Me to my daughter when she tells me what she is doing with her Pitt friends:
“Oh that sounds fun…where are they from?”
My daughter: “Somewhere outside of Philly or Jersey.” :))
Jersey’s biggest export is college students!! We are from NJ and my daughter is ready to commit but need to send in the cost analysis. She didn’t get much merit but really loves Pitt.
@Hotshoe I think you are right. My daughter’s GC told her she had to apply to a NJ State school. I told my D to ask if the counselor was going to pay the application fee. 
The only in-state school she applied to was Princeton, lol. There is one boy in her class who has already committed to Pitt…and she only has 80 kids in her class.
@JMRome We had a similar discussion with our kids - pick at least one NJ state school. Both refused to apply to Rutgers so we had them add an additional OOS public where we though we could get aid. Both got $15k bringing UCONN and Pitt to RU + or - a few grand.
@BoroDad Same here. In the end, D got 5 offers that put her at in-state or lower overall cost, including Pitt. Unfortunately, she also got into some OOS state schools that gave her nothing…because she is OOS. UCLA and UCSD come to mind. Her dream was UCLA…I told her to save it for med school.
But I also said, don’t apply to schools just because they might come in cheaper. Apply to the schools you can see yourself going to. Pitt is definitely one of them, and I’m 95% sure she is going to choose Pitt.
Her plan…write down the pros and cons of the top two on her list, assign each category a point value, and come to a determination. She has until April 23 to decide. That’s when I go away on vacation, and I told her I want a decision before I leave.
@JMRome for pre-med, I’ve got lots of pros to add to the list - let us know if you need any more info from the insiders view!
Thanks, @amandakayak ! We are very impressed with their pre-med program…coursework, research and advising. What is your kid’s major? We are really favoring neuroscience. It looks like an amazing program.
@amandakayak Yes, please share those pros with the rest of us too!
3 of my kids attended/attend Pitt. All are engineers - son graduated in '15 with chem engineering with bioengineering minor, daughter graduated in '17 with bioE major and went straight to grad school - currently at UCSF/UCBerkeley for bioengineering phd - focus on computational neuroscience. Last kids is a current jr in BioE - cellular track and will be doing co-op for next year at a biotech startup at Pitt.
All three took advantage of opportunities to do research in labs on campus. My '17 grad daughter spent almost 4 yrs - including summers in a single lab - moved from reporting to a grad student to directing her own research and then also mentoring undergrads in that lab. She had 2 publications by the time she applied to grad school - and additional 3 publications came out during her first yr at grad school - from work she had completed in undergrad. Pitt is extremely well funded by the NIH, but also NSF. I keep repeating this statistic, but here you go: in 2017, Pitt had the 5th largest $$ and # of NIH awards in the country. To secure a lab job, just email the researchers that you are interested in. Typically my kids would send out maybe 10 emails and have 2-3 interviews. I am not sure how easy it is to get research opportunities elsewhere esp at the undergrad level, but to me, this is a huge plus for pre-meds and those interested in graduate school in sciences/medicine.
There are multiple hospitals on and around campus for shadowing as well. Not many schools can compete with the sheer size and proximity of UPMC facilities as well as VA, Western Psych.
We are from NJ also - the “Buses Home for the Holidays” were helpful - we are in NNJ and found the Allentown, PA the most convenient. Sure wish they would add one NNJ stop but it’s ok. Megabus also runs from Pittsburgh downtown so that’s another option or Amtrak.
Beyond the academics, research…my kids were all happy at Pitt. They are very different people, different interests, but they all found their home at Pitt. My son was in the marching and symphonic bands, he also was in a band frat, and was a dj at the radio station. My daughter was very involved in her research but also had time for BMES (biomedical engineering society) and my other daughter goes to alot of concerts on campus and downtown, is also in a engineering service frat and has studied abroad. They have all formed some strong relationships with professors that I didn’t expect to happen at such a large school. All around, it’s been just a really great experience!
Wow, some great stats here! Trying to get an idea if it’s worth it for our daughter to apply. OOS, 3.7 weighted (mix of AP, Honors and standard level classes at a well respected HS) and 30 ACT (31 superscored). Is there much chance at all of $10K+ in merit?
Best advice I can give - apply early in the rolling process - they merit money does run out!
@lexluthor ---- did you read through the posted stat responses here? I would say chances of merit are pretty slim since most of the merit went to ACT 33+ and UNweighted GPA 3.8+. I believe there were a few outliers at 32 ACT but that was pretty rare.
Some of the ACT 35 kids only got 10K OOS.
@carachel2 that’s what it looked like to me, just wanted to be sure. Looks like it’s very competitive for oos merit. Won’t be applying to Pitt.
Just wanted to let all of you helpful people know my D committed to Pitt last week! H2P!