We are in NJ too. My son is going with pre-PT /Rehab Science in Pitt. I guess major is well known in Pitt and popular so he doesn’t get any merit so far. If he can get 10k, we won’t hesitate a bit even Pitt’s price tag is still higher than others. However, besides Stony Brook offers him presidential scholarship, he also got a 3+3 direct DPT admit from Quinnipiac with extremely generous merits toward both undergraduate and DPT program. That will be very hard to pass on since his end goal is DPT anyway. We always think that he will go to Pitt after visiting last year. Now we are not so sure. 
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Not only Pitt is shifting money from Merit to Need based, but they also made it test optional for merit scholarships. Until a few years ago, you can hardly get anything if your SAT is below 1500, almost impossible. Since, the test is optional now, more number of people become eligible for the reduced pool money. Naturally, the amount will be smaller.
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@antman23 , would you mind sharing your son’s stats and extracurriculars, please? Thank you.
Has anyone recently vistited Pitt and can share if there is a need for a rental car? We are going to the admitted students day in March and besides the trip from the airport to Pitt (which I hear there is a bus you can take) does it make sense to rent? We are looking to get around the city some. I saw in a admitted students day thread from 2010 (!!) that Pitt used to have bus tours of the city. Not sure if that’s still a thing.
So Pitt is located in the Oakland neighborhood, and Oakland has a lot of the major city sights as well. Oakland is then also well-connected by direct bus to Downtown Pittsburgh, where a lot of other sights are located, and also to Squirrel Hill and Shadyside, which are in the opposite direction and are walkable neighborhoods popular with students. The Airport Flyer does in fact go into Oakland.
A truism about Pittsburgh public transit is that it is more or less a spoke system, and Downtown, Oakland, and Shadyside/Squirrel Hill are all on a spoke (actually, it branches from Oakland to Shadyside and Squirrel Hill respectively). As soon as you want to jump between spokes, though, things get complicated. You can walk from Downtown to the North Side, where a lot of other things to see are located, and there are ways of getting over to The Strip (a cool sort of warehouse district), and so on. But it all gets increasingly hard to figure out.
Long story short, though, I think you can definitely fill up a decent Pittsburgh visit based in Oakland and Downtown with only using direct, short bus routes to get around. And really, that will be the stuff most relevant to a Pitt student anyway.
If you want to see other areas in the City, or surroundings, though, then having a car becomes more and more useful.
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Thank you for this!
No bus tour of the city at the November admitted students day.
We used Uber a bit - usually about $12. I find the roads to be a little tough in Pittsburgh - extremely steep at times, with confusing directions. We absolutely loved seeing the city - no regrets!
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Uber should be cheaper ultimately than a rental car. Parking is expensive and can be hard to find or inconvenient especially on busy weekends. You can walk all over the Pitt campus/Oakland and to CMU
From Oakland, you might take a quick Uber to:
- Shadyside to eat or shop (also walkable if you ambitious)
- Downtown or the Strip district to eat or sight see
- Across the river to eat or ride the inclines to sight see
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Last time when we visited, we drove all the way from home. Within campus area, we did not use car. For downtown and incline visit, we drove to incline and parked at PPG parking. It’s $6 for 24 hours. Address is 237 W Carson St, Pittsburgh, PA 15219. You can walk to one of incline stations as well as Union station light rail which can take you into downtown area.
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This comment is a bit misleading about Pitt’s merit awards. There isn’t a predefined “eligibility” and they aren’t necessarily offering more scholarships. As people have explained here and elsewhere, Pitt uses merit awards as an enrollment management tool. The highest achievers won’t necessarily get the highest awards — or any awards at all. They award them to the students for whom the award will move the dial the most in an admissions decision.
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When do we expect to hear about merit?
Pitt has a merit committee that reviews accepted applications on a weekly basis between October and March 1. If an accepted student doesn’t receive merit in a given week s/he is put back into the pile for reconsideration the following week.
Just got accepted with guaranteed admission to the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs. Did anyone else get this or know anything about it? I don’t remember putting anything in my application that would signal an interest in this, but I am interested. Do a lot of people get this sort of offer?
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Was your dc invited to interview this year? I had heard they weren’t doing it this year because of the supreme court decision, but that could be incorrect.
They automatically consider people who apply for certain majors. I was auto-admitted for an MPH. More details on their website.
My S24 received the same invite. It’s automatic consideration.
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We rented a car when visiting for the first time in October. It was fun seeing other parts of the city and it doesn’t take long to drive around because it’s not that big, at least compared to home. All of the bridges make driving more interesting, but it wasn’t too bad. We’ll rely on Uber when we go back for admitted students day, but we plan to stick to the downtown/Oakland/Shadyside areas.
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My DS poly sci major received same. It’s a nice perk, but wouldn’t be the reason he chooses Pitt over other schools.
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Will sending updated senior year grades have any impact on receiving merit?
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It’s late at night. I just happened to see that my D received an email that “you missed an important notification to review” in the document center. What does this mean?
She’s very lazy checking her portal.