Yes I am glad to have a break! Two very different kids though so it will be a new process!!
If you mean Penn the Ivy that’s a great deal if those numbers came in below Pitt!
We also have an S24 and he’s wanted to be a meteorologist since being a toddler and thankfully Penn State have one of the best programs in the country. We are in-state.
But those 4 years won’t come cheap for full-pay with how little merit PSU awards.
Yes she is at UPenn, not PSU.
And no the numbers are much higher for us but we we managing. Pitt was her safety school and she may have considered it with hefty merit.
Got it! Pitt was S19’s safety too and yes the hefty merit did sway him. But so did getting waitlisted at 2 Ivy’s… sigh. But it’s all good, he’s acing through Pitt.
Hope '24 gets a good deal, too!
I don’t get a break, D22 is up next. 
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My 2024’s college list is going to be very different than the 2021 kid.
We are MD too, last year she got a letter about merit about two weeks after her acceptance in October. Only about 20% of students get any merit at all, my D got $5 K a year and Honors College. Not a ton but she loved the campus and had no desire to go to UMD. Va Tech only gave $3 K a year.
We’re in the same situation. OOS, Applied late October, accepted mid November. And then…nothing.
Very well said and I agree, although with in-state merit being cut in recent years I’m not sure how much of a lever it is anymore.
My friend’s two sons (in-state) are Pitt ‘22 and ‘23 and they both received $15k / year. The most in-state merit I’ve seen posted in this thread for ‘26 has been $5k / year.
My daughter is also applying to T20 schools and she may still choose Pitt — but it won’t be because she received $2-5k. It would be great to get and make it more manageable but it wouldn’t move the needle, to use your great turn of phrase for it. OTOH, $15k would have been enough to make it a primary factor in the decision. I say that recognizing that every family’s finances are unique, and for some $2-5k may, in fact, be a determining factor.
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Does merit usually indicate admission into the Honors College? DD is OOS and got pretty good merit. Now we’re on pins and needles waiting to hear about the Honors College. If she gets in, that will pretty much seal the deal!
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I don’t think so. A friend’s daughter, in state, got merit but no honors college. She graduated from Pitt last year.
Does anyone know if there is a way to find out if no merit means no merit forthcoming or if you are still in some kind of review cycle? They state that they continue to consider merit through Feb but I don’t know if we should move on from Pitt due to no word on merit or whether there is still hope? Son was admitted in Nov for Comp Sci, if that makes any difference.
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We’re in same boat and I’ve wondered if appropriate to reach out to admissions. He was admitted to SCS in September. Good luck!
More people receive merit than gain acceptance into the honors college. I’m not sure from where College Vine got their data but they report that 14.6% of Pitt admits without financial need receive merit. If we just extrapolate “without financial need” to the student body (since merit is supposed to be need-blind anyway), 14.6% of 18,000 admits would be 2,600 students receiving merit offers. In contrast, only 600-700 students are admitted into the honors college. Hope that helps.
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The awards just showed up in the portal when my son checked. There wasn’t any communication notifying him that he would receive any. He also received the Panther Pride award and i believe that is due to us having my oldest at Virginia Tech. Again a welcomed surprise as I didn’t think we qualified for financial aid.
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They also showed up without an email or any other notification in the portal for my son. Merit scholarship was received back in October, and Panther Pride shows up in there now as well.
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The best way to see how many students received merit that did not qualify for financial aid is to look at Pitt’s Common Data set on their website.
For 2021-2022 it says only 237 students received merit who did not qualify for financial aid. The number I believe was similar for my S19’s incoming freshman class.
Welcome! I’m compiling an admittedly unscientific spreadsheet of merit offers, to determine whether test-optional is significant this year. I’m asking folks to supply the $$ amount of merit,; whether they’re OOS; whether they submitted scores; if so, what were they; what their GPA is; their major; and any APs taken.
If you would like to participate, plz respond in thread or via PM - anonymous is fine if you don’t want it bandied about.
Thanks!
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Wow! Is that the number who received it AND enrolled, or the total number of accepted applicants who were offered merit?
Either way, I need to tell my daughter again to feel special…I am rooting for Pitt to be her choice.
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That is the number of students who enrolled who received merit with no financial aid eligibility.
S19 was one of them as well.
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Right, but we are trying to figure out how many students received merit to compare that to how many students earned honors admittance. If 14.6% of students who did not receive financial aid received merit, and if merit is need blind, then absent other information we can also infer that 14.6% of students who did receive financial aid also received merit. The 14.6% figure is all we have to go off of here.