I wouldn’t have liked to have read this ~9 years ago when I was wrapping up my freshman year @ UPJ and dead set on transferring to the main campus ASAP (having gotten denied out of HS).Regarding transfers from branches, this is not so at Pitt. It is so at PSU. Although branch transfers happen at Pitt, they aren't guaranteed, and Pitt actually discourages them. Academic programs at Pitt's three 4-year campuses are designed to be completed on those campuses. Some credits aren't even transferable to main, and there are academic programs unique only to a particular regional campus. Pitt's branches are somewhat independent schools whose goal is to be as self-sufficient as possible and thus Pitt prefers those students to stay at its regional campuses for all four years because that is what they were designed for. All of Pitt's regionals were originally created at the request of those particular communities and they still exist pretty much to serve those communities. Pitt would not close any branches and then absorb those student numbers. They would just close them and sell off the assets. I don't see that happening to any unless things get a lot worse and those schools really are failing. Pitt main really doesn't have the space to expand enrollment. There are obvious physical constraints and it would loath to reduce admission standards at main.
I remember the situation being kind of cryptic and frustrating, once even being told by some UPJ adviser that a transfer to the main campus after one year “wouldn’t happen”. Sure enough, the business school @ main took all my freshman year credits and I just needed to supplement with an online summer stats course through CCAC.
No disrespect to UPJ, they do have really strong engineering and nursing programs in particular and a lot of people enjoy all 4 years there. Just wasn’t for me.