<p>AO - you may not be able to answer this, but I still have one Pitt concern as D gets ready to finally settle on a school. She was offered scholarships at every school where she was accepted except Pitt. She is OOS, and we know from the forums here that some people with stats less than hers got OOS scholarship offers. We don’t know why she wasn’t, thereby having to guess. </p>
<p>My guess is that either (1) New York isn’t all that in demand for diversity, (2) her rank is too low because she didn’t play the “Amazing AP Race” game, but did her own thing and explored what appeared interesting to her. Now, if it’s (1), I get that. But if it’s (2), doesn’t that say that Pitt values “playing the game” i.e. doing what is expected to compete for X, rather than being an individual and doing what motivates and interests you?</p>
<p>I am OOS from Washington so you can probably guess that there’s going to be like <10 people from here. I didn’t receive any scholarships either. I think it had to do with my grades (UW gpa was 3.4). I took 6 AP courses over 3 years at my high school, so it wasn’t like I was slacking off or anything. The only reason why I’m going to Pitt is because 1) I got rejected from UW :[ 2) The amazing opportunities (like guaranteed internships 3) Located in an actual city, unlike the other 4-year public schools in my state… 4) Gave me a 4k grant, which made it the cheapest OOS school for me… etc…</p>
<p>If your daughter sees something in Pitt that she really likes, such as pre-med or something, and you are able to pay for it without going into debt, then I would take the burden. However, you said she received scholarships from other schools and I’m assuming those are just as good if not better than Pitt in terms of prestige, so it wouldn’t be terrible to pass up Pitt. I’m sorry I can’t speak for the school. Anyways, good luck!</p>
<p>Nope. UHC housing is selective based on application. That is:</p>
<p>1- You must be a UHC eligible freshman (or have gotten permission from them), AND
2- You must fill out a UHC housing application (this is not a normal housing app, it includes things like “how will you contribute to the community” and you must also write an essay). </p>
<p>Meanwhile, Towers C and all other non-LLC housing is based on:</p>
<p>NY sends a lot of students to Pitt, surprisingly. The biggest states are probably: PA, OH, NY, NJ, VA/MD (to a lesser extent). </p>
<p>It also depends on time of year when applied. I think many have sort of concluded that Pitt only gives out X number of scholarships per state. So NY sends a lot of students, it’s much harder to get a scholarship there than if you are applying from CA or FL for instance. Many people for this reason will apply to Pitt as early as possible in the hopes of getting more money.</p>
<p>In terms of her HS background, Pitt (as many other schools do) likes to see students challenge themselves and succeed. So if she didn’t take <em>any</em> APs, that is kind of surprising. If she took a few and did well, then that shows that she is a good student. If she took a lot and still did well, that is exemplary.</p>
<p>So I guess the point is- did she try to challenge herself at school to the best of her ability? Did she take advanced classes when she could (as they fit in with her interests)? If she did, then my guess is that it falls back to too many students from NY apply. If she didn’t, I would say it’s a combination of 1 and 2.</p>
At her school you have to take for example Biology before you can take AP Biology. She took Honors Biology, but wanted to take DIFFERENT courses in her schedule rather than MORE Biology. She was in Honors math, honors english, and honors science for the first 3 years. This year she has Honors Anatomy and Physiology (no AP course), AP Lang, and AP Psychology. She also “challenged” herself by taking overload last year and this year (no lunch period). Maybe it just didn’t look “challenging” to the scholarship committee.</p>
<p>Also, what does it take to be “UHC eligible”? Wouldn’t the fact that she wasn’t eligible for a scholarship mean that she is not UHC eligible either?</p>
<p>Based on what you’ve said for her schedule, my guess is that she was overlooked for money due to a lot of applicants being from NY rather than a lack of something in her own application.</p>
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<p>Nope. Not all UHC students get money as freshman. UHC eligibility for incoming freshman is having a 1400 M+CR SAT (or 32 composite ACT) and being ranked top 5% of the HS class (ranking, I have found, matters much less than the SAT and a strong GPA, my HS did not rank, for example, and I was still UHC eligible as an incoming freshman).</p>
<p>After the first year, as long as a Pitt student has an overall GPA of 3.25, they are considered UHC eligible students.</p>
<p>Even if you are not automatically UHC eligible, you may still get permission to take courses through UHC or apply to live in the housing.</p>
<p>There are many scholarships given by Pitt that are not through the UHC (Nordy Scholars, SSOE scholars, etc.) However, a good chunk of scholarships, especially for A&S students, come from the UHC. It goes a bit like this: All UHC scholarship recipients are UHC eligible but all UHC eligible students are not scholarship recipients.</p>
<p>I think I’m going to try to do honors housing then. If I’m not “honors eligible”, I can still apply for honors housing, right? Is there any extra steps I would need to take? (Sorry, I’m sure you answered this a million times)</p>
<p>Contact the UHC and ask for permission to apply into the honors housing for freshman. Explain that the LLC is of great interest to you and that you think you would benefit from living there. They’ll most likely say yes and let you apply!</p>
<p>AO: I emailed them! Hopefully they’ll OK it! I read that GPA and SAT aren’t weighted that greatly when deciding Honors Housing. Does this mean that eligible and uneligible students have a similar chance of getting Honors Housing based on how they respond to the essay/ application/ whatever it is?</p>
<p>Essentially. However, if more students apply than there is capacity for, my guess is that UHC eligible students will have a greater advantage. Although you should feel comfortable knowing that last year (and the year before) many students lived in Sutherland who were not automatically UHC eligible as freshman!</p>
<p>Hi I am going to the honors college next year from out of state and I was wondering how roomates are selected, I really don’t want someone who I don’t like. do you become good friends with your roomates? are the honors suites any different? and finally do you meet your roommate at pittstart?</p>
<p>also one last thing, I play this card game and I heard about this store where it is played. the store is on greentree st, is this a place I can go to Friday afternoon and come back from about 9ish by using the buses? and will it be safe?</p>
<p>I’ll let AO answer the roommate question. As for the card game, I don’t know of a Greentree Street (I’m from Pittsburgh and know it well) - do you mean Greentree Road? It’s a long road, so an address would be helpful. I suggest you use Google maps directions and click the transit option (it’s the best place for bus schedules in Pittsburgh - better than the system’s own website!)
If it is Greentree Road, you can take the bus but you have to transfer downtown - and yes it’s safe. Pittsburgh is a relatively safe city apart from a few areas.</p>
<p>AO: That does make me feel better. And I figured that since Nordenberg is opening a lot of people might choose to go there instead of Sutherland.</p>
<p>After you get accepted (at least for UHC housing) you fill out a questionnaire of things like “night owl vs. morning bird” how much studying you’re going to do in the room, if you’re okay with smoking, etc. They do a decent job at matching people up.</p>
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<p>Depends. I got along with mine but was never really friends with her (rarely hung out) or did much. We co-habitated fine though. Never had issues. Some people became good friends and some people had crazy roommates, that’s more because the one person was actually ridiculously socially awkward rather than them just not getting along.</p>
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<p>Well…they’re suites. The only other suite dorm for freshman is Nordy Hall (which is new), every other dorm is “hall style”. I will say the UHC dorm is much more diverse with the students giving a bit more attention to their studies than the other dorms do. You’ll get a lot of interaction with classmates and find a bunch of good study groups in the dorm I’m sure. Plus they have a lot of fun events they hold (lots of Rita’s Nights, movie nights, etc.)</p>
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<p>Not unless you happened to sign up for the same one. I met mine at movein after talking to her on facebook beforehand (i.e. found her name online in the middle of the summer, found her on facebook, chatted a bit, met her when we moved in because she lived like 6-8 hours away from me).</p>
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<p>Like southeastmom said, I can’t find it on the map. If you mean Greentree road you could get there by bus, but with the transferring downtown and all, it will be a hassel and take a very long time to commute there from Oakland. What card game are you referring to? There might be something closer in Oakland.</p>
<p>Thanks for the help AO, I play yugioh the address of the store is
1002 Greentree Rd Pittsburgh, PA 15220. they have tournaments on Fridays and I wanted to see if it was possible to visit some times.</p>
<pre><code> I was wondering if you knew how the computer science major is at upitt. Right now, I have to choose between going to either Rutgers or UPitt. They both cost the same so all I have to compare is academics right now. According to US News, UPitt has a better overall ranking than Rutgers but has a much lower rating when it comes to computer science. I don’t trust US News rankings too much though so I want to see how a person from UPitt feels about the computer science program. How are the computer science courses? Are they sufficiently challenging,annoying (bad teachers and such), too easy, or just right?
Also as a general college question, do you think it would be beneficial to go to the college closest to home? I live in New Jersey so Rutgers would be closer to me than UPitt. If you could answer my questions before May 1st that would be great! xD
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<p>I don’t know <em>too</em> much about CS at Pitt because it’s part of A&S and not SSOE. However, from my friends who did that major, some have gone on to do amazing things. My one friend graduated in December and is now working for Amazon out in Seattle (he interned there last summer too). I know many professors are well-liked in the department, there are always a few that are really hard. It is a LOT of work. My former roommate was a CS major and there were many nights that she was staying up late to finish her projects (debugging sucks).</p>
<p>It seems like the department is very close knit though. So you will make a lot of good friends I’m sure!</p>
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<p>I think it’s beneficial to go where you will be happy. I didn’t want to go to a school in my state so I came to Pitt so that I could get away from my HS classmates and sort-of start over. In terms of going home, I only ever went home for the breaks (Thanksgiving, Christmas, Spring, Summer) and even then sometimes I was gone. Once I got my car senior year I went home 1-2 more times for a weekend but that was about it. You’ll find that it’s a bit hard to keep going home after having the freedom of college and that the breaks <em>tend</em> to be sufficient enough. </p>
<p>So anyway, my point is this- do you WANT to be close to home, and practically speaking, how often do you <em>think</em> you will be going home? If the answer is not a lot then the location should not matter as much as how happy you will be somewhere.</p>
<p>Did you visit both schools? Which one did you like more? Those are more important factors, I think.</p>
<p>I visited both schools and they are both different environments. One is a suburban environment with a huge campus and the other is a city environment with a normal sized campus. I’m fine with going to either one really. I’m just worried about the academics. How is the math classes at UPitt? Can you tell me, for instance, how calc 3 is? Is each chapter taught properly or do you have to self study most of it? I am taking multivariable calculus and linear algebra in my high school right now and our teacher makes us self study/learn it. I’d like to know how difficult the class is at UPitt.</p>