Should I apply to Pitt?

QuietType
Thu, 01 Oct 2009 10:55:53 +0000

For class sizes, the answer is, it depends. My daughter’s two honors biology classes her freshman year had 12 and 9 students. Her non-honors chemistry course had about 150 - I believe the honors sections had about 60. (She got boxed out of the honors course due to some last minute schedule changing - her fault, not the school’s) As you can see, there is some advantage to taking honors courses, if you qualify. (By the way, you do not have to be in the honors college to take honors courses - you have to have a GPA above 3.25 and permission from the instructor.)
I think that you will find that at ANY research-based university, the introductory science classes will be relatively large with > 75 students per class. That was true many years ago when I was in college and it remains true today.
One way to make the class seem smaller is to make sure you talk to your course instructor, not just the recitation seminar TA. They all have office hours, if you can’t speak with them at class time.
I think Pitt meets all of your criteria, but I’m sure that there are other schools that would fit as well.