Merit Negotiations Possible?

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Pittsburgh
1

<p>My daughter was awarded 25,000 to Pitt and offered the opportunity to apply for the Chancellors scholarship. However, she only had 3 weeks to complete the application and with her other school/ college application commitments she just did not have adequate time to apply. It may not have been the best decision to pass that opportunity up, but it was just too much pressure at the time. </p>

<p>Does anyone know if it possible to negotiate for additional merit at Pitt? We will not be eligible for financial aid. </p>

<p>If it helps to know she scored a 2300 on the SATs, has a 3.8 unweighted, 5APs, a couple of state level awards, President of Mock Trial team, Drama Club and several similar ECs...</p>

<p>Any thoughts or sharing of experience would be appreciated.</p>

2

<p>You could negotiate if some other college that is in the same level as Pitt gave her more money. If not I fear its going to be hard to persuade…</p>

3

<p>I don’t know the answer to your question, but if it makes you feel any better, it sounds like only 2-5% of those that applied will be offered the scholarship. My son almost didn’t apply for the same reason as your D…he was buried. He ended up not doing one for another school.</p>

4

<p>Here’s my standard reply to that question:</p>

<p>Succesful appeals at Pitt, and AFAIK, they are few and far between, come based on:

  1. Direct comparison of bottom line cost at a peer institution (Pitt does not care how much money school X offered, they want to see and compare your out-of-pocket costs.)
  2. They do compare peer institution offers - think public AAU universities.<br>
  3. Major to major admissions. If you were admitted to Pitt Engineering and you were admitted to Comparison U as a liberal arts major, Pitt does not consider that equivalent.
  4. Do your homework, merely saying that you need or want more money is a non-starter. Saying that you need more money since it’s clearly more affordable to go to a peer university gets their attention. Have a copy of that competing offer in hand.
  5. It should clearly understood that the higher your stats and other hooks (URM, geographical desirability, etc,) the better your chances of an appeal.
  6. Pitt wants you to enroll at Pitt. Creating the perception that you are looking at Pitt solely as a safety or a back-up school won’t help. (Hint - saying that your kid didn’t have time to complete the Chancellor scholarship application implies that Pitt is not her number one school.)
  7. Hey, you can always ask. Just don’t assume that you’ll get an increased scholarship.</p>
5

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<p>I know this is slightly off-topic but I just want to point out that <em>everyone</em> only gets 3 weeks to fill out the CS application. You have 3 weeks from whatever day you receive the letter to send it back to them. So your D wasn’t at any sort of disadvantage compared to anyone else offered the application.</p>

6

<p>@QuietType - thank you for a very informative response!</p>

<p>@AwesomeOpossum - I totally did not mean to imply that she was at a unique disadvantage with the 3 week window. It was just one of those moments where we couldn’t pile any more on her plate. And if the consequence is no additional merit - of course that is a consequence we accept. </p>

<p>We are not yet ready to approach Pitt to try and negotiate - we figure the best time to do that is the moment she would be ready to accept the offer if financially feasible. But we wanted to be ready since we are complete and total novices at all this. </p>

<p>Thanks for the comments all!</p>

7

<p>We tried last year but didn’t work.</p>

8

<p>They used to only give two weeks for that very involved app.</p>

<p>So is Pitt now offering $25k rather than full tuition?</p>

9

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<p>The $25k might be a combination of different scholarships. I know I got the $10k “half tuition” plus a $2k SSOE “Book scholarship” bringing my total to $12k for a given academic year. IIRC there are people in various threads this year who have gotten the blanket “Full tuition” scholarship.</p>

10

<p>My son’s said “full tuition,” not a specific dollar amount.</p>

11

<p>You won’t be eligible for financial aid and you got a scholarship that brings the cost down to around $10K/year, but you want even more? Do you have some other academic alternative that will be totally free? Shouldn’t the school spread it around a little?</p>

12

<p>Full tuition is nice because tuition goes up and so does the scholarship. I know Pitt has offered $15k in the past, but I had not heard the 25 number and 25 is close to OOS tuition. Just nosey.</p>

13

<p>IMHO if you are getting $25k a year at a school that has the reputation that Pitt has. BE THANKFUL! Even though it’s not full tuition, it’s very close!</p>