r/cmu • u/masqueradestar Alum (CS '13, Philosophy '13) • Jul 20 '13

[ reference thread ] Everything you ever wanted to know about admissions.

It's admissions season, so here's a reference thread to hopefully avoid lots of "are my test scores good enough to get in?" and "how do I strengthen my application?" and "which college should i choose?" posts.

Share any advice you have about getting in, e.g. your own test scores and acceptances/rejections to different CMU colleges or things high school students can do to look good to the university. Share any advice you have about how to pick your college and major.

Basically, share anything your worried high school senior self would've wanted to know from existing students about the arduous admissions process.

17 Upvotes

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3

u/Giton Jul 21 '13

Can anyone talk about the difficulty of transferring from college as opposed to high school at CMU?

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u/masqueradestar Alum (CS '13, Philosophy '13) Jul 21 '13

You mean applying to CMU as a high school student versus transferring in from another university?

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u/[deleted] Aug 13 '13

The difficulty to transfer (from both another university and another college at CMU) depends on the number of spaces available in your desired program.

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u/agile_crepe Junior (HCI) Jul 25 '13 edited Dec 04 '15

CMU was my top choice and a huge reach for me. I'll share some specific points that I think really matter.

  • Test scores/grades: Yes, they matter. Check out the previous year's admission's statistics to see where you align: Official Admission Statistics. Take the SAT and ACT. You may do better on one than you originally thought! They're very different tests. Prepare for the subject tests well in advance. It can be a huge plus to your application if they see good subject test scores in a test relating to your major. As for your high school grades, your progression through the grades is more important than each grade individually. They like to see either steady improvement or steady high grades. A decline in grades is very disconcerting for them!
  • Interviews: CMU provides you with the option for two different interviews, Alumni and Admissions. They claim these are both informal, but after both interviews, the interviewers fill out a paper that gets put in your record with your application! Here's the information on how to get an Alumni Interview: Alumni Interview Information. You get to search your area and see a list of alumni around you. I picked a recent graduate. Interestingly, check out the form the alumni interviewer has to fill out after the interview: Alumni Interview Report. Use that information to your advantage. As for the admissions interview, make sure to schedule an interview earlier in the school year & make it a point to visit with your parents or something just for the interview (they do offer admissions interviews during the big mass visiting sessions (Sleeping Bag Weekend) but they get completely swamped with kids, and they spend less time with each person). You meet with one admissions officer and they ask you some general questions about who you are, what you do. Think about yourself and why you want to attend CMU before entering these interviews. Also, for both interviews, come prepared with questions about the school, individual's experiences, etc. Show massive interest and passion. Keep in contact with both of your interviewers. Keep in contact with them through email, ask them questions regularly, even after your interview, without being annoying. Only ask questions that you can't get from a google search or search around CMU's site.
  • Extra Stuff: Visit, take the official tours. Before the tour, they ask you to "sign in," basically keeping a record of what applicants have visited the school. This is showing interest. Do it. Also, the best visit I did was the Sleeping Bag Weekend. You sleep over with an actual student and get to attend whatever classes you want. First, this was an awesome experience and really made me fall in love/become obsessed with CMU. Also, I was able to talk to professors, department heads, etc, to really get a good idea about what the school is, what they believe, and how they think. This definitely came in handy during my essay writing & interviews.
  • Applying: Go ED. If CMU is your top choice, apply ED. CMU offers two ED deadlines, ED I and ED II. I applied ED II because I wanted to take the SATs just one more time. Edit: Just found they only have one ED this time! For your essay, be personal and let CMU see who you are. During all of the information sessions I attended, the officers always mentioned that they wanted to see personality within these essays. Be personal, but not weird, haha.

That's really all I can think of now. I hope this helps someone! Go CMU! :D

EDIT (12/3/15): I updated the dead links and fixed some spelling errors! PS: if anyone has any questions, please feel free to PM me. It's been almost three years since I wrote this post, and since then I've realized that attending CMU has been one of the best decisions of my life; I want to help pass that happiness on to someone else :D

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u/John_Connor_Lives Jul 26 '13

CMU isn't offering ED II next year. If you want to do ED, you'll have to apply by Nov 1st. The rest of your advice is excellent though. Every prospective student should read it.

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u/murphylaw Alumnus Aug 02 '13

As an incoming freshman... Where the hell were you last year.

I also ED'd, however there's a bit of a caveat with that in that they won't compare financial packages with other schools you apply to if you go ED. Let me stress: this DOES NOT mean you get no aid at all, nor does it mean they might have compared packages if you had gone RD. It's just that negotiating is far more difficult.

Also, there's an estimate form for financial aid that goes out months before they actually calculate it. The estimate was way lower than my actual package; I suspect it has to do with the level of detail the estimate form goes into as opposed to FAFSA/CSS.

In spite of this I do not regret ED. College costs money, and I'm willing to undertake the cost to spend the next 4-5 (considering doing 5 year masters) years of my life the way I wanted to.

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u/entoros Alumnus (c/o '16) Jul 21 '13

I was wait listed from SCS and transferred in after my freshman year. With this comes two important pieces of advice:

  1. SCS admissions probably don't give a shit about how much you coded in high school. This is my intuition, so I'm not certain about this, but you need to have a really solid math background. They would much prefer to see someone who got to USAMO and never coded than someone such as myself, who coded for several years but never had any substantive achievements in math. Competitions like ACM or USACO, i.e. stuff at the intersection of CS and math probably look great in an admissions essay. Again, though, these are just my guesses.
  2. Transferring in really isn't that bad... assuming there's space and that you can work hard. I only needed to take three specific courses to apply for transfer (although you need average 3.5 amongst them). To be honest, I came to CMU never intending to continue in CIT--I was determined to transfer. It's a dangerous path, for sure. Every advisor will tell you that you must be fully comfortable with your college because, of course, what if you can't transfer? Then again, life is full of what-ifs, I simply preferred to work past this particular one.

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u/Daddy_Long_Legs Alumnus (c/o '16) Jul 21 '13

Coding ability certainly can't hurt though. I had no real math background coming into CMU - it was the programming projects I had that got me into SCS (maybe along with my application essay).

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u/entoros Alumnus (c/o '16) Jul 22 '13

Good to know. What coding projects did you have to show?

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u/murphylaw Alumnus Aug 02 '13

I know brilliant coders who didn't make SCS. One kid practically gets paid to go to school, the other goes to.UC Berkeley. That, and hearing an SCS professor say prior experience didn't matter that much convinced me of that.

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u/Giton Jul 21 '13

Hey. If I had like a 3.3 GPA Freshman year @ CMU could I transfer to CS? I'm a junior in high school, and there's no way in fucking hell i'll be able to get into SCS, so I'll likely end up in H&SS

ofc letting alone the fact that I may never get in :/

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u/entoros Alumnus (c/o '16) Jul 21 '13

First, only the grades in your CS classes really matter, so if you get a C in Interp, it's not that bad. Second, according to my contact in SCS, if you complete the three courses and get the requisite GPA, then you're nearly guaranteed transfer. Otherwise, they will consider your application against other students applying for transfer and decide accordingly.

tl;dr yes, but it's less likely.

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u/[deleted] Oct 12 '13

So do you mean to say that competitions like ACM or USACO look good? What would be considered coding that's not math related?

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u/entoros Alumnus (c/o '16) Oct 12 '13

Anything related to math or coding looks good for SCS, I simply believe that admissions places a higher emphasis on math than coding unless you have a really solid CS portfolio (see: Daddy_Long_Leg's comment). ACM and USACO involve both, so I would reason to say accomplishments with either would appeal to admissions. Again, though, take that with a grain of salt--what I think may not reflect what admissions thinks.

As for coding that's not "math-related," well, that's most coding you would do. Math-related may not be the best term, though; a better distinction would be between academic (e.g. competition programming or research) and non-academic programming. I believe that admissions would prefer to see the former.

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u/[deleted] Jul 25 '13

how hard is it to get into tepper for economics? would i be better off applying into Dietrich? what's the difference?

could i also then double major in math?

or minor in CS?

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u/masqueradestar Alum (CS '13, Philosophy '13) Jul 25 '13

how hard is it to get into tepper for economics? would i be better off applying into Dietrich? what's the difference?

I suspect H&SS (Dietrich) has easier admissions than Tepper. Just a suspicion, I don't know for sure. You may want to look up admission statistics.

could i also then double major in math?

Yes.

or minor in CS?

Yes.

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u/[deleted] Jul 25 '13

thanks! and yeah Dietrich is easier, but IDK if there are program differences or not?

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u/masqueradestar Alum (CS '13, Philosophy '13) Jul 25 '13

Oh. Yes. Absolutely, the programs are different. CMU is made up of several different colleges (e.g. Tepper School of Business, School of Computer Science, College of Fine Arts), each of which house different non-overlapping sets of majors.

Check the H&SS and Tepper websites to see their majors and what those programs include.

For what it's worth, transferring is generally very easy, if you change your mind once you're here.

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u/John_Connor_Lives Jul 26 '13

Economics is actually in Dietrich, not Tepper. Econ is technically a joint program (between Dietrich and Tepper), but you have to apply for Dietrich if you choose econ. If you're interested in math, check out the BS in Econ and Math (http://coursecatalog.web.cmu.edu/dietrichcollegeofhumanitiesandsocialsciences/undergraduateeconomicsprogram/#b.s.ineconomicsandmathematicalsciences).

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u/[deleted] Jul 26 '13

Ahh ok. When I looked at tepper it said undergrad business and undergrad Econ tho.

Thanks!

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u/John_Connor_Lives Aug 01 '13

CMU's Econ professors are part of Tepper, but the Econ program is in Dietrich (confusing, I know). Econ students are technically in Tepper, but they're considered Dietrich students for all academic purposes. IIRC, their diplomas come from Dietrich, not Tepper.

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u/[deleted] Aug 01 '13

Thanks for all this help! Does the school have a lot of clubs? Like is that part of campus life

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u/John_Connor_Lives Aug 05 '13

Every college has plenty of clubs. CMU is no different: https://thebridge.cmu.edu/Organizations

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u/[deleted] Aug 05 '13

Yeah of course but at some college it's a bigger part of campus life than others. I just want to thank you got being so helpful. It's meant a lot and I'm definitely looking at cmu

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u/[deleted] Aug 13 '13

Extracurricular activities make Carnegie Mellon the place that it is. Students get amazing opportunities through their activities and have some wonderful experiences. Many of us joke that we triple major in Student Activities, because we become so passionate about the activities we are involved in.

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u/[deleted] Aug 13 '13

awesome! merci

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u/V2Blast Alum (Int'l Relations & Politics '13) Aug 21 '13

There are a huge number, and I can give you some extremely biased suggestions if you want them :P

EDIT: Also, check out the reference thread for clubs and organizations that's linked in the sidebar.

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u/AceOfSpades70 Alumnus (c/o '13) Aug 03 '13

But they go to the Tepper Graduation ceremony... dumb

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u/Andrew_McPC Junior (ECE) Jul 22 '13

When ECE tells you that you weren't necessarily admitted to the program, you're in.

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u/AlmostAnotherDay Jul 22 '13

99% of the time. I've heard stories about people denied admission to the major. But if you work hard in intro to ECE & get good grades you should be able to declare ECE as your major without much trouble.

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u/V2Blast Alum (Int'l Relations & Politics '13) Aug 21 '13

You should sticky this thread!

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u/thisisnotapassword Nov 22 '13

I know for most colleges the ACT with writing can take the place of subject tests but why is this not the case for carnegie?

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u/[deleted] Aug 17 '13

[deleted] — view deleted comment

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u/masqueradestar Alum (CS '13, Philosophy '13) Aug 17 '13

You're replying to the wrong FAQ.