How well is Pitt know outside of PA??

Colleges & Universities University of Pittsburgh
1

<p>I think, last I looked, Pitt is ranked about 50ish with US News and World Report. Not bad at all. But I am in the south and people know nothing about Pitt. Down here, UVA and Chapel Hill are the ‘respected’ public universities. Then you have Duke, Emory and on a smaller scale places like Davidson. Tulane pops up as a less prestigious option.</p>

<p>Wondering for those not intending to stay in PA, how well is Pitt know and where do there graduates tend to settle? Do most remain north? In PA…in Pittsburg specifically?</p>

<p>Pitt rings a bell for sports down here…but aside from my in touch college counselor, most people don’t know much about it academically. Is that because of the focus on area colleges down here, or do people from the west coast and Midwest also find this to be true? I KNOW Pitt carries big weight in Pittsburg, but what about as you leave the city…and state?</p>

<p>I like the school and just want to wrap my head around various aspects of it!
HSG</p>

2

<p>Where I’m from (the Nova area) Pitt wasn’t really known too well when I applied. Kids at my schools either went the state-route (UVA, W&M, Tech, VCU, etc.) or to big-name Ivies. However, as a whole Pitt’s reputation has been skyrocketing these past few years.</p>

<p>As for if people stay or not: it depends. Pitt is a great job market for things like banking (PNC), medicine (UPMC/Pitt Research), programming (Google), Arts & Culture (lots of various production groups), Engineering, especially power or nuke industry (Westinghouse, First Energy, Bettis/Bechtel). A lot of Pitt students stay in the area because of connections or jobs/internships etc. A lot move away because what they study doesn’t really have an industry here right now. I don’t think it leans one particular way or another. I will say Pittsburgh is one of the cheapest places to live (in my experience) and is a GREAT location for young people just out of school. </p>

<p>Inside Pennsylvania itself Pitt is very well known, no matter where you are. The big schools for Pennsylvania (that aren’t private like UPenn/Drexel) are probably Pitt and Penn State, with some focus on Temple, IUP, etc. </p>

<p>I’m not from Pennsylvania so I’m sure others on here will have better, more detailed answers. However, I will say that you shouldn’t really care what the reputation of Pitt is (in the way you are suggesting about if people have heard of it in XYZ town etc.) because if you come here, study, do well, etc. you’re not gonna have a problem making connections and getting a decent job when you’re done with college.</p>

<p>And a side note- It’s PittsburgH with the H. That’s how it’s always been except between 1890 - 1911 :)</p>

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<p>I think it depends on a particular field how well Pitt is known, although its general reputation has certainly spread substantially over the last 10 years and continues to project up. I think you’re also going to see Pitt’s presence (or mind-share) in the South grow quite a bit as it is now a member of the ACC and will be playing sports contests regularly against UNC, Duke, Georgia Tech, UVA, etc. </p>

<p>In my field, which is the biological sciences, particularly neuroscience, it is very well known all across the country because it is a leader in the field. It is also very well known in other fields, like philosophy, and really, anything in the health sciences. But all schools, to some degree outside the Ivies, suffer from some degree of regionalized bias, at least in my experience. To flip it around, you’ll be hard pressed to find anyone outside the south to have ever heard of Davidson, or honestly, outside of academic types, few probably know much about Emory despite how good of a school it is. In the northeast, I can’t tell you how many people I’ve run into that don’t realize “Cal” and “Berkeley” are the same school, which would seem ludicrous out West.</p>

<p>Where alumni end up also depends on their field. There is a very large group that heads east to Philadelphia, New York, and also the Washington DC area. I personally know a ton of Pitt alumni in the Research Triangle as well as in Florida. In Pitt’s Fact Book, you can look up alumni distribution by state and after Pennsylvania, the highest concentrations of alumni, are, in order: Florida, California, New York, Ohio, Maryland, Virginia, New Jersey, North Carolina, and Texas. There are obviously a lot of alumni in Western Pennsylvania, but it entirely depends on the field you are in and whether or not you want to go somewhere else. However, the City and region of Pittsburgh has been trying to make it more attractive for Pitt and Carnegie-Mellon grads to stay in the region.</p>

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<p>We are in Rochester NY and everyone here has generally heard of Pitt. There have been about 5 kids a year from my son’s HS school that have gone there in the past few years. (Class sizes are about 350). Now that he goes there, I seem run into people who have a relative that went there etc. I just spoke to a guy today from NC who’s parents went to Pitt. I was at a conference and met a company executive from Orange County CA and her son is at Pitt.<br>
I do believe that their name recognition increases every year positively. Another thing to remember, many will have heard of Pitt because of sports. Dan Marino, Mike Ditka, Tony Dorsett, and several current NFL players attended Pitt. The fact that the current football team played in the only college game played last Monday night shows that ESPN thought they had enough interest in their team to schedule a prime time game. Whether you think having recognition because of sports teams is a good thing or not, it’s definitely a marketing tool. As wgmpc101 mentioned, membership in the ACC will only increase that especially in the south.</p>

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<p>Here in Maryland, it is well known. I am always surprised how many people have connections to Pitt. Maryland is just south of Pennsylvania, so it does make sense. </p>

<p>I knew of Pitt when I lived in Iowa because of FOOTBALL!</p>

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<p>well honestly you should ask this question to people outside of PA, to get a true answer (lol)</p>

<p>Being from the Philly area, which on the other side of the state, Pitt is well known and respected. Pitt and Penn State have about equal reputations, though Penn State may be more well known outside of PA because of its football program and because of the Sandusky scandal. In my area, more students are picking Pitt over Penn State because they don’t want to be associated with that scandal. Also, Pitt attracts a student body that prefers a city atmosphere with lots of things to do, and if I recall correctly about a third of the students come from the Philly area, about a third come from other parts of PA and about a third are from out of state. </p>

<p>This link will take you to a map where you can see the states where students at Pitt came from… based on 2010 statistics (not sure when this gets updated). [Where</a> Does Your Freshman Class Come From? - Students - The Chronicle of Higher Education](<a href=“http://chronicle.com/article/Where-Does-Your-Freshman-Class/129547/#id=215293]Where”>http://chronicle.com/article/Where-Does-Your-Freshman-Class/129547/#id=215293)</p>

<p>This map shows that 69% of students are from Pennsylvania. The out of state students are heavily concentrated in neighboring states like Ohio, New York, New Jersey, Maryland. So it stands to reason that Pitt is most known in these state, and less so out of this region. This doesn’t reflect on the quality of a Pitt education, but if name recognition outside this area is important to you, its something to keep in mind. As wgmcp points out, here in the Northeast people aren’t as impressed by a school like UNC (though UVA has a very good reputation) but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a great school.</p>