Hi everybody! As of now, these are my top two choices that I can afford. I’m hoping to major in molecular biology/microbiology or possibly business (I’m hoping to combine the two in a career). I can’t find very much information comparing the schools in academics, location, internship opportunities, interaction with professors, and in postgraduate success. I’ve been accepted to both, in-state at Pitt and with a $20,000 scholarship to Miami making them approximately the same price. Thanks in advance for your help!
Miami U is a beautiful classic campus red brick building type school in the middle of nowhere. It’s literally cows, pasture, cows, pasture, parking lot…CAMPUS then pasture, parking lot and cows. I believe there was a 1 block area around one side of campus with a few restaurants and shops. Perhaps we entered from the wrong side or missed a side but that was our view anyway. Miami U has a strong Greek presence if that’s your thing.
Pitt is city, city then CAMPUS a few pretty buildings, one TALL pretty building, big green space/park then museums and then the Carnegie Mellon campus. Campus spills downward from a hill into Oakland. There are many blocks of restaurants, shops and more restaurants and then city busses (free with your Pitt ID) to take you all over Pittsburgh. Pitt is <10% Greek I believe.
I believe both schools have solid academics and every school these days is going to have internships and study abroad opportunities. Pitt is ranked high for NHI funding (I believe ranked 5th or 6th in the country for the amount of research $$ they get) with sooo many hospitals on the campus and within walking distance of the campus I can’t even keep track.
@pkatess Congrats on your acceptances. These are two fine schools. When you visit both schools you will see that they are very different even though they have approximately the same number of students. Pitt is in the City (surprisingly a lot of hills) and has more things to do, whereas Miami is very rural. We visited Pitt in Fall of 2016 and were impressed by the city campus and the nice facilities. It did not feel like a state school. I believe Pitt has the better sciences and premed program with more opportunities for research and internships and shadowing as the renown University of Pittsburgh medical center is enormous and right in the middle of campus. They were doing extensive renovations last year when we visited, a positive sign of modernizing, expanding and investing in the school infrastructure for improvement. Pitt has more rah rah spirit and better sports teams in football and basketball. The Peterson Events center is great for events on campus and the school has a relatively new top notch gym/physical fitness center (Baierl). As for undergraduate business IMO they are both equally good, with Pitt ranked #31 and Miami (Farmer) ranked #45 in the 2018 edition of USNews & World Report. Overall national university ranking has Pitt at #68 and Miami at #78, not too much of a difference. Ibcite to rankings because it gives some sense of perception amongst these two schools. For academic strength of student body I give the slight edge to Pitt, as acceptance rate is 55% versus 65% for MiamiOhio and 52% were in top 10% of high school class at Pitt versus 39% at MiamiOhio.
Thank you so much for your input! I really appreciate it!
@trackmbe3 Thank you so much for your help! I really appreciate it!
@pkatess ----have you visited both?
@carachel2 I’ve visited University of Pittsburgh and tomorrow I will be doing the admitted students day (make it miam) at Miami.