<p>Does UPitt add more $$ to initial Merit$ they offer. I read some posts last year that few students offered get upped after Initial offering, Sons offer is 10K as OOS, he did not shown any interest, no Essays send since they never request it. We thinking now had he send more stuff he might have gotten more $$. At 10K its very hard to consider UPitt… If its Full Tuition then definitely he would have gone their…</p>
<p>@dadfor2014 - first of all, big congratulations in even getting any merit. When we went to the financial aid office on Saturday, first thing they asked was if D had over 1450 on SATs. When we said no, they said - financial aid only, and that was that. That is a very high cut off and D got $9k from UDel so was hoping for something. $10k would make the difference for us between going and not, but unfortunately that isn’t the way things work…:-(</p>
<p>You can always try for more - we sent them a letter a month ago asking for some merit and I guess the answer was no, but if you don’t ask, you don’t get so give it a shot and good luck.</p>
<p>@myjanda looks like this year UPitt get students with very high stats and I believe their funding was lower then last year so thats why their is Less money available for students. Even at 10K it will be very hard for us to justify going to UPitt when we have couple of OOS Full Tuition. UA , MU Ohio, MU FL.
If Son dosent go I am sure his 10K will be given to someone else in need. I hope you get your 10K or even more since UPitt is a very good School to go to…</p>
<p>@myjanda That is very helpful. My D had 1430, which means she is out of luck, and therefore Pittsburgh is off the list.</p>
<p>Mine had 1450 sat 33 act and did not get merit aid. Still waiting on fin aid letter.</p>
<p>My son’s financial aid information arrived in the mail today. It was as expected and exactly what they showed me last Saturday when we were on campus for an admitted student’s day.</p>
<p>ouch, ctl. I’m sorry to hear that.</p>
<p>still havent got mine…but i live in north carolina so thats understandable</p>
<p>We just got back from Pitt to find my son’s financial aid letter waiting in the mailbox. I had stopped into the Financial Aid office this morning and they said that the letter was mailed on Monday. They did print me out a summary sheet on the spot so we had the information while finishing the rest of our Accepted Student visit.</p>
<p>Experiencing similar things here. S had 33 ACT, national merit finalist and “good” EC’s. Excellent merit scholarships elsewhere to include a full ride at UKy and almost so at 'Bama and UCinci ($5K/year residual cost at both of those), but Pitt mailing today had just an $8K “Pitt Grant”. OOS from Ohio, so too much to go to Pitt at residual of, say $32K? Case’s merit yielded the same residual cost. Oh well, not complaining and counting my blessings for the seemingly hungry second tier state schools that offer more. Saving resources for help with education after undergrad. </p>
<p>My son’s Fin Aid packet arrived today from Pitt. We are OOS. We were pleasantly surprised that they’ve offered 10K University Grant, plus Fed Loans and CWS. Pitt is back on the table for him now. </p>
<p>Ours came in yesterday. I’m out of town so have not seen it. Sounds like a little under 5k for a grant. Which since we are in state will go further. So lack of merit aid came out OK for us at end of day since kid qualified for need based aid. We have fairly high efc so we were suprised and grateful for grant. Hope others also get good news</p>
<p>Ohdad3 sounds like ur kid has lots of options! Has he settled on school yet and thanks jkeil for ur earlier post. Has urs settled on school yet? And since I am out of town and have not seen fa paperwork for myself yet, does anyone know what Pitts projected total ciosts for instate student next year?</p>
<p>The merit money was funky this year- I had a 35 ACT, challenging transcript, good GPA, all that jazz… no merit because I wasn’t top 10% of my class (or top 5%, whatever they say the cutoff is), based on unweighted GPA’s. I only applied because a girl in my school had applied the year prior and got a full tuition scholarship with almost identical everything to me except her GPA was one point higher than mine (on a 100 scale) and thus her class rank was a smidgen higher. Somewhat frustrating because if my school just didn’t release class rank, like some other schools, I could’ve afforded Pitt…but alas.</p>
<p>My financial aid actually wasn’t bad. Only ~5k more than SUNY Binghamton (my state school) and pretty much matched my original offer from Northeastern (less aid from Pitt, but also lower tuition, even OOS). NEU recently tacked on another ~4k or so though in scholarships so that is where I’m headed. Good luck to you all and congrats!</p>
<p>Sons FA pkg came in today, they only Add 3k to the original merit $ as grants plus some Work Study.
We think we still short like 5K if we compare with other schools like UM florida or MU Ohio.
S is honor admit and we were seriously thinking he will get more with his stats of ACT 34, GPA 4.0/4.89 very rigor course work of 15 APs, Top 1% in Class. I am not sure they will match other schools or not. most probably Not…</p>
<p>dadfor2014 - last yr there was a form to fill out and process for comparing offers. they upped dd’s offer by a couple k which made all the difference to us. it was an easy process. I would definitely call admissions and ask what the process is - UM is definitely a comparable offer.</p>
<p>Do you think their appeals process to try to ask for more aid money is geared more for the higher level student?I’d like to go back and ask for a little more help from financial aid but since my son is not at the Honors student level (he’s a decent student but nowhere near the high scores mentioned above). @amandakayak - I couldnt tell if you were just referring more to merit aid and showing comparable offers. We got a nice package from a small LAC but I know Pitt can’t really compete with private colleges and their endowments. My DS really loves Pitt and we’re trying to figure out how to make the numbers work!!</p>
<p>To answer your question @CatMomma, we asked for review of the merit award because we could show net COA was lower at a comparable university. The packaged from the small LAC you mention, does it make net COA lower? If so, I would call and speak to a finaid officer. Can’t hurt to ask and I have always found Pitt’s admissions people very approachable.</p>
<p>@amandakayak - thank you so much for your thoughts. Yes, the COA is waaaay lower at the LAC! That is why the decision is so hard. But we really fell in love with Pitt so we’re hoping somehow it will work out.
I will definitely call the financial aid person I’ve spoken to before although I got the sense that they just looked at EFC and based package off of that. You are also suggesting I call admissions as well? Since he received no merit, I figured they would just tell me to call financial aid.</p>
<p>Oh sorry, the office is “Admissions and Financial Aid” so I just said “Admissions.” Sorry for the confusion and good luck!!</p>