DS got a letter with this.
What exactly does this mean? Is their graduate program highly competitive? Or are many here getting this as well?
Congrats!
Here are the requirements they needed to meet to receive the guarantee offer: https://oafa.pitt.edu/who-fits-at-pitt/guaranteed-admissions-programs/engineering-gap/
You can get information about Swanson School graduate programs on their site: http://www.engineering.pitt.edu/
-Pitt Admissions Staffer
Well, thank you for the reply, but it didn’t provide me with anything I didn’t already read. He is not seeing any real advantage that this offered.
If a BS degree is enough for employment in engineering, than this is just longer attendance and more expense. He had no intention of going directly to graduate school from undergrad.
The Guarantee does not require him to participate in graduate school, it just offers him the option for guaranteed admissions into a Swanson School grad program if he should choose to do so. That is entirely up to him!
Does the guarantee still hold if the student works first then decides to get an MS after several years?
The intention is that a student in the Swanson School GAP will go right into graduate school.
Thanks!
Sure, happy to help!
Just to add to this, it tends to be given to strong academic candidates that Pitt thinks might enjoy their studies beyond a bachelors. I don’t think I have seen a single person actually use this guaranteed acceptance though (I and many of my friends had them). For those of us that did stay at Pitt for graduate school, we all either applied into the Ph.D. program or had Master’s work lined up with a professor we knew. Whenever someone brought up the guarantee, most people within a department had no idea what we were talking about.
My point is if you’re a good enough student to get the guarantee when you start at Pitt, you’ll be good enough to stay for graduate school if you’d like without ever needing to rely on that guarantee.
Thanks, awesome, that is the type of information I was looking for. You clarified what I was thinking regarding this “opportunity.”
I received a guarantee but so far no money (guarantee received in early November). Is it likely that someone qualifies for the guarantee but no merit aid?
It could be. To the best of my knowledge, there’s no cap to the number of guarantees that Pitt will give for SSOE (since like I said, I have yet to hear of a single person using it). There’s obviously a limitation to scholarship money though.
But I would be patient, the deadline for accepting applications for scholarships just passed (Jan. 15) so it’s gonna take them a while to sort through all the applications and decides who gets what. You have another 6 weeks almost to hear back about money (they have to let you know by March 1 IIRC). Sit tight and I imagine you should get something if you got a guarantee!