Starting a new thread as the parent of an admitted Pitt Fall 2022 kid. D was admitted to SCI – major is Comp Sci, but she’s not sure that’s where she will end up as she is also interested in many other subjects.
We are in California so one of the reasons she applied OOS is because so many majors in our state schools that she’s interested in are impacted and it’s really hard to switch into one of those full majors.
At Pitt, she’s interested in exploring these other areas, either as a possible major or minor:
Astronomy (A&S)
Econ (A&S)
Information Science (SIS)
Japanese (A&S)
Neuroscience (A&S)
Philosophy (A&S)
Physics (A&S)
Physics & Astronomy (A&S)
Studio Arts (A&S)
Creative Writing (A&S)
Korean (A&S)
Applied Statistics (A&S)
@Winky1@aheltzel@hopeinnewhope (hope it’s ok to tag you?!) and other current parents (or students!): Can you please share how hard it is to change majors, both within a college or between colleges? How hard is it to even try out classes in these other majors – are intro classes so full of students already in the major that they’re closed off to other kids? Is it hard to double major or minor at Pitt? Is it easier for Honors College kids to change majors (she’s still on waitlist).
She’s been asking at virtual sessions (they said it’s not hard, though extra administrative steps to switch between colleges) and will ask more when we visit next week, but I wanted to check with the CC folks who know more of the reality of how hard it is to explore and change your mind at Pitt. Thanks for your help!
My experience is entirely within A&S. Students inA&S don’t have to declare a major until the end of sophomore year. Majors are open to all though sometimes introductory courses must be taken before declaring. I’m not aware of any that are capacity controlled or have a GPA requirement.
Switching between schools is harder. My son looked at switching into business from A&S and there were so many prereqs that he was unable to do it without taking another year to graduate. I would expect that switching out of SCI into A&S would be easier.
The main problem I see with all those possible majors is that she is probably not going to have enough free space in her schedule to try many of them. I’m guessing she will have two free courses a semester to try different things.
From what I have observed with my daughter and other students, changing majors depends on what you want to do. Within schools it doesn’t seem to be a huge issue. So if your daughter wants to switch to a different focus in SCI that would be reasonable. It also appears that switching into the Dietrich Arts &Sciences is easier than the reverse. The other schools are much more specialized, so as someone else said it might require an extra year or semester to get all the required courses. One good thing is that all students can take any prerequisite classes. So for example for students that are in A&S or even undecided can take the business or engineering prerequisite classes. That is often the advice given to students who think they may want to switch to engineering but didn’t get accepted as incoming freshman.
As to freshman classes or other common intro classes, being in the honors program will offer great benefit because you do get to register for classes before everyone else. However, my daughter brought about 30 credits in with her. As a result, she actually was able to register at the end of the sophomore registration. Registration time is determined by credits completed. She has been very lucky to get the classes and times she wanted because of this. She applied to Pitt super late so didn’t get to apply to the honors program.
There are many students that carry a major and minor or even double major. It’s easier with some fields than others. It’s easier if you are in A&S than other schools because of the crossover of the Gen Ed requirements. She has heard that it’s harder for the engineering students or other more specialized majors such as nursing because your schedule is very full with required classes. My daughter is in the 5yr dietetic program, but because she had several dual enrollment credits, she is able to fit in a Spanish minor. It has been up to her to make it happen. She has had to take it upon herself to meet with her generic advisor, the nutrition advisor and the Spanish advisor to make sure she was on the right track.
Thank you that is very helpful! I’ve heard Business is hard to get into at many schools, so I can see that would be hard to switch into easily. I hope he is happy with the major he stayed in?
Good point, especially with a CS major to start. Hopefully after starting classes, she’ll be able to narrow things down a bit and won’t want to try out every single major she finds interesting! Thank you!
Wow, thanks for all the info, that is very helpful (and we’re not even on FB! ).
Wow, I don’t think that happens at our state schools. This, IMO, is how college should be.
That’s great! Did they accept AP credits too or just the dual enrollment credits?
Yes, I think CS programs tend to be very heavily prescribed so it may be harder for her to minor or especially double major, and especially outside of SCI or similar program. But your D is really pulling it off! It sounds like she’s got herself set up really well, she’s so impressive!
I will share your and @me29034 's feedback with my D. Thank you both!
Pitt seems to be very generous with giving credits for dual enrollment and Ap credits. We were surprised that they took all my daughter’s dual enrollment credits. You definitely want to have your student contact the registrar office to see what each Ap class will cover. Then look at the course requirements in her specific major. Usually if you dig deep enough you can find a specific 4 yr education plan for her major. Then you will have a good idea which courses she can get credit for, but also if there will be room in the schedule to pick up extra courses of interest. Depending on how dedicated your student is, you can get approval to take a course load over 18 credits. I caution that that definitely requires dedication on the student’s part and don’t recommend if you have lots of work intensive science/lab classes. Also, many students will take Gen Ed’s at community colleges over the summer to allow for more room for major specific classes during the year.
My youngest will attend Pitt in the Fall, though I also have a 2020 Pitt grad. She did not change schools within Pitt, but one of her good friends did, from A&S to Business. It seemed she did that fairly easily, though perhaps she attended Pitt at a different time than me29034’s son, or she might have come in with AP credits that helped - not sure. Also, I think she realized that she wanted to switch to business from the start, so she took the applicable courses first semester, and switched at end of freshman year,
My 2020 kid came in with over 30 AP credits. Pitt is fairly generous with AP credits, so that can clearly help.
I think the key to transferring into business is to know that you want to do that from the start and take the right courses. In my son’s case he started thinking about it too late and would have been playing catch up. He ended up double majoring in political science and communications and seems happy with his choice except the job prospects would have been better from business.
On the subject of switching majors, many majors have a set of intro courses that must be taken. If you decide early and stay with a major, these fall into your schedule easily. If you decide late it is more difficult.
While this is a little off topic, scheduling classes is not always as easy as you think. It’s not that you can’t get in, though that happens, but more that classes are at the same time. This happens a lot. Scheduling classes is like doing a jigsaw puzzle where you are trying to fit everything in, and availability keeps changing by the minute. Even my son who is going to be a senior next year had this problem. He wanted one specific capstone course but there were only 16 seats. He’s on the waitlist, but in the meantime registered for a different one. This means two blocks of time in his schedule were gone. Then he had to fill in around those with the best combination of what fit, met his remaining needs, and sounded interesting. He isn’t taken exactly what he wants, but you can’t be in two places at the same time.
Sorry it has taken me a minute to respond. I don’t think it’s difficult to double major or minor at Pitt. But I do think if you are well down a path of 1 major and you switch to something totally different, it could be difficult (even within Dietrich). But that would be because you are well down the path and have taken lots of specialized classes. However, I think with some planning, it could be easy to dabble in many areas early on AND fulfill the Gen Eds needed for graduation. You could easily take an intro to philosophy, a psych stats class, studio arts, Stars, Galaxies and Cosmos, and still be fulfilling gen eds with all of them. But a neuroscience class, I don’t know what that would fulfill. So my advice would be to work closely with her advisor. But also, look hard at what needs to be fulfilled and what classes she has to choose from before meeting with an advisor.
The CS BS degree at Pitt SCI requires 15 credits in upper-level elective courses, which is almost enough for a minor. I’d check out minor requirements from some of the areas she’s interested in!
I know this is off topic but my DD hs junior is applying to Pitt CSI and wondering about her chances. She has 4.25 GPA and 1430 SAT, right in the 50th percentile. How does this compare to your DD? Feel free to PM me. Thanks so much.
D’s stats were
3.95uw / 4.31w
10 AP’s rest mostly honors
1560 SAT
I’d strongly recommend your DD get in her application really early. We’re from California so Pitt wasn’t even on our radar until late so she didn’t apply until Dec 1.
Didn’t get any merit and waitlisted for Honors. From reading the 2022 admissions thread, it seems SCI kids didn’t get as much merit as others.
We loved Pitt and it was one of her top choices in the end. What really helped our family thru the process was creating a post on the “College Search” forum and asking for advice on schools to apply to, especially for CS which you’ll find is really competitive. The experienced CC posters really gave us a lot of good info and advice.
Thanks so much for your reply. We’ll need to figure out whether or not to submit scores. Something you guys didn’t need to worry about lol. Good luck to your DD as well! Must be such a relief to be done
Yes it’s a relief to be done! I think a 1430 is really good and from what I’ve read on CC, I’d submit if it’s in the 50th percentile. The issue for all kids now is because most are only submitting if their scores are high, the range is going to get tighter and higher at test optional schools. In my mind it’s crazy to think 1430 might not be good enough to submit, but I understand the concern.
My D had a good score, but she actually ended up picking a school that didn’t even see it! She’s going to Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and they’re test blind not even test optional.
I replied to your other thread as well, but have closely followed a lot of the Class of 2026 applicants. I can’t stress enough to get the application in early. Many kids with high stats who applied in December/January were not accepted. I think her stats will get her in, but the earlier the better. Plus with rolling admission, it is awesome to get that early fall acceptance to breath a sigh of relief!!
Thanks so much (twice lol). I really appreciate it. Want everything ready mid July so she can submit Aug 1, as soon as it opens. I agree…having everything settled earlier is best. I saw they only accepted 250 CSI school students. That seems like a very small number
Wow, didn’t realize the #s were so small – I’ll tell my D as she was pretty bummed about all the other CS rejections and waitlists. I loved Pitt and would’ve picked it myself.
Sounds like you have a good plan – good luck to your DD!!
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