University Times

Incoming freshmen's credentials improving

For the fourth straight year, Pitt's entering freshman class will have stronger academic credentials than the one that preceded it, University officials announced this week.

Of the 3,100 freshmen who have paid deposits for next fall, 29 percent rank in the top 10 percent of their high school graduating classes; 55 percent are in the top 20 percent.

That's compared with 19 percent of freshmen in fall 1995 who ranked in the top 10 percent of their senior class and 43 percent in the top 20 percent.

The combined SAT scores of this fall's entering class averaged 1163, up from 1158 a year ago and 1139 in 1995.

Twenty percent of the entering freshmen (618 students) are eligible to enroll in Pitt's Honors College. They all rank in the top 10 percent of their high school graduating classes and have an average combined SAT score of 1324.

Honors-eligible freshmen "are the students who have the largest number of options available to them and who tend to be the most serious in selecting a college or university, and Pitt is attracting them in dramatically increasing numbers," Chancellor Mark Nordenberg said at the June 7 Senate Council meeting, during which he announced the freshman statistics.

About 80 percent of the entering freshmen come from Pennsylvania, and approximately 10 percent are African American — the same percentages as last fall, Nordenberg said.

–Bruce Steele