<p>That Pitt “guy” is a girl! 
She is indeed awesome. I will let others answer but I don’t think you will be able to see much of the school around the holidays since a lot is closed and there are no students. You might want to save your visit to one of the many “admitted student” days that Pitt will have throughout the spring since you don’t need to officially make a decision until May 1.</p>
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<p>No you won’t. Not only is the school empty from lack of students but the campus is <em>closed</em> meaning you can’t even access a lot of the buildings without permission. If you just want to wander around campus to get a feel for it, that’s fine, but the neighborhood (Oakland) will be pretty dead and not give you a good idea of what the school or environment is like at all. I would suggest visiting over a long weekend in Jan/Feb (do you get MLK or Presidents Day off?) or spring break as many high school students tend to do.'</p>
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<p>Pitt’s biomed is top-notch because of the association with the med school and UPMC group. The Mechanical program is also quite good, especially since it’s combined with the Materials Program, Metallurgy (steel) program, and Nuclear Engineering program. </p>
<p>You should also consider location- Pitt is in Oakland in Pittsburgh which is not a HUGE city, but is much much more populous than West Lafayette where Purdue is. And finally- if cost is a factor, absolutely go to the school you can afford. Both are great choices.</p>
<p>And thank you TedsMom! I am indeed a girl…I don’t know why everyone keeps thinking I’m a guy :/</p>
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Please note that “Ask Me” threads are not permitted on College Confidential, because they deter people from creating threads that get responses from multiple posters, or getting other points of view.</p>
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<p>We’re back - thank you to whomever made it happen!</p>
<p>Yay!!! </p>
<p>They changed the title of the thread :)</p>
<p>Woo back on track- and the thread is open for questions and answers from anyone and everyone!</p>
<p>hi awesome! do you know anything about pitt’s bioengineering department or its eng department in general? if you do would you mind tell me a little about it? i got accepted to swanson and my intended major is bioeng. thank you</p>
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<p>The Engineering schools starts out with roughly 400-ish freshman (those numbers may have changed) but by graduation the number is reduced probably closer to 250-300 students who complete the curriculum. It’s a great program, the school itself is awesome (we’re located in our own building, Benedum Hall, which is almost done going through a 64 million dollar renovation, it’s beautiful), and I love the diversity we have in our program.</p>
<p>One of the great things in my opinion is the freshman year- you all start out together (undeclared) taking the same basic foundation classes: Engineering (programming), Physics, Chem, Calc (or other higher level math), and some elective if you wish. Then at the end of your freshman year, after you have learned a bit about each department/major and have seen where your strengths/weaknesses are based on your classes, you get to declare your major. Another great thing about Pitt is that unlike many schools, where certain popular majors (for example, BioE or ChemE) have enrollment limits, Pitt doesn’t. So if 200 students decide to enroll in BioE one year, the BioE department takes all 200 students (note: this never happens, but in theory, that is what would happen).</p>
<p>The BioE department itself is very, very good. They are heavily connected to the UPMC research group and so a lot of the students can and do perform co-research projects with someone associated at UPMC (in fact, some of the professors have co-grants with UPMC people as well). The program is strong but I will warn you of this: It can be a bit difficult to get a job as a BioE graduate. Most of my BioE friends either went to graduate school for their Ph.D. degree or went to med school. I’m not sure why BioE tends to be difficult to hire, but this is the case that I noticed.</p>
<p>thank you sooo much for these helpful information! I really appreciate it! do you know if there is any overlap between bioE curriculum and med school prereq?</p>
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<p>There is some- you will be required to take physics, chem, bio, calc which are all requirements. I don’t know if it goes beyond that into organic chem or other good pre-med classes. </p>
<p>You can check out the BioE curriculum here: [BS</a> Program](<a href=“http://www.engineering.pitt.edu/Bioengineering/Undergraduate/BS_Program/]BS”>http://www.engineering.pitt.edu/Bioengineering/Undergraduate/BS_Program/)</p>
<p>And here is a list of Pre-Med class requirements (notice the English requirements well): <a href=“http://www.oafa.pitt.edu/pdf/infosheets/pre-medicine.pdf[/url]”>http://www.oafa.pitt.edu/pdf/infosheets/pre-medicine.pdf</a></p>
<p>One thing many people told me is that you should ALWAYS take your premed classes in college, even if you have AP credit for it. The med schools want to see that you were able to learn the material in college at that level and more recently, so if you have any AP courses for pre-med, don’t use them.</p>
<p>What are the possible dorming situations for freshmen (number of people and different houses)? And how are roommates assigned/picked?</p>
<p>Also, is it possible for me to be reconsidered for UHC? My acceptance letter said I was accepted to the school of science and art, but does that mean I’m not being considered further for UHC?</p>
<p>@crissytall-- there are a lot of posts regarding Freshman dorms if you search this thread. One thing to note-- if you are interested in living in Sutherland which is the Freshman honors dorm (or at least it has been for the past few years) you can apply to live there even if you weren’t formally accepted into the Honors College. Sutherland is suites and you’ll have one roommate and share a common area with others. Most of the other dorms are doubles also except Tower C which is singles. This link should help:
[University</a> of Pittsburgh - Housing Services](<a href=“http://www.pc.pitt.edu/housing/halls/index.php]University”>http://www.pc.pitt.edu/housing/halls/index.php)</p>
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<p>TitanMom gave a great link to get you started. Here’s a quick breakdown of the dorms for freshman:</p>
<p>Towers A/B - pie slice rooms, 2 people per room, communal floor bathroom, floors are all single sex
Tower C- pie slice room, all singles, communal floor bathroom, floors are all single sex
Lothrop- some single rooms, some double rooms, sink in the room, floors may be multi-sex (someone who has lived in Lothrop will know better than I)
Holland Hall- rooms for 1 - 4 people, communal floor bathroom, ALL GIRLS DORM </p>
<p>LLC Dorms:
Forbes Hall- Engineering dorm, rooms for 2 people, shared toilet bathroom (toilet + sink) which you clean yourself, also communal half-floor bathrooms (each half of the building has it’s own), floors are multi-sex by wing (i.e. right wing = all girls, left wing = all guys)
Sutherland Hall West- UHC dorm, suites for 2 - 8 people, shared full bathroom (toilet, sink, shower) which you clean yourself. Floors are multi-sex by suite I believe</p>
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<p>You should get a questionnaire to fill out with things like do you smoke, are you up late or do you rise early, etc. that helps them try to match you to a roommate (if you have one). You can request a roommate if you know someone going to Pitt but there is no guarantee you will room with them.</p>
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<p>I can’t remember if the UHC letter comes with acceptance or later. Regardless, not being automatically in the UHC does not limit you in any way. You can still ask to apply into UHC housing and you can take UHC courses provided you get permission. After a year, if your QPA is 3.25+ you are automatically in the UHC (and therefore don’t need to ask permission to do the above). And <em>everyone</em> is also welcome at UHC events like movie nights, seminars, etc.</p>
<p>Awesome - I am sure this was asked before but… Do you know if Pitt considers only CR/M for SAT? How about ACT - Compposite or English/Math only?? Thanks.</p>
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<p>Pitt does show scores for the W section of the SAT as well as writing section of the ACT. However, realistically speaking they are not as heavily weighted as the traditional CR+M sections are (ex. the UHC still uses a score out of 1600 to determine automatic placement). </p>
<p>You’ll also notice that the averages for the Writing section (SAT or ACT) are lower than the other two (and it’s my personal opinion that this is due to the way the writing section is graded, which is not impersonal and is very much dependent on the grader).</p>
<p>Link for 2013-2014 data set: <a href=“http://www.ir.pitt.edu/cds/documents/CDS_2013-2014Pittsburgh.pdf[/url]”>http://www.ir.pitt.edu/cds/documents/CDS_2013-2014Pittsburgh.pdf</a></p>
<p>My son was admitted to the College of Business Administration (CBA), but I note that most of the discussion on CC seems to focus on engineering or health related schools at Pitt. I am curious as to what the reputation is of the CBA and whether my son should give serious consideration to going elsewhere to study business. We are still waiting to hear from Penn State, but my son really liked Pitt and we are planning to visit again in the end of February. I have no doubt Pitt is the “right” school for him, but is it the “wrong” major at the “right” school?</p>
<p>My daughter started out in arts and sciences and transferred into the business school - just starting her 2nd semester there. She loves it. The kids seem nice and the professors, for the most part, have been very good and are interested in seeing the kids do well. She’s still going through the general business classes - marketing, finance, accounting, etc. She says there are lots of kids and all the classes are full so it seems like a pretty active program.</p>
<p>@Stolitc–this link page 20 has the enrollment by schools within Pitt. Business has about 2k which is larger than the entire student body of many colleges (including mine! :)<br>
I would think there would be a benefit to being in a City vs State College in terms of availability of internships.</p>