<p>First. A Disclaimer. The information here arose from a conversation among three Pitt seniors. Our S. is a class of 2014 Senior who will be graduating with a Neuroscience major and a Chemistry Minor. He was a Chem TA for two years and will be TA–ing again for the Spring semester. He has been working in research in the Neuro lab for two years. In Dec 2010, he was offered a Chancellor interview–deferred because he was offered a full freight courtesy of Helen Faison. He is a big Pitt fan and today believes his experience has been superior. In May he took the MCAT and scored a 36 which he attributes in part to Pitt.</p>
<p>Next–his roommate is an OOS Chancellor recipient majoring in Economics and Chinese. He has studied abroad in Asia twice. Their best friend and neighbor–also OOS–a woman was offered the Chancellor interview --applied and interviewed but was not awarded one. Instead she received a full tuition award. She is an anthropology and Spanish major. She has studied overseas. Both friends are active in the Honors College.</p>
<p>According to them, the now not so new Dean (Strkyer) has been slowly moving to recruit more science and less humanities students. The summer retreat was slashed from travel to an away camp to doing it on campus. Honors housing moved from Forbes to Sutherland–but only the West designated for Honors. In some quarters he is seen as “handpicking” Chancellor Scholars and merit recipients on the basis of an affinity for the sciences and has begun inching away from the diversity in majors of the past scholarship recipients have exhibited. The process of awarding merit aid is slower this year, and the school is now getting enough 2200+ SAT applicants as to push out the formerly considered students 2000-2100ish kids. To me the most provocative part of the conversation was the news that the yield on Chancellors was so low last year that less than a 1/2 dozen accepted --in contrast to approximately a dozen in their class and former classes. The kids said the program is now under fire for its failure to get scholarship awardees to commit. I cannot confirm the numbers but they seemed adamant in their discussion of the yield decline and the brouhaha. </p>
<p>Since this is second hand, one can take it with a grain of salt. But one thing is clear, it’s becoming much more difficult to get the awards and, many students esp of a CC caliber receive them and then turn them down. The whole system is geared to regale the tippy top but I’m not certain it’s very fruitful. To me it leaves the 2000-2100 middle class children in the cold and it does not take much research to know a 2000 is about a 96 percentile, a superior score. They are not chicken feed Dumb R Us teens. That being said I now think many awards may well be simply thrown back into the coffers–not awarded to lower ranked SATs. That is highly likely because most kids have decided where they are going and what they are doing when May rolls around. Offering a family a scholarship on May 15–after deposits are due is problematic.</p>
<p>The kids’ conversation was engaging and interesting. I learned a great deal. </p>
<p>Happy Thanksgiving all!</p>
<p>PS The Dean is a Neuro prof who S. had. He did well in his class but said it was overly abstract and lacking in direct applications. He said it was clear however that he sees himself as a total science guy. He says Mark Nordenburg is more respected. He is the new Chancellor for whom a scholarship fund has been recently named. </p>
<p>First of all, it sounds like Pitt was a terrific place to study for these three students. Second, deans don’t make these kinds of policy moves (i.e., refocusing the best scholarships on STEM applicants) without higher-ups finding out about it. He’ll either be encouraged to go another route or given tacit approval (if he doesn’t have it already). Universities in general are moving toward providing more resources to STEM areas than they did 10 years ago because administrators and financial hoo-has think this is where their financial future lies. They can beg federal and state grants and commercial investment for leading-edge technologies and infrastructure that far outweigh the size of the grants brought in by social scientists and humanists. The institutions the deans oversee get a percentage of this grant money in overhead charges. Admins may do this in part for their own survival and for the survival of their fiefdoms rather than because it betters the educations of all the school’s students. It does not. Recently my university decided from the very top it would make this move. Few faculty were involved in the decision; it was just decided by people whose academic credentials are negligible. I’m not saying a move toward STEM and away from the humanities and social sciences is afoot at Pitt (I’d need much more information), just that it’s a national trend and we should expect to see more of it.</p>
<p>I can’t speak to the scholarships specifically, but I know that one of Stricker’s goal is to open up participation in the Honors College further than what it has been across different student groups and disciplines. There is a belief, and actually there has been feedback from students in the past, that participation in the honors college had been clickish. Also, I believe hard science majors hadn’t participated at a rate that corresponds to their actual numbers throughout the school, so I believe some of the changes in emphasis are directed at bringing in more participation from students in the sciences. I think actually what appears as “inching away from diversity of majors” is likely an attempt to broaden participation across the university.</p>
<p>As far as low acceptance of Chancellor offers, I think may just have a lot to do with the trend for kids to apply to so many different places. Pitt is also getting higher end applicants and competing against a different cadre of schools in recruiting those students than, say, ten years ago. It sounds like Pitt should move its offer timeline up though so that it can re-offer those awards if they are turned down.</p>
<p>As far as institutional refocusing on STEM brought up by the other poster, Pitt is already one of the 10 largest US universities in terms of R&D expenditures. It’s long been a world leader in r&d, particularly the health sciences. Nothing is changing there. Honors college policies and undergrad scholarship priorities don’t affect Pitt’s R&D situation one bit.</p>
<p>We attended the honors program and we were not impressed with the Dean Stricker. Of course, we are comparing him to Doc Stewart who was GREAT! </p>
<p>I’ve heard about the new Dean’s preferences as well as how he is changing the Honors College (and not in a good way). AwesomeOpp. has posted about the new Dean and the direction he is going.</p>
<p>I think certain people choose to be active in the Honors College - others do not. My son is a STEM major - he lived in honors housing the first year, but found other organizations/activities to be more interesting to him than those offered in the honors college. He only took a two-course honors physics sequence, after that he was no longer interested in the honors course selections as they were mostly in the humanities/social sciences. You have to be extremely well rounded to major in the sciences and also want to fulfill your GE requirements in a more difficult honors course which is more writing intensive.</p>
<p>This is interesting. My son is one of those 2100ish kids and a liberal arts/fine arts prospective major. Honestly, I thought his stats were on the low side for the Chancellors but he has not gotten anything on scholarships yet(even a $2000 award) which supports all the above. I am hoping he will get a smaller scholarship. And I can also say he has good but not great stats and by great, i’m talking 2200, maybe 2250 and up for SAT, lots of AP’s, super high class ranking etc. But even with my son’s stats, he has scholarship options elsewhere(some of which are full tuition) and Pitt is looking less attractive if it ends up being 10000 more a year than these other places. And I agree with I think what I considered implicit above, a kid with a 2300 SAT is not that super likely to end up at Pitt. They might but if they get into an Ivy with robust financial aid, they’re likely to go for the ivy. kids like mine might go to Pitt but they might go elsewhere too as they will have admissions at schools ranked higher than Pitt and great scholarships at lower ranked schools. Taking mine again, if Pitt turns around in Feb and offers him money or more money, he will likely have chosen to go somewhere else by then. I can understand why Pitt wants to nab those 2300 SAT kids but it may not be the wisest route as they will lose some of those kids in the high 1900’s to 2170 range if Pitt overemphasizes the outstanding scores and ignores the good stat kids from a scholarship perspective.</p>
<p>and I want to clarify, we are not acting like crybabies in our family regarding scholarships or no scholarships at Pitt. It is more of an economical issue for us and likely lots of other families. We have a fairly high EFC and can afford to uncomfortably send our kid to Pitt without any grant aid. I don’t think we will get much need based aid other than loans. Due to this, if kid can go to other schools that will cost a bit less and have a stronger and better funded dept in his major, that can tip the scale to go somewhere else.</p>
<p>The Pitt scholarships seem to be geared towards students who have the stats to apply to Ivy League and top 20 schools but who do not qualify for financial aid. A lot of families fit into this category- not wealthy yet too much income for FA but can’t write out a check for $50,000 a year. </p>
<p>It may be easier for these kids to get merit money from Pitt than from Emory or Vanderbilt.</p>
<p>Does anybody know the percentage of applicants who meet the minimum scholarship criteria ( top 5% of class, A average, 33 ACT or 1450 SAT, outstanding ECs) but do not get awarded any scholarship money at all?</p>
<p>interesting discussion of the rationale behind and success of Pitt merit, but I want to respond to something wgmcp101 said about Pitt.</p>
<p>wgmcp101 said: “Honors college policies and undergrad scholarship priorities don’t affect Pitt’s R&D situation one bit.”</p>
<p>I don’t have enough information to confirm this, but I suspect you’re right. However, my point was the inverse of what you wrote: that Pitt’s financial, not just R&D, needs affect many academic decisions. As one example: alumni giving. On average, do, say, chemical engineering majors 5 years after graduation have more disposable income than humanities majors? Yes. Does that mean an administration might want to grow its STEM programs? Yes, it certainly does because universities must depend increasingly on non-tuition and non-governmental resources to keep themselves afloat. Administrators spend their lives chasing dollars and as that chase becomes more competitive they change university infrastructure, missions, and policies to get those dollars.</p>
<p>So if a student with the above merit aid qualifications comes in as a science major does that student have a greater chance of merit aid than an English or psychology major?</p>
<p>jkeil, that thought crossed my mind too and from a business perspective, it makes a lot of sense to offer the scholarships to the higher paying majors. twogirls, I have no idea on either of your recent questions. if i find out, i’ll let you know. the first one was a great question. I know Pitt has gotten more and more competitive with admissions so a kid may need a 1500 SAT now practically speaking when a 1400 or 1375 would have gotten scholarship money say ten years ago. I have seen some prior posts in years past with kids with pretty good stats not getting money but I have no clue on percentages.</p>
<p>Believe what you want, but the idea that admissions considers future giving potential by intended major has no basis in reality at Pitt, or most similarly situated schools. Even if they wanted to do that, it simply doesn’t have the luxury of being that selective. And it certainly wouldn’t continue to have a School of Social Work.</p>
<p>Every year this conversation happens when some kids receive scholarship offers and some don’t. Every year the bar is raised due to more kids with great stats applying and hoping for the scholarships. The only people who can answer why one student gets a scholarship and another doesn’t is the scholarship committee. </p>
<p>I don’t believe they award the scholarships based on future earning potential but wouldn’t kids majoring in STEM have the high stats to begin with. </p>
<p>Pitt is pretty much stats driven and if you have the 2400 SAT or 36 ACT, with the GPA and class rank to match — you will get some type of scholarship offer.</p>
<p>The family’s wealth has nothing to with Pitt’s scholarship awards. We never filed a FAFSA for Pitt and received the scholarships.</p>
<p>I can’t remember who said it- but the Dean of the UHC absolutely has a say in which students receive money for Chancellor’s scholarships and which don’t. And I agree with the students from the original post- the push for sciences over humanities is definitely being felt in the UHC, which is a huge concern for many students. For instance, ALL pre-med advising now takes place in the UHC (their offices are up there). </p>
<p>I have many issues with Striker as a Dean. He does cherry pick students. Students who have had him in class or are very friendly with him are always more likely to gain additional opportunities (or even additional scholarships) that the general public is not aware of. This kind of “nepotism” absolutely rubs me, and many other students, the wrong way, and we are very VERY upset by it.</p>
<p>We have had multiple discussions, meetings, etc. to talk about this problem. We had one earlier this year (a group of students addressing the direction of the UHC, why the UHC was a factor in attending Pitt, etc.) and how Striker is starting to take a lot of those factors (community, activities, actual diversity) away. </p>
<p>However, it seems to me (and others) that no matter how many times we talk to Striker or tell him anything, he chooses to ignore us and continue with his own personal campaign. As one person said- you could say that part of that shows when students who are offered full rides to Pitt turn them down to go elsewhere.</p>
<p>Sorry to hear about Dean Striker and how the UHC has changed under his leadership :(</p>
<p>We were not impress with him during the Honors presentation. The facilitator made the presentation bearable (barely) otherwise, we would have left early. I thought maybe it was me but others who were at the same presentation felt the same way.</p>
<p>Thanks AwesomeOpossum, you just confirmed everything my S. and friends were discussing. And although S. is a pre-med Neurology major (Honors College) he too laments the shift.</p>