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August 30, 2007

How Pitt stacks up in PA

Following are highlights from a comparison of select Pennsylvania institutions from data in U.S. News and World Report’s 2008 “best colleges” edition:

• Acceptance rate: Pitt accepted 56 percent (up from 53 percent in last year’s U.S. News data) of its applicants for fall 2006’s entering class (of 18,195 total applicants); Penn State, 58 percent (34,813 applicants); Carnegie Mellon, 34 percent (18,864 applicants); Temple, 60 percent (18,140 applicants); the University of Pennsylvania, 18 percent (20,483 applicants).

(The most selective institutions nationally were Harvard and Yale with a 9 percent acceptance rate.)

• Student-faculty ratio: Pitt, Penn State and Temple, 17:1; CMU, 10:1; Penn, 6:1.

• Full-time faculty: Pitt, 1,522; Penn State, 2,290; CMU, 838; Temple, 1,253, and Penn, 1,384.

• The average six-year graduation rate: Pitt graduated 73 percent of its 2000 entering students within six years (up from 70 percent of 1999 entering students); Penn State, 85 percent; CMU, 86 percent; Temple, 59 percent; Penn, 94 percent.

• Pitt’s retention rate of fall 2005 entering freshmen: 89 percent (the same as in last year’s data), compared to Penn State’s 93 percent, CMU’s 94 percent, Temple’s 85 percent and Penn’s 98 percent.

(Nationally, the top combined graduation and retention rank was Harvard’s at 98 percent.)

• Pitt’s percentage of full-time students receiving need-based grants was 43 percent (up from 34 percent last year); Penn State’s was 30 percent, CMU’s was 46 percent, Temple’s was 64 percent and Penn’s was 41 percent.

• The Pitt alumni giving rate was 16 percent (same as in 2005, according to U.S. News); Penn State’s giving rate was 21 percent, CMU’s was 25 percent, Temple’s was 11 percent and Penn’s was 39 percent.

—Peter Hart

Filed under: Feature,Volume 40 Issue 1

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