One of the biggest bonuses that Pitt offers which I rarely see at other schools is the emphasis of research/industry experience for students. When you are a freshman they begin to stress the importance of summer jobs which are either research related (i.e. with a professor at Pitt or through an REU) or getting a summer internship/co-op. Pitt’s co-op program is extremely well-run. We have connections with loads of great companies that always want to hire our students and rave about the work that they do.
If you don’t want to co-op (it’s not for everyone since your schedule gets out of whack) then Pitt will still help you find summer internship placements or summer research placements. They want to ensure their students are prepared for a career or graduate school by the time they graduate, which a lot of other universities don’t bother with.