D has full tuition, honors college at both. Seems like other people must have made this choice before–what led you to choose one or the other? She is undecided major, probably biology, chemistry or math.
You’re asking on a Pitt board…what answer do you think you’ll get? I’ll give you mine since I lived in Philly for several years, although I didn’t (and wouldn’t have) considered Temple at all when I was picking between schools.
Pitt is, in general, a better overall school that is more highly regarded, even more so in the biological/health sciences. It has better biologic and chemistry facilities and significanly more research going on in those fields (and since those are research fields your D will want to take advantage), smaller classes, more school pride, a more accomplished faculty and study body (including those in the honors college), is a fiscally more sound institution, has more amenities tied to the city (such as free public transportation and museums), and has a nicer campus with more green space and significantly more impressive buildings located in a much nicer neighborhood that is adjacent to a major park. Other than a few select majors that Temple excels in, it is pretty much a no brainer for Pitt in my personal opinion.
That is my instinct (that Pitt is better), but wanted to see if others could articulate it for me. We have not ever seriously considered Temple once Pitt award came through. I suppose I could post to Temple board too, but I’m too lazy to retype I guess.
If your D intends to be involved in pre-health related major/career, I could not understand your difficulty in making the decision
She is very very undecided. Needs help figuring this out. Very shy. I worry that she can get lost in the shuffle (both places), but seems like honors program is a bit more involved at Temple. She is leaning Pitt, I just want to double check.
Has she attended Admitted Student days and asked for Honors tour?
If possible, she should do an overnight at both, eat in the cafeteria, stay in the Honors dorm, attend a class in her preferred major and a “freshman requirement” class, read the paper to see what concerns the students and how articulate they are about those issues, talk with students, meet with professors in the Honors program…
Both Pitt Honors and Temple Honors are very good, but Pitt has the edge for the sciences, neuroscience, and medicine, and direct campus environment.
She will go to admitted honors day next week. Hoping she loves it!
My DD is choosing between Pitt, Temple and a few others although they are the top two (all honors). Her anticipated major is Electrical Engineering. While Pitt clearly has a higher ranked engineering program, my DD is currently leaning Temple because of the honors program. Your D is clearly a good student and will excel at either school. Both have fantastic affiliated medical schools and both are Carnegie level research facilities. The ever elusive “fit” is probably the best determination but you need to visit in order to ascertain that. For my DD, both schools are a good fit but she prefers the Temple Honors program. Pitt’s honors is not nearly as structured and she preferred the advisors at Temple. We are visiting Pitt one more time for the Honors admitted students day but, for her, Temple appears to be a better choice.
Does Temple require you to take a certain amount of honors courses? At Pitt you can decide to take honors courses or not.
Is your D interested more in biology or chemistry? Pitt has the SEA PHAGES program which is a two semester bio lab option. Gets them started on research right away.
http://www.biology.pitt.edu/undergraduate/courses/biosc-courses/course-descrip
http://seaphages.org/
@mommdc she thinks biology or math. Her dad is a chemist, which means her 18 year old self leans to do something else.
@PhilaSkiMom thanks for your input! My impression from the websites agrees with your D’s. I think we will go to Pitt Honors day, and if she doesn’t love it, find a way to get to Temple. My D is leaning Pitt.
Same options but leaning towards Pitt for different reasons. One is Temples location. Second is neuro/bio seems to be better in Pitt
Any opinions or inputs?
read @wgmcp101 post above - Pitt is not just a bit stronger in neuro/bio. Pitt is #6 in nation for NIH funding in a university setting. Thats alot of funded research.
I have my doctorate in Neuroscience and have been a student, postdoc, and faculty at schools around the country. Pitt is one of the very best for undergrad neuroscience. It isn’t really even close. Pitt is a lot closer to Penn than Temple is to Pitt. In fact, I’ve taught at Penn and did research there and I’d recommend Pitt for undergrad neuroscience over Penn. Probably not for grad, but I have no problem saying the undergrad program at Pitt was superior to Penn’s in my observations and experience. Temple isn’t in the same neighborhood.
I’ll give you the latest NIH research funding numbers available, and keep in mind NIH funding is the absolute gold standard in the bio/health science fields because all of that money is a result of it having been successfully awarded after going through the most rigorously peer reviewed and highly competitive process out there. It is the research funding mechanisms that scientific careers are based on.
NIH funding for FY2015
UPenn: $458.0 million
Pitt: $436.1 million
Temple: $64.3 million
Those numbers speak for themselves about what is going on at the different schools, but that is well over a 6-fold difference in the level and volume of high caliber research being conducted in the bio and health sciences. And that is also why just saying “Carnegie level” whatever is absolutely meaningless. There are 100+ schools categorized in the highest research level in the Carnegie classification …it is classification not a ranking…and the disparity between any two of those schools can be even greater than 6-fold. If a school is bragging on their Carnegie classification, that typically means they’re not one of the higher profile research centers.
And yes, research isn’t unimportant for undergrads in majors like neuroscience because the field is a research discipline. If a student wants to do neuro or biology as a career, i.e. become a scientist, then they should get into a lab as an undergrad as soon as possible and do some publishable or presentable work. Not that opportunities don’t exist at Temple for that, there are just a lot more of them at Pitt.
@wgmcp101 Thanks for the detailed and very informative post. So far you have made us lean more towards Pitt 
I do understand that Neuroscience dept at Pitt has a lot of research opportunities and students do engage in that research. Do you know how the Neuroscience major folks fare in the Med School acceptances?
I know the students who opt for such a major work hard but do they end up getting good grades too?
N=1, but I do have an MD colleague (young doc) who got BS in Neuroscience at Pitt. I believe he was a double major, not sure what in. He is strongly urging my D to choose Pitt.
I don’t know the numbers for med acceptance success. The Dept of Neuroscience at Pitt doesn’t exist to just serve as a pre-med conduit, so I don’t know if they keep numbers like that or not. You’d have to call them to find out. However, if you come out of Pitt with a BS in Neuroscience and a representative GPA for the med school that you are interested in, you’ll be fine, and you’ll also be better prepared than most for med school.
If you struggle in biology or neuroscience at the undergrad level, (for instance, can’t maintain better than a 3.0 in your science classes) you likely aren’t destined for med school to begin with no matter where you go for your undergraduate.
@Booajo @dudefromnowhere - I have to eat my words. DD was not impressed with Pitt’s honors program at all but she was significantly impressed with Pitt’s engineering program. She said that she would make sure the honors program worked for her and has chosen to attend Pitt in the fall.
@PhilaSkiMom was she at last weeks honors day? My spouse said they did a pretty bad job of selling it, much worse than some other schools we’ve visited.
I kind of like the approach that it’s not that structured. If you want to dive deeper into a subject, want smaller class sizes, have a unique interest, honors courses are there but they are not required. Another honors college we visited had a required core of classes and that would not have worked for my D.
Well, I will tell you that honors colleges at many schools we visited pitched honors college as a kind of exclusive smaller school within a larger school thing - Pitt’s program if you call it that, is not exactly like that. My kids have all been included in UHC, all took advantage of the honors housing at Sutherland. My one dd spent an additional year in upperclass honors. She also is my only kid who did take a honors course, because it was a course she wanted to go in depth in, and have a smaller class size. She took that honors level course during her freshman year but she hasn’t taken another honors course - mainly because she felt it did go into theoretical depth and wasn’t practical in following the curriculum as closely so that when she took the next course in the series (at a non-honors level) she wasn’t prepared as well. She had to self-teach some things she had not been taught. There are other aspects to UHC, that she has taken advantage of - namely summer research scholarships and travel scholarships to present at industry conferences. The engineering curriculum is tough and at a level that would scare many AP-driven-honors HS students as it is; you don’t need to take it at honors level to have a challenge.