Applicants who submit their application by Dec. 1 are automatically considered for merit. If you are in state, you need to complete a separate application to be considered for the Stamps or Nordenberg Scholarships. See PA Scholars Application | University of Pittsburgh for more info.
Got in October 25th for Swanson
Got 10k a year in state today
4.0 1570 11aps
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My daughter was accepted to Swanson. In state. No SAT/ACT score submitted. Merit received today was $10,000/year.
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My son was accepted to Swanson on 10/24. In state. SAT reported. Merit received today (10K/year). First acceptance/merit so far.
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My son was accepted mid October and got merit 10k/ year few days ago. He had applied in mid September. Is that true if you apply early like on August 1st you may get upto 20k per year
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I believe last year people were still getting large awards after applying much later than August 1.
So I am very skeptical it would have made any difference if your son applied earlier.
As we also discussed last year, it appears Pitt is using some sort of complicated yield model to allocate its merit budget in ways that will most efficiently serve its enrollment goals. If that means more, less, or no merit offer for you, it isn’t personal and you probably couldn’t have done anything different. It is just the model assessing efficient allocation based on the sorts of information you had no choice about reporting.
DS applied 9/27 and received $20k/ yr. OOS engineering - seems as though engineers are getting decent aid
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For those who have been following Pitt merit for a few years, is there any correlation between receiving max merit award and later being invited to interview for chancellors?
I note this is one of many pieces of evidence cited in favor of the yield model theory of Pitt merit. Pitt Engineering is very good, but it also faces intense in-state competition from Penn State, as well as strong regional competition from the likes of Ohio State, Delaware, and so on. So it does make sense Pitt would see throwing some more merit money at the Engineering students which it really wants as particularly important/useful.
Of course they can’t afford to give out $20K/year to every Engineering student, nor indeed $10K. So even that they will presumably target however they see it being most efficiently used.
I don’t remember anyone making such an observation, but of course the sample size would also be tiny.
The one thing we do know is you need to be admitted to Honors. But beyond that, I am not sure if anyone has ever detected any sort of information to be gained from the size of ordinary “University Scholarship” awards and such.
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$10K p/year scholarship
Applied test optional OOS
Dietrich
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Congrats!. When did you hear? I haven’t seen many Dietrich merit awards here recently
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S25 also received an award from Dietrich this week.
$15K/year
SAT submitted
OOS
Applied early Oct
Accepted late Oct
Merit mid Nov
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Thank you!
Accepted 9/23 to Dietrich.
Merit notification email was received to check portal on 10/24.
Fingers crossed for all incoming students!
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My S25 achieves very well academically and is very intelligent, but a downright procrastinator (gets it from me; I work best under pressure). We had to pull teeth to get him to start his college apps, which he finally completed by 10/1. Got accepted to Pitt Dietrich on 11/5, but told merit would might be awarded before March 2025.
Seeing in this thread all the happy messages of applying in August, etc and many generous merit offers already. I’m aware that Pitt has rolling admissions, and is overall stingy with aid, but have we already missed the boat on available merit?
In-state, 4.73 weighted, many AP 5’s, 1450 SAT, many activities, leadership, marching band.
I would say no, as plenty of merit offers still came out after this time last year.
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Keep in mind most bigger merit awards go to oos students to entice them to forgo their affordable in state flagships to attend Pitt.
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Yes, in my circles I know some in-state parents were a bit miffed to see other kids getting higher merit awards despite what they perceived as the relative merits of their kid. They didn’t all buy this, but I tried to share the thought that in a way, all the in-state kids are STARTING with a $20K+ scholarship, courtesy of the state, and then anything else on top of that is a bonus.
But regardless of how you see it, Pitt is observably taking into account residency status when determining awards, presumably for just the reason you gave–it will typically make a bigger difference to their competitive position when they give a big offer to an OOS admittee.
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The only public that didn’t give my kids merit (around 20 or so) was Rutgers, our flagship. Actually Pitt offered only $8000 a year, lower than many.
This is far from a formal study, but my sense based just on kicking around various conversations is Pitt may have one of the most hard to predict, full of apparent anomalies, merit programs around.
To me this suggests that behind the scenes, they are doing something fairly complicated to efficiently allocate merit offers.
And in fact, again just anecdotally, this seems to have become even more true after they announced they would be putting relatively more resources into need versus merit. Which to me makes sense–that if they were going to keep a merit program but also focus more on need, then with the remaining merit program they would really want to make sure it was doing the most it could to promote their goals.
Anyway, bottom line is these days, you just have to see what happens. And don’t take it personally if you are not thrilled with the offer, because it almost surely is not an adverse judgment on your relative merit.
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Is Pitt done giving out merit? I haven’t seen many posts lately