Pretty much. Pitt's neuroscience department is really outstanding. My significant other is from Texas and ultimately wound up choosing Pitt over schools like UT, Rice, Emory, Penn, etc. specifically because of how well regarded Pitt's neuroscience program is in the science community.
If you're a kid who knows exactly what you want to do, then departmental rankings are far more significant than overall University rankings, IMO. It's definitely not shilling for Pitt to say you'd pick them over almost any school in the country if you're dead set on neuroscience or philosophy.
I taught in Penn's undergrad neuroscience program. Pitt's blows it away. In fact, at the time I was there I knew a kid of a Penn professor that chose Pitt over Penn for ...well actually it was for bioengineering, but the point is similar.
Pitt's undergrad neuroscience offering is much more mature than Penn's and most others because it has better, dedicated undergraduate faculty and course offerings because it is actual department, not just a program. The difference between having a dedicated department with its own budget, faculty, staff, and course offerings compared a "program" made out of cobbled together pieces and classes on loan from other departments is huge.
That's the thing...neuroscience is such a trendy, hot major for kids these days, every two-bit school has started a neuroscience program. A lot of them are just psych departments with some extra biology classes and a couple neuropsych (not really neuroscience) classes thrown in. Real, meaningful research opportunities (i.e. possibilities to get authorships) at these types of schools (non-research schools) are rare or you have to do summer internships at schools like...well like Pitt. But you can't get any real research work done if you are just visiting a lab for a month or two...you need to get ingrained into a well-funded lab for a year or more to really get to the point where you are presenting or publishing something significant, even as a secondary author. And having publications coming out of your undergrad school is what will set you apart from a crowd to grad school admissions committees...because frankly, everyone is going to have good grades and GREs.
You can do all sorts of cutting-edge research at Pitt very easily, which is why Pitt is a phenomenal place for anything undergraduate in the biosciences...because Pitt is #5 in total NIH research funding...which essentially mean it has the 5th biggest biomedica/health science research center in the country (nearly the world) and almost all of that is within a short walking distance of every dorm on campus.
I will say this: with over a couple decades in neuroscience, including having my PhD in neuroscience and research and teaching experience on both coasts, there is no single better place to obtain an undergrad neuroscience degree than Pitt. There are others that are
as good, but they are none better. I mean that absolutely sincerely. The combination of having a dedicated, full-fledged department and the massive quality, size, and scope of the neuroscience research community on campus is outstanding and absolutely unsurpassed.
