@harvik, For both Stamps and Nordenberg the first part of the process is for semifinalists to all be interviewed by March 1.
@learning19, Congrats on the Scholarship! Pitt Honors notification comes later - if they applied by November 1 they will hear about Pitt Honors by January 12. Scholarship recipients are not automatically admitted to Pitt Honors. The Chancellor’s Scholarship is offered through Pitt Honors, so those semifinalists will be invited once they are admitted to Pitt Honors. There are no additional scholarships that you need to apply for at Pitt. In the new year, our searchable database for departmental and endowed scholarships will be available through my.pitt.edu. More information about that will come - but that database is for enrolled students and the awards go out I. June, after the May 1 deadline to commit to Pitt. So it’s not something that you will be able to use in your admissions decision. Of course, we always encourage students to apply for scholarships in their community or ones they find on College Board or Fastweb as well.
@blazinamazin2023, No, we don’t post it in the portal. Notification comes via email to those with an international address. Everyone else gets a letter!
@hailtopitt1787
Is employment considered for merit scholarships? My son works 4-5 days (25-30 hours) a week after school and on weekends at a restaurant. He doesn’t have time for a lot of school activities.
“That is correct, they will start reviewing Pitt Honors applicants after the November 1 Priority Deadline for Honors Consideration and those who meet that November 1 deadline will hear back by December 15 at the latest.”
To clarify, our application went in 11/5, so we missed the Honors deadline - correct?
@Usc5678, Hello! Academic performance, the strength of curriculum, SAT/ACT scores, and the Short Answer Question responses are the biggest factors for scholarship consideration. After that, what a student is involved in outside of school - including work and extracurriculars - are given secondary consideration. Hope that helps clarify!
If my child filled out one of the short answer questions and has now been admitted, can he go back and complete a few more to improve his scholarship chances or is it too late for that/
Has anyone else who is waiting to hear from honors program also not been given any merit aid? I’m wondering if there is some connection between that decision and merit aid decision since there are some pretty significant merit offers being given out already and I can only assume that the honors recipients fall at least as high academically if not higher than those who have received rewards. We’re totally new to this whole process so just trying to sort out any logic that may exist.
@doge123 my daughter is in the category you describe - admitted, waiting to hear about honors program and no merit offer at this point. I’m hoping that we receive something soon.
I say this with all respect and kindness, but I’ve watched almost 3 years of Pitt merit and one thing does not really change: Every year people post and hope for merit and yet their stats are not at the levels typical for Pitt merit. It is easy to explore this for yourself by looking at previous merit threads and by also clicking on the Pitt website.
Do you have an SAT/ACT of 1480 or ACT 33 and and unweighted GPA that indicates almost all As? If yes, then likely you will get some amount of merit. The actual amount awarded can vary and is not easy to predict but generally those within those levels get some amount of merit from Pitt. Diversity scholarship amounts are harder to predict and not as formulaic.
But every year there are those who hang on until the end, hopeful that their kid will be awarded some merit even though their stats are below the levels at which Pitt merit is generally awarded and they get very upset about it. Don’t be that parent.
Totally agreed to @carachel2 and @LuckyCharms913, as parents we have to face the reality that it is tough to get merit-based scholarships from top public universities.
Just sharing because it might help someone waiting–DS received his merit award letter yesterday, right at 3 weeks after his admission decision on 11/15.
@carachel2, LuckyCharms913 and J2H239 - Thanks for the reality check, but yes, I’m well aware of Pitt’s rank and ranges for merit money. My daughter has a 33ACT, 95 unweighted average, 5 APs already (with four 4’s and one 5 on the exams) and she’s enrolled in 5 more AP’s this year. Her high school doesn’t do ranking, but she would be quite high up there. She has a lot of extra-curricular participation with honors and leadership experience, captain rank in two sports as well as multi-year employment. … Please stop being patronizing in the name of “being real”.
My daughter received a letter from Pitt with merit scholarship info. $15K/year! Considering that we are a full pay family, this is such a wonderful surprise! More money remaining for (hopefully) med school.