<p>I remember something being sent to me saying about 5% or so of the applicants to Pitt are accepted to the honors college. Does anyone know where to find more stats (how many kids are actually attending, test scores, average HS GPA, etc.)?</p>
<p>Also, does a student get a boost to his/her GPA for taking honors courses?</p>
<p>I would also be interested in any more specific stats ranges for the Honors college. Thanks.</p>
<p>I think it's more like 20% (or something close to that) of applicants who are accepted to the honors college. I believe one must have a high GPA and 1400+ SAT score to gain admittance to the program. (Don't quote me on this-math is my worst subject :p-but...) I'm guessing about 700 or so deposited students are honors eligible (annually, there are about 20,000 freshman applications to Pitt, with about a 50% acceptance rate and a 33% deposit rate-of that 33%, the honors kids make up about 20% of the population, so about 700 students in the freshman class will be in the university honors college. Oh, and keep in mind-I did a lot of rounding/don't have hard numbers because Pitt hasn't accepted all of its class of 2012 yet). Sorry I don't have any "hard" info-I couldn't really find any (although, these might be helpful University</a> of Pittsburgh: Undergraduate Admissions & Financial Aid <a href="http://www.honorscollege.pitt.edu/about/eligibility.html)%5B/url%5D">http://www.honorscollege.pitt.edu/about/eligibility.html)</a>. I hope I may have shed some light on your questions-good luck if you'll be applying!</p>
<p>I was reading on pitt's website that there is separate dorms for the honors college and students can "elect" to stay in these dorms. Are these dorms much better than the others? Is the crowd way different? How about the social opportunities? Overall, would you decide to reside in the honors residence hall?</p>
<p>I would do honors housing. It's not that much nicer than Towers, but it's nice just to be around other Honors College students and they do a lot of networking and similar activites.</p>
<p>I'm going to be in Forbes this fall....and I'm so excited!! It seems to me like it gives the campus more of a small college feel.</p>
<p>^^^ha-see you there!</p>
<p>Thanks, arachnaphobia12. Actually, my daughter's a rising HS junior, so she's still a year away from applying. Although we're trying to figure out the best time to visit: sometime during the school year or wait until the summer so she can visit and then get a head start on the application.</p>
<p>No problem, and good luck to your daughter! My personal suggestion: visit during the summer (perhaps go to a "Getting Ready", "So You Want to be a", etc. program-you can apply then and there for free, and they're good/interesting programs). If they send you the thing in the mail that will give you the opportunity visit during the fall for "free" (they will give you travel reimbursement), I would do that, too. Just my opinion, though!</p>
<p>^That's great that they were willing to reimburse your travel expenses. :)
The summer program does sound really good, but I was wondering: When you visited during the summer, did you feel that there were enough students around that you had as good a sense of the school's atmosphere as you would have had during the fall and/or spring semesters?</p>
<p>We went again during Admitted Students Day and school was still in session. It gives you a better idea of the atmosphere. The streets are filled with students/people and it is different from when we went during the summer. Do take the upper and lower campus tours. Son realized that he would like to live on the upper campus after freshman year. However he wants to be with the majority of freshmans at the Towers this Fall. Upper campus is very quiet versus near the Towers.</p>
<p>^Thanks for the additional information--that's good to know.</p>
<p>I think MTnest is right in that it is different (better?) to visit when the whole study body is on campus. I will say, however, that I enjoyed visiting during a time when not as many people were on campus-I feel like I was able to explore/become more familiarized with the school in a more intimate setting. Of course, as I said before, I would suggest visiting during the summer and some time during the school year (that is if, of course, you are afforded that opportunity-otherwise, perhaps just going in the fall will be good-you can see how the school truly operates).</p>
<p>arachnaphobia...are you on the forbes facebook group? my real name is stacy...i just thought it would be funny if we were talking to each other on both boards but didn't even know it!</p>
<p>ha, well, I actually haven't joined Facebook yet (my friends are pushing me to join join it this week)-I hope I haven't missed out on much :p... oh, btw, I see your original question asked whether or not a person's gpa will be boosted if he/she takes honors classes-from what I can remember, the answer is no (i will try to find the link to that info later if you'd like).</p>
<p>There is no gpa boost if you take honor classes. They were very firm about this during the advising session. You take honor courses because you want to learn more (in-depth) about a subject. Honor courses are not weighted like they are in high school.</p>
<p>First, no one is 'accepted' to the honors college, it is voluntary participation. Even if you've had no correspondence with the honors college during admissions you can still take honors classes, you'll just need to get a class approval signed before your register from the professor. This is not hard unless the class is full.</p>
<p>To quote arachnophobia</p>
<p>"I believe one must have a high GPA and 1400+ SAT score to gain admittance to the program."</p>
<p>I second this, and was told by a friend that was very active in the honors college that SAT was the major factor in determining eligibility for the honors college scholarship. 1400 or so was the approx cutoff at the time. Not sure if this has gone up or down. I had 1440 SAT and was offered the tuition scholarship. I know many people in similar situations, and great students with SAT below 1400 that were not offered it. Apply early too.</p>
<p>I applied the last week of December and within a week was accepted in the honors college, then about a week later given a scholarship. I sent them my ACT scores, and they say they have a way of converting that to the SAT. The girl giving me a tour of pitt at an infosession I went to said the cutoff was a 31 on the ACT and a 1400 on the SAT. However, I'm not sure if they look at just a couple sections of the ACT since the SAT is only english and math. And I bet they factor in other things when deciding on admittance, because there are people with higher scores than that that don't get in a people with lower scores that do. Sorry if that was longwinded lol</p>
<p>"And I bet they factor in other things when deciding on admittance, because there are people with higher scores than that that don't get in a people with lower scores that do."</p>
<p>That is interesting. Do you have any idea when the foregoing people applied? I'd be interested in seeing what the relationship is between minimum SAT scores and apps strength for a scholarship vs. application time. </p>
<p>To add a little more, I know people that had high SATs and good grades and nothing else in the way of activities that got the scholarship (and applied early). So I am wondering why the people you mentioned with high scores were not offered it. I personally think more than SAT scores should be considered and hope that they are.</p>
<p>
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and I bet they factor in other things when deciding on admittance, because there are people with higher scores than that that don't get in a people with lower scores that do.
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I believe they definitely take GPA into account, too. I know of a guy whose SAT scores were high enough that he could've been accepted to the honors program, but he had a low GPA so he didn't get in.</p>