I hope it’s randomness @BlueSnail. Or those of us with lower stats than you are in trouble! Congratulations!
@BlueSnail Back in the spring, the PA governor and legislature ended an almost 9 month impasse over the state budget. I wonder if budget issues have made it necessary to give 20K to some OOS students who would have normally qualified for full tuition in the past. Your current experience compared with your brother 2 years ago gives us some real “hard data.” Thanks for sharing this.
@BlueSnail I suspect that Pitt is getting increasingly competitive with their scholarship applicants, so your engineering class as a whole probably had higher overall stats compared to the class that your brother was part of.
Are scholarships ever awarded to nursing students? If so, does anyone know the common stats for recipients in that major?
Maybe this class has abnormally high credentials. Are most of you NM semi finalists?
I think state schools are learning a lesson from the Temple issues. You have to watch the scholarship $ and manage the finances.
The Temple issue was because it was a guaranteed scholarship based on stats. Pitt doesn’t have any guarantees.
My D is NMSF but I don’t think Pitt had that information until she applied for the Chancellor’s this week.
OOS high stats NMSF son has been offered a 20K at Swanson. Honored that an OOS public have offered him this scholarship and that we have a college that can be given some thought alongside the in state option. However the offer puts us on the upper limits of our budget ( travel costs will be an issue). It would be interesting to know whether this shift ( if true) from full tuition awards to more 20K offers for top applicants in engineering has an impact on their acceptance rates. Beginning to wonder if they’re actually still offering OOS full tuition for Swanson engineering anymore.
@m139pl - When did you get the letter? Also, which state?
I think merit has been used by many universities to drive up stats of incoming classes and to the extent merit is not needed to attract that population because of whatever - then why shouldn’t they put that into shoring up whatever necessary to be less dependant on state funding - which is always a variable they cant depend on…
@m139pl … Is Pitt a top choice? When he visited campus what did he feel specifically drew him to Pitt?
If you received the Chancellor’s scholarship invitation, and Pitt is a top choice, I would definitely apply.
@Jess80808 when did u apply and when did u get admission.
@SuperSILS when did u apply and get admission.
On another thread, @hailtopitt1787 graciously just posted the link to the Pitt 2016 Fact book with more than a hundred pages of numbers. http://ir.pitt.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Fact-Book-2016-3.pdf
For those of us interested in engineering merit scholarships, from page 34 you may note that the undergraduate population of engineers at the Pittsburgh campus has shot up 28% in only 5 years from 2323 to 2973.
Maybe this recent surge in popularity in Pitt engineering is the reason why Pitt does not seem to need to give full tuition merit scholarships to OOS engineering applicants who might have gotten them in the past. (When I see @JemmaSimmons posting stats with a 36 ACT and a #1 ranking in a class of 389 not getting a full tuition scholarship, or similarly with @BlueSnail, I started to temper my son’s hopes a little.)
Of course, I could be completely wrong. It wouldn’t be the first time. 
Again, good luck to all.
The 2017 NMF’s’ will not be notified until Feb. 2017.
Does anyone know approximately what percent of incoming freshman receive merit aid?
@rsmith0208 I applied on 9/18 and was accepted on 10/12. I should maybe also add that I did not submit any information at all about extracurriculars but I am graduating one year early from high school with 12 APs (all 5s) and about 40 dual enrollment credits from my state flagship. So, at least for me, I think that the merit scholarship decision was purely based on coursework and test scores. Hopefully that helps somewhat…
@Engineering713 Good theory. I think we’ve all started to come to that conclusion, but the numbers help put it in perspective. My D is not an engineering applicant, but I have a feeling it won’t be limited to just those majors. Should be interesting.
It’s things like this that help you to realize why it’s recommended to have at least one safety! Good luck everyone!