<p>Yeah, it doesn’t sound like a bargain. Wonder if you can use it and then send in an essay later.</p>
<p>Hey AO! I know you said you are an Engineering major, right? I was just wondering what you know about Pitts theatre major/program? Not so much for someone considering acting, but more for stage managing/directing? </p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>Hi All,
I was wondering what non-UHC housing is like. If you are not in the honors college but were just close enough to go and still have really ambitious goals and want to do a lot… is pitt still right? will u still have any opportunities to participate in the honors college? will u still have the oh-so- many research opportunities and great professors? Does the housing outside of UHC suck? I am an african-american who grew up in the u.s but has spent the last few years in africa. so I would appreciate diversity. I had a good gpa 3.7+and 1200+ sats also my e.cs were good ( youth national newspaper editor, started a magazine, run a biz) would I still have any chances for scholarships even tho I am not in uhc. any advice would be much appreciated. sorry for the horrible grammar its like 2am here…</p>
<p>Thegirlinblue, though my daughter was honors eligible, she chose to live in the international community instead of honors housing. It was probably not a good move because it was a bit more social than she needed. HOWEVER, take a look at the other learning communities and see whether any of them interest you. For example, there is the SPACE learning community for engineers. It has been four years since I have looked at housing options, so I do not know what has changed. </p>
<p>You can take honors classes. If you have a 3.25 GPA, you are eligible, and you can ask to get into other classes that interest you. Depending on your major, honors sections may not be as important as you think. Good luck.</p>
<p>My son is currently in Sutherland West (SW) in honors housing and he loves it. He spends all his time with his floor mates. Many of the students in honors housing are engineering majors but they opted for SW over the SPACE housing. My son is definitely considering upperclass honors housing next year but it will all depend on where they move things around with the new freshmen dorm opening up. I would guess that freshmen honors housing may not even be in SW next year. The one big plus or minus depending on how you look at it, is that SW is on upper campus. It happens to be a plus for the majority of the students living up there - my son has lost the “freshmen 15”, my friend’s daugther in Towers has gained the “freshmen 15”. “Cardiac Hill” has actually become a challenge to my son - he has yet to take the bus (and he walks up it at least twice/day) and can’t wait to walk up it once in the snow. :)</p>
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<p>Well I worked in the set-shop for a semester so I got to know the people there pretty well (it was a fun time). Regardless of acting or stage managing, there are a bunch of basic courses that everyone has to take in the theater department. ALSO everyone has to work 90 hours in some sort of shop to help out (a lot of people pick Costumes because it’s easy, I picked set for fun, I’m not actually a theater major, but lots of people thought I was). They are a very nice group of people, especially the guys/gals on the tech side. I would just shoot them an email and ask what the process is like.</p>
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<p>Being in UHC housing was a good decision for me for a few reasons:</p>
<p>1) Way more diverse than Pitt or any other housing/dorm. We had a great mix of everything: Girls, Guys, Ethnicities, Majors, In-State/OOS/International, etc. which made for a really fun close-knit group (back when UHC Freshman housing was Forbes, so there were only about 200 of us). </p>
<p>2) Since I was in 3 UHC courses each semester, it was great to be living with a huge group of my classmates. It made doing HW assignments and lab reports a lot easier since I could just walk to their room to ask for help, or we’d all just meet up in the lounge and work together. </p>
<p>Also, UHC housing had a bunch of activities and things that they did for their students (movie nights, ice cream socials, dinners, etc.) which were an added bonus. </p>
<p>The best part was the sense of community we had. I bought a laptop lock for my computer that still has never been opened (it’s 4 years old…) because in UHC housing I never locked my valuables or shut my door, it’s just that kind of place.</p>
<p>As for research opportunities/etc. that is something a student really does on his or her own regardless of where they live. When I first got involved in research my sophomore year (short-lived) all I did was look up professors in my department who were doing research that sounded interesting. I then emailed them asking if I could help out in the lab and get experience and just went from there.</p>
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<p>If you’re not in the UHC when you’re an incoming freshman you won’t get UHC scholarships. However, depending on your major, your school or department may have their own scholarships that they give out as well. (For instance, the engineering school has a bunch of separate engineering scholarships). You can also always look at outside scholarships to use towards Pitt.</p>
<p>Thanks mdmom, awesomeoppusum and others for your candid replies. If I do choose pitt, I will look into llcs thanks!</p>
<p>Does anyone know why there is recitation class for Nicholas Jones’s Mythology in Ancient World class but not Marilyn Jones’s? </p>
<p>P.S. Neither of them is restricted to students of College of General studies.</p>
<p>By the way, anyone taken this class before? Is there presentation for this class?</p>
<p>YAY son sent in application, and he got a response in 1.5 weeks. He was accepted with Honors College for Engineering Physics. The application fee was waived with the code provided and we got the benefits of the prestige application. So far this has been totally awesome. It says we’ll get full consideration for scholarships yay! can’t wait to see if we can afford it!</p>
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<p>Yay! A quick note: The EPhys major is kind of being done away with in favor of an E-Science major with a concentration in E-Physics (See this for more info: [What</a> is Engineering Science?](<a href=“http://www.engineering.pitt.edu/MEMS/Undergraduate/ESCI/What_is_Engineering_Science_/]What”>http://www.engineering.pitt.edu/MEMS/Undergraduate/ESCI/What_is_Engineering_Science_/))</p>
<p>It’s kind of the same program as before, but with slightly different requirements I believe. But welcome to the best department at Pitt! (In my totally biased opinion :P)</p>
<p>Awesome hehe even better. It has the emphasis on Nuclear engineering he is really interested in. Thank you so much for bearing with my annoying questions this whole time! Crossing my fingers on merit money.</p>
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<p>Huzzah! I am the BIGGEST pro-nuke curriculum student the school probably has (President of ANS-Pitt if your son is interested in joining, plus have a fellowship from the DOE-Nuclear Programs branch.). Even though there aren’t a lot of classes, the amount of material you learn is so significant, most students are able to land great internships or jobs based on those three classes alone. Plus the amount of networking capabilities we have is astounding!</p>
<p>My D got accepted to Swanson bioengineering Dec 6. Honors and accepted to MS program and invited to apply to Med school GAP but no news on scholarship. She got the initial letter on Dec 6 and the honors and MS etc on Dec 16. Do they run out of money. Are scholarships first come first serve? She applied right before deadline</p>
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<p>It’s unsure of how the scholarships seem to work. There does seem to be some sort of limit on half-tuition and full-tuition scholarships given <em>by the UHC</em> per state. However, you mentioned your D is in SSOE, which has it’s own set of scholarships with various requirements (such as hometown, gender, ethnic background, major, etc.) and I have no idea the types or numbers of these scholarships. Keep in mind the regular scholarship committee only meets once a week and that it could take weeks to months to hear back about money (some people did not hear back until March or later).</p>
<p>Thanks awesomeopposum. We heard back today. 10k. We live in va. So this brings cost of tuition equivalent to in state for us.</p>
<p>@awesome One question that always comes to my mind when I look at college rankings is that why is pitt ranked so low ? I know it is very hard to get into pitt than penn state but its ranked lower than penn state…doesn’t make sense at all. People with 3.8 GPA and 2100 SAT goto pitt and their 25th percentile reading score is around 570 which is wayy above average but it doesn’t even fall under top 50. It has been ranked below penn state continuously for more than 5 years, so there must be a reason for it. I head pitt has not so good career services. Is that true ? And if considering engineering which would be a better campus out of the two ? I understand that rankings should be taken as a grain of salt but there must be a reason for being ranked low ?</p>
<p>You have to look at criteria used for ranking. Pitt has very strong medical and medical related fields. It is one of the top programs in biomedical engineering. In NIH grants the medical School is ahead of Yale and columbia and Dartmouth. It has one of the best track records for internships for undergraduates and research opportunities for undergrad. It depends on what you want to study and where you want to go after college. My daughter has applied to the ivy leagues as well but frankly we are very inclined to bag all the ivies and send her to Pitt. The financial burden of the ivies doesn’t make sense in this economy unless you qualify for financial aid. They have no merit scholarships. So think about your major inclinations and specifically look at that departments.</p>
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<p>Pitt’s ranking will change based on whomever is running the rankings. All these different programs (Princeton, USN&WR, etc.) all use a different metric to assign the ranks (in fact, it’s been considered a top-20 public university by USN&WR and one of the top research universities in the world- second paragraph of wiki [University</a> of Pittsburgh - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Pittsburgh]University”>University of Pittsburgh - Wikipedia))</p>
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<p>Depends on what you’re looking for. I’ve never really used the regular career services (beyond the one time I had an interview in the Union) but if you actively seek advice from them, they are willing to give it. I think the career services in the SSOE are phenomenal, and they are great at placing students for internships and co-ops. In fact, Pitt just started a new program that guarantees every student an internship if they desire it (and go through a few processes (like making a resume and a mock interview) first). </p>
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<p>Depends on your major and what you’re looking to do. Both schools are great for engineering, one might be better than the other for a certain major. For instance, Pitt probably has a better BioE program thanks to all the connections with the nearby UPMC whereas PSU actually offers a full Nuclear Engineering major with a student-run reactor, whereas Pitt only provides a certificate.</p>
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<p>I’ve always believed that rankings are mostly BS and that you should go to a school that makes you happy and can provide you a good education (without breaking the bank). Screw the rankings. School will be what you make of it.</p>
<p>Regarding rankings…</p>
<p>Understand that people here generally look at only one ranking, US News, whose methodology has been critiqued in detail many other places and doesn’t need to be rehashed here. Certainly, it is the most popular rating in the United States, but it is only one of dozens around the world. Typically, Pitt does better in international rankings, one’s that incorporate research strength, and one’s that rely on quantitative rather than qualitative data in their methodologies. US News is heavy on qualitative perceptual surveys. Pitt has come a long way over the last decade, but perception will always lag behind statistical realities, particular in something like opinion surveys. It is always important to take a look at the methodologies of these rankings if you are going to considering using them in evaluating educational choices.</p>
<p>For instance, in the Center for Measuring University Performance’s [Top</a> American Research Rankings](<a href=“http://mup.asu.edu/research2011.pdf]Top”>http://mup.asu.edu/research2011.pdf) that utilizes only data and not surveys, Pitt consistently is grouped among the the top 25-30 universities in the country. In the current Times Higher Education ranking of World Universities out of London, a ranking that takes into account both teaching and research, Pitt comes in at #38 in the US. Pitt is also ranked in the top 30 of US universities in Quacquarelli Symonds rankings out of London and in one of the most prominent ranking out of Asia, the Academic Ranking of World Universities, Pitt is ranked 39th in the US. There are a multitude of examples.</p>
<p>In a comparison of international rankings a couple of years ago, I came up with the result below. The point is, Pitt does very well in many rankings. It is best to consider rankings with caution, understand their methodologies and potential biases, and consider more than just the opinion of one publication. </p>
<p>In any case, I will paste immediately below the Top 50 average international rankings that I previously came up with, sorted by average and then standard deviation. The lists represents the average of six different international rankings from five countries on three continents. I also eliminated any outlier ranks by using the quartile method and double checked them with Grubb’s test for outliers. (again, this was a couple years ago and I haven’t had a chance to update this, but Pitt ends up averaging 28th in the US). Again, the point is, Pitt is pretty much regarded as a top university in the world, let alone the US. US News represents one of the lowest rankings out there for Pitt and unfortunately, US News also just so happens to be the most prevalent ranking in this country.</p>
<p>2010 Academic Ranking of World Universities out of Shanghai, China
2010 HEEACT Performance Ranking out of Taipei City, Taiwan
2010 QS World University Rankings out of London, UK
2009 RatER Global University Rankings out of Moscow, Russia
2010 RPI Worldwide University Rankings out of Perth, Australia
2010 Times Higher Education World University Rankings out of London, UK</p>
<p>Place / School / Average rank</p>
<p>1 Harvard 1.2
2 MIT 3.8
3 Stanford 5.2
4 Cambridge 8.2
5 Oxford 10.5
6 Chicago 10.8
7 Columbia 10.8
8 UC-Berkley 11.2
9 Johns Hopkins 11.5
10 Yale 12.2
11 Penn 13.8
12 UCLA 13.8
13 Cal Tech 14.5
14 Michigan 15.2
15 Princeton 17.7
16 Cornell 17.8
17 Imperial College London 18
18 Univ Coll London 18.8
19 Washington 21.3
20 Tokyo 21.5
21 Duke 22.8
22 UCSD 25.5
23 Northwestern 26.2
24 Toronto 26.7
25 British Columbia 34.4
26 Carnegie Mellon 35.4
27 Kyoto 35.5
28 Wisconsin-Madison 36
29 Illinois-Urbana Champaign 36.8
30 NYU 37
31 ETH Zurich 38.7
32 Minnesota 39.7
33 McGill 40.2
34 UNC-Chapel Hill 40.3
35 Edinburgh 41
36 Washington U St Louis 41.6
37 Vanderbilt 47.6
38 Texas-Austin 51.6
39 Manchester 52.8
40 Melbourne 55.8
41 Pitt 55.8
42 UC-Irvine 56
43 King’s College London 56.8
44 USC 57.5
45 Ludwig Maximiliam Univ Munich 59.2
46 Maryland-College Park 60
47 Boston Univ 60.7
48 UC-Davis 61.8
49 Ohio State 62
50 UC Santa Barbara 62</p>