Pitt is my top school, but since I am out of state, it isn’t within reach for my family. I received a $15,000 scholarship, but compared to my in-state options, it doesn’t quite work. To be able to attend, I would probably need another $5,000 in scholarship money, but I’m not sure how attainable that is. I don’t want to be raising my hopes up too high.
The only other out of state school that I could use to appeal the number is the University of Arizona, where I received $36,000 in scholarship money. I’m not sure if U of Arizona is comparable to Pitt, but if it is, would giving this number to Pitt make me more likely to get a little boost in my scholarship?
My stats if it helps:
Female from Georgia
1550 SAT
102 GPA (my school doesn’t work on the 4.0 scale)
$15,000 is very good for a Pitt scholarship, you’re not likely to get more. You can try asking for more, but it likely won’t do anything. Was this $15,000 merit, need-based, or a combo of both?
Your Arizona scholarship was a merit award, and might have even been an auto award for your stats.
Pitt has a lot of very high achieving applicants. You are OOS, and very often their awards do not cover the differential between their in and out of state costs. It looks like that’s what happened to you.
If this is a merit award, you can reach out to admissions…and ask if there is any additional merit money for which you qualify.
For merit aid, very often schools don’t care at all what any other school awarded you…because each school has its criteria for awarding merit…and they differ.
Thanks for responding. Pretty sure Arizona was automatic, but I had heard of people using scholarship money from one school to try and appeal a scholarship for another school. I’ll try reaching out anyway, but is Arizona even worth bringing up?
I don’t think Arizona is worth bringing up unless you get desperate, since Pitt is considered more “exclusive” than UofA. Wait until you see your need-based scholarship (if you applied for it), because you might get more money.
Whatever approach you take, do NOT call & scream “Show Me The Money !” into the phone.
Best approach would be to state your concerns as you have done here & share the information about your award to Arizona.
Any other affordable acceptances ?
Any particular major ?
P.S. I ask because you should have at least two or three full tuition & fees scholarship offers based on your numbers alone. Do Arizona & Pitt offer a particular major that is not found at most other schools ? No reason with a 1550 SAT & an “A+” level GPA that you should be worried about affordability.
I’m planning on emailing or calling my local Pitt representative or the Financial Aid Office, but I still don’t know whether to bring up Arizona or not. Other than my in-state schools (which don’t count because of Zell Miller), the only schools I’ve heard back from about scholarships are Arizona and Pitt. Hopefully I get a few more, but not quite sure when I’ll find out.
Yeah, I realized that they’re just making me like an in-state student too. I forgot to mention I’m interested in majoring in chemistry, so nothing fancy that I could claim is unique to Pitt.
I can’t imagine walking away from GT for another state school and paying more for it. Reaches, sure, but without great merit money for your stats, GT is the best school out of these options. GT with ZM will cost you what? What is your life plan with a chem degree?
There used to be a cost analysis process for Pitt in the past, but that was discontinued.
Your tuition cost will be a little less if you are in Arts and Sciences at Pitt rather than engineering. But confirm that your scholarship stays in place if you switch schools at Pitt.
Pitt has supposedly done away with their formal cost analysis procedure. But it wouldn’t hurt to email financial aid to discuss. The problem here is I don’t think you have comparable schools for an appeal.
FWIW, my student was admitted back in 2017 when there was a formal cost analysis procedure. Admitted to engineering, $15K in merit scholarships and was a Chancellor’s finalist but didn’t end up receiving the award. Cost analysis was submitted and received $2,000 more per year.
If you were ChemE I would say you would likely get a co-op after sophomore year and you could pay that $$ from the co-op.
Sybylla, I agree that it’s hard walking away from GT and UGA, which are pretty high on my list as well. I’m not super into chem and I’m considering some other majors that aren’t STEM-based, so I’m wary of going to GT and then feeling trapped in STEM or something. It also just seems super stressful.
And I love love the city of Pittsburgh, and when we visited their open house day, I loved how the Dietrich school seemed set up. They emphasized how you can pursue many different interests and how they make it easy to add a minor/certificate to your major, and I didn’t really see that anywhere else.