<p>I think that people who applied later in the cycle are far less likely to get merit money. Basically they’ve given out all the awards and the criteria get far more stringent. When my son applied, it was in early September and he got full tuition notice by November!</p>
<p>Swimmerjames, what state are you from? We are in New York. Maybe the state has something to do with it. </p>
<p>D applied relatively early (November) with a superscored ACT of 33 and GPA 3.8, but her rank is top 30% because her school weights AP’s so heavily and she didn’t take any until this year. So we think it was probably her rank, but obviously some people are getting OOS money with lesser stats, according to the posts here, so maybe it’s the state we’re from. Probably lots of people from NY.</p>
<p>sylvan, I’m from nj
my rank and AP situation is the exact same as yours, I am planning on calling the admissions office today after school</p>
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<p>The state, and when you apply, have a LOT to do with it. A lot of Pitt students who are not PA residents tend to come from neighboring states: mostly Ohio, New York, and New Jersey, with a lesser amount from Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia. It is definitely harder to get money from these states compared to, say, California, Florida or Colorado. </p>
<p>Also, it is easier to get money when applying in September compared to December or January. Whenever they give out money (first-come first-serve since admission is rolling) it’s gone. The sooner you apply, the more money they still have to give out.</p>
<p>I got a financial aid award that was described as “University Pitt Grant Freshman” for a little over 11k. Is this a scholarship or something else?</p>
<p>Swimmerjames, I will be interested to hear if you have any response from admissions on this. </p>
<p>AwesomeOpossum I am surprised to hear that an Honors class would have 120 students. Isn’t the point to have smaller class sizes? 120 is still a monster class (I know, I’m an adjunct and have taught at several schools).</p>
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<p>Not at Pitt. Your core classes (Calc, Physics, Chem, Bio, Psych 1) often go as high as 300 students. Being at 120 was a small class (and honestly it didn’t feel big to me). Dropping down to 49 in the spring felt very small.</p>
<p>FWIW my UHC Physics class was about 90 and my UHC Engineering class had to be capped around 85 (originally had >100 people signed up).</p>
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<p>That’s a grant (ex. generally government paid scholarship). You get it for the 2013-2014 year but you’ll need to reapply with FAFSA every year to get more grant money (IIRC). You should contact OAFA and ask them to make sure that you have to do this (as opposed to thinking it will automatically come to you every year the way a scholarship would).</p>
<p>Thanks for the info!</p>
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Anyone with less than 1450/33, 4.0, top 5% who got OOS money got financial aid grants, not merit scholarships. This from the office of scholarships and financial aid itself.</p>
<p>@sylvan8798 The award I listed was a $10k merit scholarship. My D also got a $5.5k financial aid loan.</p>
<p>We applied in November as well no full tuition. Which was still a bit pricey. If I remember correctly we got $12k. S was 4.6 weight GPA 34 super scored ACT and top 2%, urban school class of 550. He ended up going to Cal close by and got a $5k grant middle class scholarship or something. Price was about the same once you factored in OOS tuition etc. Very hard choice. I do think if we had applied even earlier our chances would have been earlier. I think we applied Nov 30th. Sigh the people were very nice when we applied. btw MechE major, wants to dual major we’ll see.</p>
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Perhaps your D is a lot closer to the overall “cutoff” than mine, even with D’s ACT superscore, especially since D was not offered automatic eligibility for the Honors College either.</p>
<p>Otherwise, I can well imagine the financial aid office lying to me just to get rid of me without any need for discussion.</p>
<p>Does Pitt allocate a different number of scholarships for in state vs out of state students, or are they all in the same pool? I received 12k in scholarships with a 33 act/2250 sat and I’m out of state. It seems the requirements were the same for everyone, no matter where they live.</p>
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<p>Absolutely. OOS students are much more likely to get a scholarship since the cost of attendance is much higher than IS students. I know a lot of the scholarship winners from my year were OOS (there were a few IS ones, but they also received smaller amounts).</p>
<p>Q about OOS merit aid and timing. If D applies early and receives acceptance and merit offer, is there also an early deadline for committing to the school? Or can D wait until April when all offers are in so she can weigh them and decide?</p>
<p>The deadline would be May 1 so you can wait until all the offers come in.</p>