<p>DS and I attended "Scholars Day" yesterday, and I thought I'd cross-post our findings, and invite other perspectives, which we KNOW exist:</p>
<p>Yesterday DS and I attended a special session at Pitt for kids who are on their radar for the honors college (presumably through test scores). This was our second visit and DS knows and has visited several students there anyhow, so it was an interesting case of hearing the pitch vs. having some idea of reality.</p>
<p>While the welcome, etc. was great (they do a good job having plenty of students out to direct traffic, etc.), the content of the day was frankly underwhelming. The speakers talked WAY too long (an hour+ each for the arts & sciences adcom, the dean of the honors college and the provost who spoke at lunch - we skipped out on that and found the food court). The dean is new to the post and while I've heard he's a wonderful professor, he was dreadful at making the college sound like an attractive place to be and giving a sense of what the honors program would provide a student with. DS and I split up after lunch - I went on the dorm tour, and discovered that the "new" honors 1st year dorm (last year it was down on lower campus) is sandwiched very closely between two frat houses and the dorm that is specifically for athletes (both of those are definitely a drawback for DS, and it seems like a very odd location decision - I know not all honors students are "eggheads," but a sizeable number of them, well, are). The dorm itself also didn't seem to have any real common spaces...bizarre. DS went to what was supposed to be a presentation of research experiences by undergraduates and reported back that it was a room of students who had no idea why they were there or what they should be doing. The highlight of the day was that the "prize" for turning your evaluation in was a cordless mouse.</p>
<p>It was a very strange visit - we KNOW that it is a much better school than what was portrayed. As DS put it, if he didn't know otherwise, it would have been taken off his list after yesterday, and even as it is, he's thinking that he wouldn't really want to be in the honors college ("It just doesn't seem like it confers any extra benefits."). I think he probably would choose to be in the honors college if he attended, just b/c of the social aspect, but agree that their program doesn't seem to have any particular benefit.</p>
<p>Previously the honors dorm was in Forbes at the bottom of the hill but there was not enough room for all the honors students who wanted to live there. This is why it was moved to Sutherland. My son is a freshman there and is really enjoying himself living with other honors students. He says it’s quiet and has not really noticed the athletes and frat students in the neighboring buildings. I’m sorry that the meeting was so poorly run, but I don’t think the location of the honors dorm is a negative (other than the hill to walk up). Everything a student needs is in the building: coffee shop, dining hall, computer room, laundry, store, etc. And my son is the studious “egghead” type - you don’t have to worry about the location. In fact, I think the top of the hill is less of a party atmosphere than the towers would be.
As for benefits of the honors program - after honors housing, the main benefit is the ability to take honors courses in the areas you are interested in. They are definitely more challenging and usually have smaller class sizes.</p>
<p>I don’t think you are required to live in honors housing if you are accepted into the honors college, are you? I heard that the dorms in Sutherland are some of the nicer ones, but the location obviously is not as central as Towers or the dorms on the Schenley quad.</p>
<p>On the other hand, going into the housing lotttery would mean that your son could end up in an even worse housing choice. Our experience with housing is that although you get to specify 3 choices, most likely you don’t get your choice! It seemed like lots of kids who wanted Towers got other dorms, while kids who wanted other dorms were placed in Towers, kids who wanted singles got doubles, and vice versa, go figure. My D who wanted Towers got placed in the all girls dorm. The housing is not done first come, first serve, like some other schools, so you can’t increase your odds of getting your preferred housing by depositing early. In that sense, joining a living learning community or honors housing would give you more certaintey.</p>
<p>My son is a freshman honors student at Sutherland and really loves it there. They don’t have much interaction at all with the jocks. Like any freshman, they tend to find their own groups. Eggheads? Probably to a degree but that’s why they joined the UHC to be with kids who can have fun but are more serious than many of the other students. As for the frats next door, they’ve been raided a couple of times by the campus cops but he and his friends have enjoyed watching their own episode of Campus PD unfold before them. He had strong choices at strong schools but when I saw him this weekend, he was very happy with his choice of Pitt, UHC, and Sutherland.</p>
<p>My DS is a Freshman and is living in Sutherland West honors dorm which he chose. He ABSOLUTELY loves it! The kids are fun loving, bright kids. They go to the football games, play intramural sports etc as any student would. They probably don’t drink as much as kids in other dorms and they may study harder. That’s a win-win in my book. He is taking just one honors course–Biology and loves the professor and the course. He had just taken AP Bio senior year, so a lot of it is review, but in honors they go deeper into any given topic.<br>
As far as the location is concerned, Sutherland has the advantage of being quieter. My son hasn’t minded the walk and there is the shuttle which is generally easy to catch to lower campus. It certainly was easier to move into than the towers! They also don’t have to listen to the traffic and helicopters landing at UPMC. They share a cafeteria with the athletes in Sutherland East and it’s not an issue at all in fact he enjoys seeing some of the kids that he sees on the football field. The Frats are really a non issue. If you want to hang out at the Frats you do, if you don’t then you don’t.
As far as the Honors college presentation etc, I wouldn’t worry a lot about it. Basically if you want to take honors courses and qualify, you take them. If you don’t you can still live in Sutherland as he has a friend who applied and got in but she isn’t taking honors courses.
In general he loves Pitt so far!!!</p>
<p>I lived in Honors Housing all three years I was on campus. I’d do it again in a heartbeat. Freshman year I stayed in Forbes Hall (the lower campus dorm). It was great: the dorm was smaller than towers (about 250 people), incredibly diverse (as compared to Pitt’s campus), and everyone was really nice and interesting. We had people from a range of majors: Engineers, pre-med, history, art, music, women’s studies, etc. Which was awesome. Also, the nice thing was the sense of community we got. Our RAs weren’t these mean, rule abiding older students. They were also our friends and classmates. I never locked my door once all year (for all three years) because I trusted absolutely everyone in the building. I used to leave my textbooks out in the hallways, people left gaming systems in the common rooms…nothing was stolen or missing at the end of the year. I also had a lot of fun: we would hold surprise birthday parties, dances, movie nights, we went downtown to watch fireworks or see a play or ballet or the symphony. Just because it was all Honors Students didn’t mean all we did was study and work. We relaxed too!</p>
<p>Upperclassmen housing was great. It’s a little apartment building down at Forbes and Craig (a perfect location) that only has 103 students (a mix of sophomores and juniors). You get a living room, 1-2 private bathrooms, and your own kitchen. Plus a wicked common area complete with hot chocolate maker, flat screen tvs, and an old piano anyone can play. There were monthly building dinners, other activities like speeches, talks, presentations, movies, game nights, etc. held in the building. </p>
<p>In terms of classes, honors were among my favorites. The professors were hand-picked by the dean to teach the class, and the classes were wayyyyy more in-depth and academically challenging than the regular version would have been for me. Also, due to this vigor, the classes were much smaller, so I got to know all my classmates as well as the professor for classes like Honors Physics and Chem, instead of being in a lecture hall of 300-400 students, it was 80-100. Much easier and close-knit.</p>
<p>The UHC itself hosts a lot of events too. The biggest thing being SHAC, the Student Honors Activity Council. They have a bunch of different branches like Academic, Social, Cultural, etc. Where they will get together to create and host events through the Honors college. Examples include scholarship talks, talks with various professors about research, movie nights, foreign food nights, trips to other cultural districts, and much more. The UHC also sponsors a LOT of clubs: book clubs, a literary magazine, the weekly MESS (Movies Everyone Should See), an acapella group, intramural softball teams, etc.</p>
<p>There’s also the advisors. They’re there to help you or just talk. You can go in to ask a question about class, school, life or whatever. Or you can just go in to say hi and talk about nothing in particular. They’re ridiculously friendly and incredibly helpful with whatever your problem may be.</p>
<p>I can’t think of anything else superly awesome off the top of my head, so that will have to do it for now. Honestly, the UHC is the main reason I came to Pitt (plus they love giving academic scholarships! Which is more than I can say for Pitt). The atmosphere and attitude of everyone involved was just so awesome I couldn’t resist.</p>
<p>And, based on PghMomof2’s experience, I’m going to do something I should have earlier: For anyone else coming to Pitt to tour/see, if you’d like to talk to a current student, without the facade of the OAFA or Pathfinders, DM me. We’ll set up a time to meet when you’re on campus. I can answer questions you may have that you may not want to ask an “official” person. And I can help show you around (time permitting) or point other important things out to you that you may not have heard of. So, just get in contact with me and we can set that up.</p>
<p>I actually just got accepted to their Honors College today. I find this to be really weird, considering that my SAT was on the low end of the “genius” scale. I got a 2040. But I got a big packet in the mail that said “Congratulations!”, and I assumed it was just the regular acceptance letter. I also didn’t write an essay or do any visits to Pitt. They must hand these things out like free candy…</p>
<p>Hey babs that’s “sweet” for you! I think Pitt only looks at your CR+M score when selecting for the honors college. What was your CR+M (superscored)?</p>
All you need is a 1400 CR+M and to be ranked top 5% of your high school.</p>
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<p>Well if there’s one thing the UHC strives NOT to be, it’s elitist. Anyone can take honors classes, do honors activities, and participate in the clubs. All that immediate UHC status provides is the ability to live in Honors Housing.</p>
<p>AwesomeOpossum “All you need is a 1400 CR+M and to be ranked top 5% of your high school.”</p>
<p>Okay, so based on what you say I should not have been accepted to the Honors College, but I was. I have a 1290 CR+M and my school does not rank.</p>
<p>And I posted this way because I don’t know how to add those quote boxes in</p>
<p>I know this isn’t really related, but to add a quote box put <a href=“without%20the%20spaces”> quote </a> before the quote and [ /quote ] at the end of the quote (again NO spaces)</p>
<p>Is is possible you have a very high GPA/hard curriculum? I think sometimes UHC takes those into account. Also they could have just REALLY liked your application…</p>
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<p>The ACT superscore minimum is 32, so your ACT is UHC eligible. I’m not sure how much emphasis on the top 5% is put, as my HS did not rank either, but I was still admitted…</p>