When do we hear about financial aid?

<p>It says March 1 on our student portal, but I haven't heard anything. Does anyone know?</p>

<p>Or were the forms due by March 1? It wouldn’t make sense to get financial aid offers before getting an offer of acceptance.</p>

<p>Forms were due by March 1. With that in mind, I too am curious when we hear about financial aid. Anyone know?</p>

<p>I think it depends on the school and how early you got your FAFSA filled out and submitted. I have gotten information and offers back from other schools that I was accepted to but denied my spot, but nothing from pitt yet…</p>

<p>My guess is that Fin Aid will come by April 1 and no later than April 30 (since deposit deadlines are May 1). Since decision deadlines tend to be April 1…you should hear around then.</p>

<p>And actually, Pitt sends acceptances BEFORE financial aid offers (or sometimes concurrently).</p>

<p>I’ve recently received a reply from one of the Pitt counselors for the same question I asked. She said that the financial aid office just started downloading the FAFSAs last week and that they anticipate getting freshman financial aid packages sent out by the end of this month. </p>

<p>I got my acceptance in mid-Jan and I filled out my FAFSA by the end of that month. This is so overwhelming…haha…at least we are half way through the month! whoohoo! Hail to Pitt!</p>

<p>I just received S’s FA offer… now I have to go hunt up COA as they did not include that info!</p>

<p>Yeah I got mine too, I only got about $2,000 in grants so it’ll still cost me over 20k a year. Ugh why must college be so expensive??</p>

<p>Yay! I just got mine today!! I was feeling so low after reading many threads and decided that Pitt was out of reach. But it JUST GOT back on my radar!! woot woot! Although it would still cost me a lot to attend Pitt as an OOS student, I am TOTALLY satisfied and surprised with their offer. </p>

<p>As crazymomster mentioned, they did not include COA. Does anyone know how we get to know about our FINAL COA after the financial aid is taken away from it? or how that process works in general?</p>

<p>Pitt’s site doesn’t do a very good job of showing the COA - you have to look all over and add the components together. </p>

<p>Collegeboard.com shows tuition/fees and room & board as about $35,000, but that doesn’t include books/misc. (another $1000 or more), personal expenses, or travel. So maybe they don’t make it real easy to see the COA on purpose! </p>

<p>Subtract your offer from $38-40,000 for your net cost.</p>

<p>Yearly cost for 2011-2012 OOS student</p>

<p>Tuition (School of Information Sciences) $26,664
Mandatory fees $860
Books $1,000
Travel and misc. $2,000
Housing (Sutherland double) $6,000
Meal plan (Tier 2, average eater) $3,750</p>

<p>TOTAL ==> $40,274</p>

<p>Holy bugger.
Ugh I didn’t think it would be THAT much. Now I have to rethink again…</p>

<p>Note that tuition rates differ by college, and do not increase in jr/sr years (like they might do other places, eg. PSU). [Institutional</a> Research - Tuition Rates - Pgh - UG - OS](<a href=“http://www.ir.pitt.edu/tuition/pghosfirst.php]Institutional”>http://www.ir.pitt.edu/tuition/pghosfirst.php) If you had the inclination to do an analysis of tuition costs year over year and project them out for 4 yrs (like this crazy mom did last yr), you will see Pitt (for OOS I’m saying here) is very conservative with increases. Through talking with other parents, the housing options, meal plan options and costs are also really very reasonable at Pitt vs. other schools. You are only guaranteed housing through jr. year so if you look at off-campus options - Pitt is also pretty inexpensive ($500/mo) - compared to say, finding a rental in Boston, NYC, Rochester… All things to consider. </p>

<p>Travel and misc. are based on your habits and how travel home for breaks might cost, for some this will be higher but for others lower. For my ds, he used about $1000 in “stuff” like smoothies, clothes, dinners off campus, movies, concerts… If you plan to come home for breaks, there are buses home which are not too expensive as well there is a megabus that runs out of Pittsburgh. Books are another thing - if you buy used, find books on the internet used, do your research…your costs will be lower. My ds (engineering) came in around $650 for the year. ymmv.</p>

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<p>I’m fairly certain my tuition has increased every single year I’ve been here…(not by a lot, but a fair amount…)</p>

<p>^I think amandak is referencing PSU/similar schools, where upperclassmen tuition is a bit more expensive than that of underclassmen.
RE: books/travel expenses, keep in mind your distance from school/major of choice. Last year I paid ~$4 total to travel between Pitt and home (Philly), though admittedly I only went home for Christmas and Thanksgiving breaks. If you’re a bio, chem, or similar major, you might expect to pay near that $1,000 book estimate. There are book scholarships available, though (through Pitt, student groups, etc)–or if you’re lucky you can pay $0 for books because your professors have sympathy enough to put them on reserve at the library. For many classes I would suggest waiting a bit until deciding whether to purchase a textbook as you may not need it. As far as cutting other costs, there are many on and off campus positions available to students, and not just those on work-study. Just some things to keep in mind…</p>

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<p>I’m in Engineering (So physics, Calc, and Chem, plus others) and the MOST I ever paid for books in a semester was about $350 (maybe about $450 a year). Buy used, and buy old editions unless you have to buy the newest one (for HW). A lot of professors won’t assign problems from the book, so it’s not worth it to buy new.</p>