your income though. I would focus on your disabilities in your essay.</p>
<p>Have you also looked into private schools? Even though they cost more, some of them have more money available for financial aid than state schools.</p>
<p>If you can get your SAT up above 1400/1600, you might be in line for merit money from Pitt. Unfortunately, state schools aren’t known for good need-based aid for out-of-state students.</p>
<p>I recommend you cast a wide net in applying. Identify maybe eight to 10 schools that you like, a combination of public and private. (You might be able to apply for free with vouchers.) Write eloquently about the challenges you’ve faced, and hope for the best. Also, it wouldn’t hurt to post on the parents’ board. Many of the posters there have a lot of good experience, and they may be able to suggest some strategies that would help you.</p>
<p>Let me ask you a couple of questions:
Why Pitt? What are you planning to major in?</p>
<p>The general rule of thumb that I have heard from people trying to maximize their financial aid is to be a big fish in a little sea. In other words: apply to schools where your SAT / GPA puts you in the top 5 or 10% of the applicants. These schools WANT you to enroll because you will improve their student admittance profile.</p>
<p>1380 / 2000 while not great is still very good and I’m sure there are schools that will offer you good financial aid (perhaps even a full ride), I just don’t think Pitt is one of them.</p>
<p>I want to major in linguistics. It’s sort of my passion. At my school I finished French V my junior year as opposed to senior as like everyone else and now this year I’m taking Spanish and Italian which are the other two languages offered. I know the subject is much more than just foreign languages though, at one of my jobs I have at a library I would take out books on the morphology, syntax and history of languages all the time.</p>
<p>Now I know Pitt isn’t known for it’s linguistics department, but I’m finding that no school in the northeast aside from some ivies and Middlebury (neither of which I’m getting into) actually is. Most don’t even have the major at all.</p>
<p>So as of now I’ve been looking for schools in the northeast (preferrably in a city) with a linguistics major that I have a chance of getting into. Lot of restrictions for a poor kid I know, but I figured why be miserable somewhere I don’t want to be doing something I don’t want to do. So as of now on my list are BU, Temple, CUNY Brooklyn, Pitt, UChicago, and Columbia (this one is more because my mom insisted I should “give it a shot” rather than my own confidence in being accepted).</p>
<p>Of all these, Pitt’s by far my favorite. It just clicked with me. The campus is beautiful, Pittsburgh is perfect sized and fun, and the cathedral of learning is unbelievable. I was really excited and telling all my friends little factoids about it like a little kid. I could see myself attending there and being absolutely ecstatic.</p>
<p>That’s the reason for Pitt. But I guess expecting them to give a full ride to someone OoT with only decent grades is kind of silly. Sorry for the giant wall of text, I guess I got carried away.</p>
<p>I think Pitt does have a good linguistics department. My daughter is studying Japanese in the East Asian Languages department and has also taken linguistics. Many languages are taught under the auspices of the Less-Commonly-Taught Languages Center, which is part of the linguistics department.</p>
<p>That notwithstanding, I think you should apply to places like Middlebury. I don’t think you have anything to lose, especially if the application fee can be waived, except for your time in filling out the paperwork and in writing the essay.</p>
<p>The following thread might offer some more colleges that you can consider. I think you can accomplish what you want if you are a little more flexible with your requirements. However, I would still submit an application to Pitt and hope for the best. With your family’s EFC it is possible that Pitt may be affordable without too much debt for you. Just a possibility. Good Luck.</p>