<p>My son's friend was told by Pitt that they needed to see this. What exactly are they looking for and what determines admission from this point ? This particular student scored</p>
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<p>1200 on his SAT's however he is somewhat unmotivated and at times, slacked off during h.s. I thought my son's admission to Pitt was rewarding and showed that his hard work and personal profile during h.s. was attractive to Pitt. However, if his friend is admitted I will question exactly what Pitt is looking for in a prospective candidate. Any thoughts ?</p>
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<p>Every school has a range of students that it accepts. And you don't know if Pitt will ultimately accept this "slacker" student or not. Because it asked to see midterm grades, he must be on the fence. Sometimes admission to one of the branch campuses is offered too.</p>
<p>I would not be so quick to judge. My daughter received the same letter. Her high school does not weight for honors courses (she has taken 10). She has also taken 3 AP classes. Because her school does not weight, her GPA is on the lower side, 3.45. Obviously, it would have been much higher if she had taken regular college prep courses or if her GPA was weighted. However, she scored a 2000/2400 on the SAT test. </p>
<p>What they are looking for is that the student maintained a challenging schedule and kept up their grades. Other colleges take students off their waitlist or give summer admission. This does not in any way take away from the accomplishments of students who got in during regular admission. There will be students at Pitt who have higher scores and grades than your son, but that doesn't mean that your son in not worthy. The same applies for those who have lower GPAs than your son.</p>
<p>psualum80, I applied in August and Pitt asked for my first-quarter grades.</p>
<p>Up through junior year I had been a slacker in high school and ended up with a 3.06 GPA but with some nice test scores (2010-SAT, 34-ACT). I worked as hard as I could first quarter and ended up with a 3.7 GPA. The improvement in my first-quarter grade probably put me over the top and gave me an acceptance letter.</p>
<p>Also, if you have any recommendations, essays, a resume of your activities/jobs, send those to Pitt too even though they don't require them. I sent them in along with my first-quarter grades. I don't know how much they evaluate them but it may put a borderline student over the edge.</p>
<p>Good Luck!</p>
<p>Thank you both for your comments. We will see what happens. I haven't heard of students from our h.s. (philly area) attending Pitt branches only PSU branches. If he does get accepted and goes I keep telling myself that my son has a reallly good work ethic and will continue it, I am sure-- even if his friend is there. And BlueHen-- I know for certain that this boy is not in the same category as your daughter. He hasn't taken any APs although 3 years of varsity lacrosse could sound like a reason for not keeping up with grades.... ? Your daughter sounds like she is a hard working student and enjoys challenges.</p>
<p>pierre0913 thanks for your input. what area are you planning to study at pitt ? it sounds like you are a capable student if you put your mind to it !!</p>
<p>I am not sure if I am going to be at Pitt next year. Clemson and Virginia Tech are in front of Pitt on my list but if I get rejected from both schools I would not mind at all going to Pitt. I loved the school when I visited.</p>
<p>I plan on studying civil engineering with either a chinese or history minor wherever I go to school.</p>
<p>psualum80
I don't know how you son managed to get accepted at Pitt-Oakland and not at PSU-UP, but if you look at the 2008-2009 common data sets for both schools for the freshman who actually enrolled, both GPA and SAT numbers are higher at Pitt. If the links work, you can find them here: C</a>. Freshman Admission and <a href="http://www.ir.pitt.edu/cds/documents/PittsburghCDS2008_2009WEBCOPY_007.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://www.ir.pitt.edu/cds/documents/PittsburghCDS2008_2009WEBCOPY_007.pdf</a></p>
<p>Penn State link didn't work, it's on the Penn State budget site, or you can just go to their home page and search on common data set.</p>
<p>knownaught, i appreciate your research here. this puzzles us also but i was told by admissions at psu that they had an extremely high end applicant pool this year which, i believe, booted my son out. i was able to open the link you sent me and saw there is a wait list, however, admissions there told me there wasn't (?). anyway, we are very happy with the acceptance to pitt as my son was enrolled in october in the business school.</p>
<p>PSU is more selective than Pitt because of its large applicant pool</p>