<p>Hi guys,</p>
<p>I was accepted to the Arts & Sciences college today (woo!) but got no mention of UHC or merit aid in my letter.</p>
<p>Am I still eligible for merit aid? 94 unweighted GPA, 35 ACT, good to great essay, and a fantastic recommendation, and I'm OOS which I thought helped. Could my class rank be hurting me? I'm 68/425, which isn't very good, but it's unweighted and I go to a fairly competitive school. Does Pitt account for the unweighted part of class rank?</p>
<p>Is the lack of space for ec's on the app affecting that either? I have two part time jobs, I'm a captain of my school's indoor and outdoor track team, editor of the school newspaper, had a government internship last year...</p>
<p>I'm just confused and kind of upset. I can't really attend Pitt without decent merit aid and I'm afraid I might not be eligible when I thought I was a pretty competitive applicant.</p>
<p>Thanks for any input!</p>
<p>Congratulations on getting in, nova fan. I don’t have an answer for your question. You did receive a letter in the mail, right? That’s where the merit announcement would appear. It does seem a bit unusual that with those qualifications there was no honors or merit. I’d ask the question of the admissions officer on Monday. Maybe honors was full and the merit money was depleted. But this is idle speculation. My condolences. Hang in there. Figure out who your rep is and call him or her on Monday.</p>
<p>I can try to answer this as my daughter is in a similar boat as you. She was accepted into the Swanson School of Engineering- in August- and got the same letter as you it seems (no mention of UHC or scholarship consideration in the acceptance letter), but yet she completely meets the criteria for UHC- EXCEPT for class rank! 
</p>
<p>Her stats are:
GPA: 3.7 UW / 4.5 W
ACT: 34 composite
SAT: 1420 (CR + M)
Class rank: ~ 13% also a very competitive school… In fact, one of the most competitive out of the 29-30 high schools in our county.
Also NHS, several ECs, comm. service, and part-time job. </p>
<p>I called and emailed the OoA and asked about this and was told it was her class rank. They acknowledged she met UHC otherwise, but the engineering school is very competitive and many others meet ALL the criteria (incl. class rank). Although some schools don’t even report class rank so the emphasis on that hardly seems fair. It appears the merit scholarship consideration is similar reqs as the UHC, including class rank! (ugh…) </p>
<p>Anyway, I had her write another letter /essay of why Pitt is her school of choice including their programs, her legacies, etc. and they responded back saying they would reconsider her for UHC after seeing her first semester senior grades. I suspect they think that will boost her class rank but considering she is 82 out of 600 students, one semester is not going to move her from 13% to 10% or less considering all the students above her are also high achieving students. It’s crazy to have her stats and still be as low as 82. </p>
<p>I showed her an article in the college board.com that discusses how class rank is not a reliable indicator of comparing students across the board since schools and grading systems across the nation are so different, and not all even use class rank. Also some feel it penalizes many excellent students who are squeezed out of the top 10 percent of the class and then overlooked by elite colleges. If you’re interested:
[Class</a> Rank & College Admission](<a href=“http://professionals.collegeboard.com/guidance/applications/rank]Class”>Class Rank and College Admission – Counselors | College Board)</p>
<p>@coleman4</p>
<p>I go to a super-competitive high school that doesn’t individual rank, but they do show a GPA distribution and I happen to be in the bottom 14% (LOL)</p>
<p>I think Pitt factors in whether or not the high school is rigorous, as I somehow got into UHC</p>
<p>@neopolis</p>
<p>Our high school is rigorous… in fact, it is one of the top schools in our state. My daughter has taken 8 AP courses and all the rest are honors level so she has the rigor as well. </p>
<p>Based on you getting in with your class rank of 14%, unless your ACT or SAT was a perfect score, all I can say is they must factor in other things such as under-represented minority, outlier state, less competitive school/program within Pitt. – We were told it was her class rank in comparison to others who were accepted to the Swanson School of Engineering, which- as they said- is very competitive.
so clearly they review all the stats compared to others WITHIN the program in which you are applying to, not the university overall. At least that’s how it sounded to us. </p>
<p>But good for you
seriously. I’ve said previously that I’ve seen others on this forum accepted that had lower stats than hers
I’m not ‘angry’ about it - just an observation and a bit baffled. That said, she’s been invited to apply to the honors colleges at the other schools she’s applied to and has even gotten scholarship money already from 2 of them including Clemson (another good engineering school), so while Pitt is her first choice, we’ll have to see how it pans out financially. Since we have 2 kids in college at the same time, they can only go out of state if they get scholarships to help lower the out of state tuitions.</p>
<p>I have gone through this twice and can say that Pitt doesn’t do notifications the same way for everyone. Both my kids had similar stats, applying to engineering. One was given a merit award about 3 months after acceptance, like January - and that was the final offer. The other got the notification about acceptance, then UHC, then merit. All were separate mailings. In the merit award letter, she also was invited to apply for Chancellor’s (didn’t get invited for the interview though.) In the end, we had a better merit offer for her from our state univ. as well as a comparable private. Pitt had a form to request review of competing offers and they were able to bump up her award another $3K/yr. And she got another $4K/yr scholarship, again separately notified, from engineering. So, just because you don’t know yet, doesn’t mean it isn’t going to happen.</p>
<p>@ amandakayak
Thanks for the feedback
When I talked to the admissions office, they said they had not even started review for scholarships yet (that was over a month ago) and wouldn’t start sending them out til December or later. </p>
<p>I haven’t given up hope but I’m basing my previous comments on an email to my daughter from admissions which was not encouraging: (below)</p>
<p>“Your class rank is outside the range for an invitation to participate in the University Honors College. Typically students are within the top 5% of their high school class. This is also true for merit-based scholarships. Competition for merit-based scholarships is even more competitive within the Swanson School of Engineering.”</p>
<p>Based on that email, I can’t see her getting a merit scholarship unless she gets in the UHC. With 2 in college at the same time, unfortunately, money is part of the deciding factor for OoS. </p>
<p>What’s ironic is that she meets and has been invited to apply to the honors programs at other schools with similar rankings as Pitt, but do not emphasize class rank. They look mainly at test scores and GPA.</p>
<p>Coleman,</p>
<p>The true irony is that the College Data sheet on Admissions for Pitt shows RANK as neither very important, nor important but merely considered for admission: </p>
<p>[University</a> of Pittsburgh Admissions Information - CollegeData College Profile](<a href=“http://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/college/college_pg02_tmpl.jhtml?schoolId=85]University”>http://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/college/college_pg02_tmpl.jhtml?schoolId=85)</p>
<p>As I’ve said before, RANK was not king in 2010, but things do change and sometimes with out notice just behaviors change. And we as parents move to catch up.</p>
<p>On an odder note, last week D. (accepted into the Nursing School on Sept 24) wrote the Admissions Counselor who recently visited her school about Nursing School financing, scholarships, procedures etc. and she was told (hold onto your hats…) that Scholarship reviews would NOT begin until next year and all recipients would be notified by March 1 if they received any merit aid. Her earlier letter to admissions back in October after she had been accepted said December and January announcements. </p>
<p>What we do know is that it APPEARS as though the process and announcements have greatly changed. By this time last fall, several Pitt applicants had already received scholarship offers. And thusfar… crickets…</p>
<p>I hope that your daughter’s additional essay/letter helps boost her into the UHC and merit pool because it would be shortsighted of admissions to weigh so heavily on a rank that we know is pretty hard to standardize when you have schools of differing rigor. In the 2 engineering orientations I have attended, engineering stats are pretty high in relation to the overall (SAT M avg. around 710 I believe) but I didn’t know that UHC is offered in relationship to where you stand within the pool of a certain school. Would perhaps an additional email from the GC also help? Might be worth it. I think you are right in needing that UHC status to go back to them with competing offers later. Good luck!</p>