Chances at Pitt

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Pittsburgh
1

Hi!

I want to make sure that Pitt would be a good safety school for me.

Thinking about majoring in Environmental Engineering

GPA: 3.89 (unweighted) and 4.65 (weighted)
ACT: 33 composite- 28 English (10 on essay), 32 Reading, 35 Math, 36 Science
SAT 2: Math 2: 780, US History:740, Physics: 680 (will retake)
IB Diploma Candidate at an IB Magnet School
APs: Gov 4, US History 5, Macroeconomics 5, Microeconomics 5, Lit 4, Enviro 4, BC Calc 4
IB SL: Enviro 6, Chinese 5

Extracurriculars:

Competitive Cycling- race both Cyclocross and Road for 6 years. Cat 4 in Road and Cat 3 in CX. MD State CX Champ for my respected Age category. Equivalent to a varsity Sport.
Team America Rocketry Challenge; founded and competed in this club for 4 years.
National Chinese, Science Honor, and History Honor Society.
History Club

Extra Info:
Essay will be about the special relationship with my physically disabled sister.

Thanks for your time. I am really passionate about Pitt, and just want to make sure it is a solid choice as a safety. Also if you could provide chances for merit scholarships, that would also be much appreciated.

2

Pitt takes ACT english and math and converts them to relative SAT scores - if you could take ACT again and focus
on getting english up - you’d have a
better chance at merit. 35 would translate as 790 but 28 would only be a 630 - that wouldn’t get you above threshold for UHC - which qualifies you for merit consideration. Worth
another try on getting a higher english
score

3

It would be a match rather than “safety” I would think for engineering. I agree retake ACT. GPA is good, how is the class rank? I think honors college eligibility starts at ACT 32 and required class rank is top 5%, is that correct, @amandakayak?

Some other schools that have environmental engineering and offer merit are Allegheny and St Francis University.

4

School does not rank. All they tell us is decile ranks based on weighted GPA. In my situation, all I know is that I am in the top 10%.

5

Our school also just does deciles but I asked our GC to include if my kids were in top 5% in letter (they didn’t want to rank officially beyond deciles but they sure had that data and for Pitt it made a difference for merit fwiw).

6

A lot of schools do not rank (mine did not) so the UHC doesn’t put AS much emphasis on this as it does on the GPA and the SAT/ACT scores. I had a $10k scholarship without ever submitting my class rank.