I am in-state , and I have Pitt as my number 1 choice for college next year applying to a CS major. Unfortunately, the sticker price of 33k a lot. So, I was wondering what you think my merit scholarships would look like. I want to get the price down to the 20-25k range if possible without any loans. Is a 10k scholarship reasonable for my stats? I do not qualify for need based aid.
Here are my stats:
3.93 UW GPA (4.5W) with a 1550 SAT
I am a president of a club
I have developed an app that took 450 hours to make, and helps many students struggling with school work (Java Android Development)
I tutor students at my high school
I volunteered at the library for 100+ hours
I am part of Science Olympiad and have a leadership position with a few medals
Part of Investment Club
I took 12 AP classes, with my senior load looking like: AP Physics, AP English, Ap calc BC, AP microeconomics, AP macroeconomics, AP computer science A, AP comparative Gov, and AP Biology
It would be appreciated if I could get an input of what my range of scholarships would look like! Thank You!
Pitt would be a major safety school for you with those stats and ECs. You could apply to an ivy and have a good chance. I’d say you have a really good chance of getting a good scholarship. Just make sure to apply by the Dec 15 deadline. You could also try and go for the full-ride Chancellor’s Scholarship within the honors program.
Thank You so much! This response gives me hope that I can receive a 10k scholarship. In addition, I was planning to apply to UPenn, but I decided not to because of their harsh acceptance rate.
Do you think the acceptance rate will go up for early decision next year because of the coronavirus? If so, I might consider it. You seem very knowledgeable based on your past replies!
There’s honestly no telling what might happen with acceptances because of the virus. If I had to guess, I’d say that less people will apply ED because of financial insecurity. ED is not something you should consider unless you know that you could possibly pay full price. UPenn doesn’t offer merit aid, so if you’re accepted ED, you’re stuck paying full price.
In a normal year I think most of us would say yes, you’ll get some merit $$ from Pitt. Your stats are certainly consistent with what Pitt has given. But this is unprecedented for sure and who knows how the scholarship budget will be affected?!
We will all be rooting you on. You should use this time to create a 100% safety list for both admissions and affordability.
Your Academic stats are a bit better than my DD17. She was extremely involved in multiple groups at school, cheerleading, rowing, youth cheer coach, and hospital volunteer as well as holding two jobs. She has maintained a 4.4 gpa for 4 years. She submitted ACT which was 33. She was accepted at UPenn for nursing, she was also awarded a sizable need based grant there. She felt she’d rather be in Pittsburgh so that’s where she is going. Ivys don’t do merit $ usually. Pitt has $10k+ merit $, Chancellor’s Scholarship, Stamps, and Nordenberg (leadership and academic) scholarship.
Son has a 1510 SAT and a 4.39 weighted and 3.92 unweighted GPA. Nothing unusual about his application compared to similar students with these STATS in terms of APs and ECs, but he did complete a summer internship at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab in AI/Machine Learning and competed on some robotics teams in middle school. My question is whether a slightly higher SAT would make any difference in terms of merit aid from Pitt as an OOS applicant. He’s interested in computer science, engineering or physics, in that order. I know a few years ago, Pitt “advertised” that the cutoff for their biggest awards was 1480 SAT but they’ve changed their website since then to be vaguer. His sister received 25k under the “old system” with a 1570 SAT and slightly higher GPA and she attended Pitt. Thanks.