@DCdenizen —tens of thousands of great kids like yours out there. It shows he is a hard worker and hopefully will do great. But he will get $0.00 merit from Pitt. I don’t even think kids in the low 1400 range got merit from Pitt in the last two years (from self-reporting data here on CC). Merit from Pitt for sure is dependent on GPA (unweighted) AND test scores. Please don’t be like the parents in years past who have insisted on not recognizing this and then post in late February about how angry and betrayed they are that Pitt did not give their kid merit. You have a great kid and I’m sure he would love Pitt and would do fine.
The merit (and this is true at any school) is to lure high stat kids to the school so the school can maintain or improve their rankings. It’s a business.
Thanks for the feedback, which confirms my suspicions. (Here’s hoping the boy miraculously finds another 400 points on this Saturday’s round 2 of the SAT!)
Pitt weighs test scores more, Penn State weighs GPA more, so hypothetically strong PA students have at least one top flagship choice. The issue really is cost (lack of state and institutional aid combined with extremely high instate cost of attendance.)
My S wound up at Ohio State University, and 1 of the reasons is of the merit money offered to OOS students. Not all get it, but they have the National Buckeye Scholarship and they have other smaller awards they can add on to that. Made his coa less than at both Pitt and PSU, and we are in-state. He graduated hs in 2016.
@DCdenizen - I was told that to get Merit they have to have a minimum of 1480 on the SAT. They should also be in the top 5% of their class. Pitt told me that even with a 1480 SAT score that the merit would be low with this score because so many students have much higher scores. Believe me it was so disappointing for us because my son is in the top 7% of his class and had a 1360 on his SAT. He did not get any merit. For this reason he is going to the Johnstown branch campus because we could not afford Pitt Main. He was able to get merit scholarships at the branch campus Good luck to you
Yes, the son I spoke of in post #25 had a 1370 on the old SAT, 32 ACT, and a 3.8 (uw), 4.7 (w), and was not offered merit or Honors College in 2015-16 school year.
@collegefrazzled: yes, Pitt grants scholarships based on very high test scores and Penn State grants (very few) scholarships based on a myriad reasons unrelated to test scores (for instance, admission to Schreyer does NOT factor test scores at all).
How’s your son doing? Has he gone to his orientation?
@MYOS1634 thank you for asking. Academic Planning Day is in June and Orientation is in August. He seems happy with going to UPJ in the Fall. We are anxious to visit in June because the last time we were there it was snowing.
