<p>Are you familiar with the Common Data Set? Long story short, a group of schools thought it would be a good idea to come up with a standard for the information they would report about themselves to folks like the College Board, Peterson’s, and US News. The standard they developed (and still maintain) is the Common Data Set. It’s a good way to make sure you’re comparing apples to apples, so to speak. A lot of “chance me” threads could be answered by referring to a school’s CDS.</p>
<p>Pitt’s 2011-2012 CDS can be found at <a href=“http://www.ir.pitt.edu/cds/documents/PittsburghCDS_2011-2012.pdf[/url]”>http://www.ir.pitt.edu/cds/documents/PittsburghCDS_2011-2012.pdf</a>. First, scroll down to section C7 to find out what Pitt thinks is important. Six academic and thirteen nonacademic factors are rated on a scale of “very important,” “important,” “considered,” and “not considered.” Pitt does something very interesting (to me, anyway): nothing is rated “important”–an admissions factor is either “very important” or merely “considered.” Three things, rigor of secondary school record, academic GPA, and standardized test scores are very important. Almost everything else is merely considered (interview, alumni/ae relation, and religious affiliation are not considered). In other words, it’s mostly about ‘What did you take and how well did you do?’ and ‘How about those standardized test scores?’</p>
<p>The majority of your classes have been honors/AP–that’s a plus. Now scroll down to C11 and C12. Pitt reports the average high school GPA of all degree-seeking, first-time, first-year students was 3.94! I’m guessing that number is the average of the GPAs on the transcript and that some are weighted and some are not. If your 3.8 is what’s reported, you look to be in good shape; it it’s the 3.4, you’re still in-range, but on the lower end.</p>
<p>Scroll up to C9. Your 680 CR is on the high end of the “middle 50%” so you are in good shape there. Your 550 M, though, is in the bottom quarter. Your 31 ACT is in the top quarter! Curious, why will you repeat the SAT and not the ACT since the ACT seems to be your better test? How does that 31 break down? In particular, how is the math component? Pitt is one of a very few schools I know of that will combine components of SAT and ACT to get a hybrid superscore.</p>
<p>Given this information, you are probably as good a judge of your chances as any of us and you don’t even risk someone with too much time on his or her hands making rude comments! For the record, I think if your ACT math is better than your SAT math (or if you improve your result on a re-take), and you don’t let up on your GPA in the time you have remaining, you’re in pretty good shape.</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>