Has anyone successfully appealed a scholarship offer? My DD has full tuition scholarships from two other schools and was only offered 5k per year from Pitt. We are in state. She filed an appeal but it is just a cost of attendance comparison. There was no way to expand, other than a brief cover email, and explain how it is one of her top choices and with a decent scholarship, almost definitively her #1. I am wondering if anyone has successfully appealed an award.
We found Pitt FA office work with you and very efficiently once you fill in the cost of attendance sheet. Please send the financial aid information that you have received from other colleges. We heard favorably in less than 24 hours.
Appealed in '13 and received additional bump to match comparable offer based on COA. Any additional info you could supply in email.
Adding onto this question, when I asked about the appeal process, I was told I could not use the cost of attendance for in-state schools for me (as I am OOS for Pitt). Would this remain true even if I got larger scholarships to these in state schools? From what I understood, this stipulation seemed to me that I can’t just send in the cost of attendance for a cheaper school in state unless I got a scholarship.
We appealed with an instate public and also a private univ - Pitt beat the private COA and nearly the instate public - both had offered merit.
The key is Pitt will try to match scholarships/aid offered by other colleges; they will not simply match the lower COA from another college without any additional scholarships/aid from it.
@med007 No, actually, Pitt will try to match the out-of-pocket costs for Pitt cost of attendance versus other comparable schools. Pitt looks directly at the net cost rather than the scholarship dollars. If HighTuitionPrivateSchoolTop20 offers a $30,000 a year scholarship, but the out-of-pocket cost still exceeds Pitt’s net cost, they’re not going to match the scholarship dollars.
As always, the more hooks you have - being a URM, having a 2400 SAT score, or a 4.0UW GPA, and/or coming from Zimbabwe or Myanmar, etc, the better your chances are of Pitt increasing their scholarship offer.
Has anyone gone through the appeals process this year for class of 2020? We are OOS with scholarship and were told this week by FA to wait until the final aid letter arrives in March. Perhaps I misunderstood and we don’t want to miss the opportunity. Thank you
@QuietType, thanks for an informative response.
@FuturePittMom, Financial Aid is indeed considered as a factor by the Cost Analysis Committee. Financial aid applications are being processed by our staff now, so if you filed your FAFSA you should hear back in a little bit.
Best,
A Pitt Admissions Staffer