<p>I'm guessing this pretty much pertains to merit aid anywhere but since it has to directly do with Pitt I'll ask it in this forum. </p>
<p>I got accepted to Pitt this spring with a merit scholarship and decided to enroll there. I don't remember signing anything accepting the award and I thought by enrolling I got it and would have the money taken off my tuition bill. Was there anything I had to sign to accept the award? I don't see why anyone would turn it down since they never have to be paid back. I just need to make sure when my family gets the bill we will get the merit aid subtracted off the tuition.</p>
<p>Did they send you some type of scholarsihp confirmation thingy? I got scome scholarship awards and they sent me a form that I had to fill out; I had to wrtie the names of the awards and how much they awarded me per semester, and then I had to sign at the bottom.</p>
<p>If you haven't sent this in, I would get on it pronto and call the financial aid office. You don't want to loose your scholarship money over something like that!</p>
<p>My son never received any form to sign for his scholarships. I think they assumed he was accepting their offer once he sent in his deposit. And yes, it appeared on his account automatically.</p>
<p>It might be different if you applied for financial aid -- they sent out a letter listing awards/aid and I think you needed to sign off on it. I would definitely call and find out.</p>
<p>I think Emi is referring to outside scholarships. Those have to be listed. My daughter got that same sheet the other day, and I read it over carefully. I'm pretty sure that you accept the Pitt scholarship by just enrolling. However, it doesn't hurt to give the office of financial aid a call. The people there are very nice and can access your file right away. If you have a question like this one, it's always best to go right to the source for a definitive answer.</p>
<p>My theory (based on what I've read here on CC) is that you need a 1450 SAT or above (CR and M) for a full-tuition scholarship if you're out of state. If you hunt around various threads, students have posted for in-state and for $10,000 per year grants. I don't remember what those numbers are.</p>
<p>I just looked over the papers from Pitt again. One is called the Financial Aid Award Notification. That one lists my daughter's scholarship and the amount it's worth. The other paper is the Financial Aid Acceptance Response Form for Fall 2008 and Spring 2009. On that one, it says "Please report any scholarships or grants awarded to you that are not included in your financial aid award letter."</p>
<p>So, how I'm interpreting that, is that if your award is listed on the first document, you don't have to list it on the second. </p>
<p>All this financial aid stuff can get confusing!</p>
<p>Hmmm, monster... I'm assuming it's 1450-ish? D is at 1440, and Pitt has just hit her radar screen! She's got plenty of leadership, etc. ECs.and strong w GPA.... I'd hope it wasn't a hard and fast cut-off....</p>
<p>Well, I don't know what the cutoff is because Pitt has never publicly announced it, to my knowledge. I think Pitt wants to have the ability to pick and choose. My daughter had a 1480. If your daughter doesn't get a full-tuition OOS scholarship, she might snag the $10,000 annual scholarship. And room and board at Pitt is pretty reasonable (compared to what kids at NYU pay, at least). </p>
<p>Can your daughter retest to get above 1450? The full-tuition scholarship is a great deal, especially when you consider that future tuition increases will be covered by the scholarship too. It is certainly worth some prep time and the three hours of agony retaking the SAT if she's serious about Pitt, and the higher score will help her other places too. Also, just a word of caution: Even if Pitt used a certain number as a cutoff in the past, there's no guarantee what they'll do next year.</p>
<p>P.S. I thought your daughter attended UMCP. Is this another daughter?</p>
<p>astrophysicsmom: I don't believe there is a "cut off" for SAT scores- mine was 1280 and I was awarded full tuition and an engineering scholarship (I am also out-of-state). So "bad" SAT scores won't disqualify you, as long as you show strengths in other areas such as ECs, different activities, etc. So your daughter still has a great chance :)</p>
<p>Pitt offers different types of full tuition scholarships (honors, diversity etc.). They use to list them on their website. They use the scholarships to pull in students they want. I believe it is working as the SAT scores are going up for the Engineering school. The average SAT score was 1315 for the incoming class. Don't expect to be offered one just because you hit the 1450 mark but be pleasantly surprised if it comes :)</p>
<p>Generally speaking, in order to get the full tuition scholarship you need to be in the "1450 range." I don't believe that Pitt uses a program that automatically excludes a student from receiving it if the score is below 1450. With that being said, the farther you are from 1450 (as in lower) you will need to bring something big to the table. I would warn about being mislead with Emi's 1280 SAT as being the norm for full tuition. I haven't followed EMi's profile. Maybe you can share what you think tipped the edge to your favor. Our daughter received the full tuition with a 1490 SAT.</p>
<p>Yes, I am URM, but I know other URMs just like me who had higher SAT scores and didn't get anything at all. So to say that race automatically shoved me in the door is not necessarily true. I don't want to write down my entire resume, but I believe that my ECs, grades, schooling background, and essay earned me the scholarship. If you'd like me to give more details, I will certainly post them.</p>
<p>You're right bluejay- I am not the norm for full tuition. However, I think CC is very misleading. Most of the members are high-achievers to begin with. So there could be a whole pool of scholarhsip recipients with "lower scores" that we could never know about. </p>
<p>Either way, I'm not trying to mislead anyone. No one truly knows what Pitt is looking for. I'm just trying to say that SAT scores aren't everything. I always see these posts about "SAT cutoff" and I just want people to know that this is not always true. Good scores do certainly improve your chances, but I don't want people to think that since they don't have good scores that they have no chance of getting xyz scholarship.</p>
<p>Thanks for the explanation, Emi. No single factor will gain anyone admission much less merit money. The entire package is needed. You are headed for a great experience at Pitt. Good choice.</p>
<p>No prob bluejay :) I'm actually quite glad I chose Pitt in the end. Later on I have discovered that just because a school isn't an Ivy doesn't mean I won't get an amazing education and a great undergrad experience. But that is a topic for another day...</p>
<p>I am sure they consider the "entire" application during the selection process. If you had a high SAT score and a low GPA -- would that elicit a full scholarship offer? Probably not. Ultimately, Pitt decides upon who gets the offers and we will never know the reasons why.</p>
<p>I don't believe Pitt post the information on the number of full scholarships/stats of recipients they offer each year, there is no way of knowing what the range is. Some of the other colleges do post that info as well as how many accepted the offers. From what I've seen the number is not very high for full tuition scholarships. </p>
<p>Since Pitt doesn't spell out their process, all you can do is apply and see what they offer. The application was very simple and unless they changed it all you have to do is submit an essay for scholarship consideration.</p>
<p>This page gives the approximate number of each scholarship. It doesn't provide any information about scores needed to GET those scholarships, however!</p>