I recently received a letter from Pitt asking for my first semester / mid-year grades. With the end of the semester, I ended up with a 4.3 weighted GPA with a B in Calculus, A- in AP English IV, A in Honors Physics, and an A in an elective class, college research. I also have a 31 superscore on my ACT, and my cumulative GPA is a 3.77. In addition, I applied to Swanson. How will my 4.3 GPA this semester affect my chances of getting in and, overall, am I a strong candidate for Pitt engineering? Thank you very much.
Is that 3.7 your cumulative weighted GPA? if so, that is very low in comparison to SSE’s normal range. You certainly have a chance because of your solid performance this semester, but that chance is probably not that large. Best of luck! I think you can add a letter of continued interest (by mailing it separately, ask guidance counselor) to up your chances of reconsideration, they want students passionate about their school, so if you express that, it may make up for some of your slightly lower statistics.
@PAwind98 Thank you for your honest advice. If my cumulative weighted GPA moved up to a 3.81 with my most recent semester factored in, would that put me in more of a competitive position? Also, how do admissions statistics of SSE, in terms of GPA, differ from the overall admissions statistics at Pitt as a whole?
I’m in the same situation as you but with better GPA and worse test scores.
I have a cumulative 3.97 weighted GPA (from freshmen to junior year) which equates to around 3.75 unweighted GPA for my classes, but it’s not calculated on my transcript. Test wise, I took the May SAT and scored 1310, which is 30-40 points below the average for Swanson, and thus I received the same letter that Pitt sent you.
Since then, I’ve taken the December SAT and scored 1380, which is 30-40 points above the average for Swanson. I submitted this score to Pitt but I haven’t heard back yet.
I’ve seen applicants with similar scores to my current application (3.97W GPA, 1380 SAT) accepted to Pitt without requesting mid-year grades, so that must have been around the cut-off to be accepted for the first admissions review.
Also, applicants who submit new test scores to the Admissions Office are automatically reconsidered in the admissions process, despite not having mid-year grades submitted. So I should hopefully see an update in my application process within the next week and I’ll let you know if I got accepted since our grades/scores are similar.
@CGG444 Yes that will put you in a better position. Although Pitt does not release middle 50% freshman GPA, SSE certainly has the most selective/highest of all the undergraduate schools. This is assumed by their average SAT score being almost 100 points higher than all the others. I am very familiar with Pitt, as I live 30 minutes away, and many students/peers have gone. If I were to give you an estimation, based on personal experience and Testing Stats, I would say the middle 50th percentile for GPA in SSE is 3.9-4.25, give or take a 0.1. (23% SSE FYE receive merit based awards so their scores would have to correlate accordingly). Hopefully this helps alleviate the stress of being left in the dark I’m sure you are feeling! We all are, you definitely aren’t alone xD
Question? Looking at my test scores on the psmobile site, I see that the converted ACT to SAT I assume states a 83 percentile. My new SAT scores are 40 points higher but only marked as an 84%. Does anyone have an idea what that percentile is based on or what it is used for?
@PAwind98 Thank you very much! You have been a huge help to me and I deeply appreciate it. Best of luck to you as well!