2008-2009 University of Pittsburgh Secondary Application Thread

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pazan said:
Haha... I'm looking forward to visiting the park if I wind up going to Pitt (but not seeing the Pirates). I definitely liked the city when I visited and would be happy there for the next 8 years (I'm MD/PhD), but I'm a So Cal native so it's hard for me to imagine living anywhere else. Yeah, Dodger's Stadium has those impersonally long troughs, so the only thing you P-N-C is the person next to you.
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Oh, you will learn to love the Buccos, everyone learns to love the Buccos.
 
Pittsburgh is a wonderful city 🙂

My personal favorite thing to do: drive into the city through the Fort Pitt tunnel at night. Coming out of the tunnel when the whole city is lit up (including the bridges and the Carnegie Science Center) is breathtaking.
 
Rejected... by status page, not so sad as i was just accepted somewhere else.
 
:-( checked status page and found out that I was rejected. Why didn't they send email?
 
Anyone accepted interview around 10/16-10/17? Waitlisters seem to be hearing back from them...
 
lol...

After seeing the discussion on this thread I decided to check my App Status.

Accepted apparently... they never emailed me or called or anything.

So I highly recommend you kiddies check your status for Pitt. There could be presents waiting.

Interviewed 9/16.
 
Erina said:
Pittsburgh is a wonderful city 🙂

My personal favorite thing to do: drive into the city through the Fort Pitt tunnel at night. Coming out of the tunnel when the whole city is lit up (including the bridges and the Carnegie Science Center) is breathtaking.
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i totally agree that Pittsburgh is a great city!!! (i'm a bit biased because i was born there 🙄) i hadn't been back there for a few years - when i drove there for my Pitt interview, i exited out of the tunnel and it was beautiful 😍
 
Ive lived in Pittsburgh since I was 5 (im 20 now). Comparing NY and Chicago to Pittsburgh is like comparing apples and oranges. If you dont want to live here based on your preconceived notions, then don't. We don't want people like you here. It is a small very livable city with plenty of things to do within a small distance. imo, when cities get above a certain number of people, they just start to get degraded.

People who suggest that the public transportation here is great have obviously never been to Europe. The buses here are completely unreliable. The public transportation here SUCKS. If you want to depend on some bus to get you around, then be my guest. If you don't have a car, you're basically half a person.

oh, and I dont know of any young people here that are in to the Succos :laugh:
 
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MrAgreeable said:
LOL take it easy on the 'burgh. Over the last two decades they have done a fine job of cleaning up the city and giving certain sections (The Waterfront) a quasi-hip feel. The surround areas are very nice and fairly wealthy. There are fine restaurants (even though as a med student no one will have the money to go there). There is a resounding, unique culture in the city with plenty to do and America's team, The Pittsburgh Pirates, play their home games in the one, the only PNC park where they have windows in the bathrooms so you can P-N-C.

Lol I kill myself:laugh:

PS. It is fairly warm compared to the rest of Pa, I don't know why?
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I have never been to Pittsburgh, but I'm really excited to go there for my interview! I am a huge hockey fan and so far have managed to get tickets to a pro hockey game in every city I am interviewing in...can't wait to go to a Pens home game!
 
MedYEP said:
I have never been to Pittsburgh, but I'm really excited to go there for my interview! I am a huge hockey fan and so far have managed to get tickets to a pro hockey game in every city I am interviewing in...can't wait to go to a Pens home game!
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👍 I try to do the same thing with baseball, in every city I happen to be in. Go Bruins!
 
MedYEP said:
I have never been to Pittsburgh, but I'm really excited to go there for my interview! I am a huge hockey fan and so far have managed to get tickets to a pro hockey game in every city I am interviewing in...can't wait to go to a Pens home game!
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I'm a huge hockey fan too (go Wings!) and when I was in Pittsburgh for my interview, the bus I took into the city from the airport drove right by the Igloo and I got a little irrationally excited... Haha.
 
So, does anyone know how long the waitlist is? Do they waitlist 100 people? 200? More? 😕
 
Carlin said:
I'm a huge hockey fan too (go Wings!) and when I was in Pittsburgh for my interview, the bus I took into the city from the airport drove right by the Igloo and I got a little irrationally excited... Haha.
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Delighted at seeing the site of your latest Stanley Cup clincher?
 
pianola said:
So, does anyone know how long the waitlist is? Do they waitlist 100 people? 200? More? 😕
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I seem to recall them saying that they end up accepting about 40% of their interviewing applicants throughout an entire application cycle. Therefore, assuming that they interview about 1200 individuals this cycle (based on last year's numbers), approximately 480 of them will receive an acceptance at some point in time. The projected class size is 148, so assuming that the same pattern is followed from last year, 332 will be offered a seat in next year's class and choose not to take it. Thus, to be able to account for the accepted applicants who will not matriculate, they naturally need at least 332 waitlisted individuals. I would imagine that they will place no less than 400 individuals on the waitlist, just to ensure that there is a buffer to account for unexpected deviations. As a disclaimer, I deduced all of this from the 40% figure and the MSAR applicant data and have made certain assumptions about their acceptance policies, so if anyone has better information, please don't hesitate to share it and/or correct me.

As a fellow waitlistee who must endure until May, I can only hope that it is on the smaller end!
 
Hmm...interesting. Thanks, Greonis. I might call at some point and ask them how many they plan to waitlist. And just, in general, what the odds are of getting off the waitlist in the first place. I'll post if I find out anything.
 
pianola said:
Hmm...interesting. Thanks, Greonis. I might call at some point and ask them how many they plan to waitlist. And just, in general, what the odds are of getting off the waitlist in the first place. I'll post if I find out anything.
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Thanks for investigating!

Also, I should probably have mentioned my assumption. I assumed that the number of pre-waitlist acceptances (those directly accepted and not accepted off the waitlist) was equal to the number of seats in the class. If it were greater, than the need for a waitlist would likely be diminished (less spots to be filled) and the total number waitlisted would likely be smaller. With that in mind, my previous prediction is better suited to be a "largest possible waitlist size" estimation.

EDIT: Of course, they could directly accept less people than there are spots in the class, but I highly doubt that they would do such a thing.
 
Greonis said:
Thanks for investigating!

Also, I should probably have mentioned my assumption. I assumed that the number of pre-waitlist acceptances (those directly accepted and not accepted off the waitlist) was equal to the number of seats in the class. If it were greater, than the need for a waitlist would likely be diminished (less spots to be filled) and the total number waitlisted would likely be smaller. With that in mind, my previous prediction is better suited to be a "largest possible waitlist size" estimation.

EDIT: Of course, they could directly accept less people than there are spots in the class, but I highly doubt that they would do such a thing.
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In general, schools tend to directly accept more applicants than there are seats in a class. They do this based on the assumption that many of those offered direct acceptances will either decline the offer or withdraw their acceptance at some point. I'm not sure if Pitt follows this method or not.
 
Yeah, I mean, we'll see what they say.
 
frenchvanilla86 said:
I'm in the same boat. I interviewed on one of the first days and my status page still hasn't changed. Starting to think this must mean a rejection...
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not necessarily...one of your interviewers could have just taken a really long time to fill out your evaluation. speaking of evaluations...i need to fill one out from 3 weeks ago.

oops. 😳
 
saveourpens said:
Ive lived in Pittsburgh since I was 5 (im 20 now). Comparing NY and Chicago to Pittsburgh is like comparing apples and oranges. If you dont want to live here based on your preconceived notions, then don't. We don't want people like you here. It is a small very livable city with plenty of things to do within a small distance. imo, when cities get above a certain number of people, they just start to get degraded.

People who suggest that the public transportation here is great have obviously never been to Europe. The buses here are completely unreliable. The public transportation here SUCKS. If you want to depend on some bus to get you around, then be my guest. If you don't have a car, you're basically half a person.

oh, and I dont know of any young people here that are in to the Succos :laugh:
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we love 'em up here in New Castle baby
 
OK, information for any waitlisters who might be interested:

I was told that last year, a third of the class was taken from the waitlist. So that's about 49 people (minimum) they take off the waitlist (assuming everyone they take off the waitlist decides to go, which is probably an unrealistic assumption).

I should have asked how many people were actually on last year's waitlist. So some brave soul will have to step up to the plate and do that if you're interested in finding out what proportion of waitlisted people ended up matriculating last year. Please report back if you find out 🙂.

The admissions office didn't tell me how many people they were thinking of taking off the waitlist this year or how long the waitlist would be. I did ask.
 
To those on the waitlist, some "encouraging" news: they apparently decided to directly accept fewer applicants this year and then pull more individuals from their waitlist come May 15th. This was taken from a snail mail letter that I received today.
 
pianola said:
OK, information for any waitlisters who might be interested:

I was told that last year, a third of the class was taken from the waitlist. So that's about 49 people (minimum) they take off the waitlist (assuming everyone they take off the waitlist decides to go, which is probably an unrealistic assumption).

I should have asked how many people were actually on last year's waitlist. So some brave soul will have to step up to the plate and do that if you're interested in finding out what proportion of waitlisted people ended up matriculating last year. Please report back if you find out 🙂.

The admissions office didn't tell me how many people they were thinking of taking off the waitlist this year or how long the waitlist would be. I did ask.
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Thanks again for looking into that!

Given the letter I received today, I might take the plunge and call sometime this week. I'm quite curious myself.
 
Yes! I received the letter today, too. So probably more than 49 will be accepted this year.

Haha, it's funny how we get so excited for something that won't be decided until eons from now.

Greonis said:
Thanks again for looking into that!
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No problem 🙂 Hope we hear good news a few months down the road.
 
I'm getting nervous just waiting for my post-interview decision... The waiting never ends (unless I get in.....)

I hate how much I <3 University of Pittsburgh. It gives them too much power. 🙂
 
pianola said:
Yes! I received the letter today, too. So probably more than 49 will be accepted this year.

Haha, it's funny how we get so excited for something that won't be decided until eons from now.



No problem 🙂 Hope we hear good news a few months down the road.
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I hope so too! It's going to be a long 7 months, that's for sure.
 
Any last week of September or first week of October interviewees get a decision yet?
 
Love how I had to find out about my rejection from the status page. 🙁
 
OnlyNeedOneYes said:
I interviewed Sept. 10th and I haven't heard back yet, which I think is messed up b/c some people who interviewed a full week later have already gotten decisions. When schools can't seem to make a call in a reasonable amount of time about our admissions decisions, it sort of makes you wonder what the problem is. We're all qualified, they should just dish out some decisions and live with it. They aren't going to recruit the "perfect" class.
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It's probably because they didn't get your paper evaluation from your interviewers yet. They are on the high end of interviewing #s. They told you up front to wait 6-8 weeks for a decision.
 
OnlyNeedOneYes said:
I interviewed Sept. 10th and I haven't heard back yet, which I think is messed up b/c some people who interviewed a full week later have already gotten decisions. When schools can't seem to make a call in a reasonable amount of time about our admissions decisions, it sort of makes you wonder what the problem is. We're all qualified, they should just dish out some decisions and live with it. They aren't going to recruit the "perfect" class.
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A lot of the time it has more to do with individual schedules. Your interviewer(s) are not going to be able to make every admissions committee meeting, and it would be unfair for them to make a decision on your application without your "advocate" present.
 
chad5871 said:
A lot of the time it has more to do with individual schedules. Your interviewer(s) are not going to be able to make every admissions committee meeting, and it would be unfair for them to make a decision on your application without your "advocate" present.
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Actually, from what I hear @ Pitt, they only send written reccomendations and many aren't on the committee.
 
Chuck's Right Foot said:
Actually, from what I hear @ Pitt, they only send written reccomendations and many aren't on the committee.
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Well, I guess it's possible that the interviewer didn't send their recommendation in on time?

I really don't think that adcoms are purposefully trying to make us sweat. They know we are anxious about getting a decision, and it would be unnecessarily cruel to make us wait any longer than we have to.
 
chad5871 said:
Well, I guess it's possible that the interviewer didn't send their recommendation in on time?

I really don't think that adcoms are purposefully trying to make us sweat. They know we are anxious about getting a decision, and it would be unnecessarily cruel to make us wait any longer than we have to.
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Yes, I totally agree with you... see my post before yours! They interview near 1000 individuals. That can't be easy.
 
I've always wondered how much influence the interviewer's rec has on admissions process. My friend showed me the student interviewer's rec with the rankings which was something like

1=reject, 2=waitlist, 3=admit, 4=recruit. I can't remember now if it was 1-4 or 1-5, but it was something like this. For the most part, I don't think interviewers go to committee, they just submit their evaluation that has questions like:

How did this person's interest in medicine progress?
How would you gauge the person's interest in Pitt? What factors is he/she interested in?
Any unusual or unique factors about this candidate?

But since many students probably pick 3, I guess its the details to these questions that matter.

I dunno what the point of this post was.
 
mmmcdowe said:
Yes, but the accept almost 500 of them. I don't recall the exact statistic, but I know it was between 400-500.
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Admissions data from 2007: 5616 applied, 1229 interviewed, 443 were accepted, 146 enrolled.

But this year they are apparently accepting fewer directly after interview and will take more from the waitlist.
 
chad5871 said:
Admissions data from 2007: 5616 applied, 1229 interviewed, 443 were accepted, 146 enrolled.

But this year they are apparently accepting fewer directly after interview and will take more from the waitlist.
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This isn't official but a 2nd year there (she doesn't interview) told me that Pitt is reducing the # interviewees this year. She didn't tell me anything about acceptance rates.
 
Just wondering-- has anybody with a 9/23 (or later) interview been accepted yet? :scared:
 
geenelln said:
I've always wondered how much influence the interviewer's rec has on admissions process. My friend showed me the student interviewer's rec with the rankings which was something like

1=reject, 2=waitlist, 3=admit, 4=recruit. I can't remember now if it was 1-4 or 1-5, but it was something like this. For the most part, I don't think interviewers go to committee, they just submit their evaluation that has questions like:

How did this person's interest in medicine progress?
How would you gauge the person's interest in Pitt? What factors is he/she interested in?
Any unusual or unique factors about this candidate?

But since many students probably pick 3, I guess its the details to these questions that matter.

I dunno what the point of this post was.
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Oh, gosh. I wish I knew this beforehand. 🙁
 
chad5871 said:
But this year they are apparently accepting fewer directly after interview and will take more from the waitlist.
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I heard that and hope its true, Pitt is a cool school!
 
I interviewed the 2nd week of September and still no change in status page. I'm starting to get a little impatient. Anyone tried calling yet to ask about their status?
 
Looks like from the acceptance thread we are at an at least 6 week waiting period. People interviewing around 9/15 are getting decisions. If you intereviewed around then, you might have been shafted with a late interview evaluation.

Keep the fingers crossed!!! I have to wait for 11/20!!!!
 
I interviewed during the week of 9/22 and just got the acceptance today through my status page update. That's about six weeks post-interview, which seems to be the current trend. I also heard from an inside source that they update decision status on Thursdays... I'm not sure how accurate this is but it couldn't hurt to check today. Good luck to those of you still waiting!
 
Plantay said:
I interviewed during the week of 9/22 and just got the acceptance today through my status page update. That's about six weeks post-interview, which seems to be the current trend. I also heard from an inside source that they update decision status on Thursdays... I'm not sure how accurate this is but it couldn't hurt to check today. Good luck to those of you still waiting!
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9/22!!!! They get closer to my interview day!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

5 Weeks 3 days!!!

Sorry for the over reaction. Pitt is my 1st choice easily.
 
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