CMU for STEM is a high stress serious school of serious students. It is not a fun school. It is not a party school. Students might form strong relationships but the coursework is such that there is very little time for social life and the campus is tiny anyway. That said if you do well, you can get a job paying close to 200K at graduation, so it is best thought of a boot camp which will result in great opportunities.

Girls have a definite advantage when applying to stem majors and even more so, stem schools. Most schools tried to balance genders. MIT admits girls at TWICE the rate as boys. I have a boy but I don't actually have a problem with this because otherwise it'd like entering a seminary. Looks like CMU is heading that same direction, statistically. Whoever says CMU does not want high performing girls is just not looking at the data.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Following - DD is interested in Economics and Statistics

My guy is starting his second year there in econ and he loves it. That said, they really do believe it's "in the work" and he says there is a fair amount of stress. In terms of admissions, he had been urged by his HS to apply to some Ivies and Chicago, so you have a sense of where he might theoretically have been, but he did not get into any of them. That said, CMU econ is not the impossible-to-get-into program that CS is.

One more thing - the campus is very diverse, and by diverse, I mean it runs from east Asian, to south Asian, and back, with some white along the way. My guy hits two or three of those metrics and is fine with that, but some of the middle-class white families I grew up with decades ago would have found CMU's culture to be a bridge too far, back then.

First paragraph right-on, bolded utterly useless and unnecessary.

My white DD just came back from a summer program at CMU and she loved how international it was. She said everyone seemed fluent in another language and all the local restaurants were ethnic-oriented. It’s probably not a raucous party scene like you would find at a big state school, but she liked it there.

https://www.cmu.edu/ira/CDS/pdf/cds_2021_22/cds2021-c-first-time-first-year-admissions.pdf

19878 boys applied, 2122 admitted = 10.7%
13018 girls applied, 2331 admitted = 17.9%

Stop crying about how they don’t want girls.

Strange I know a Girl 1540 SAT admitted to CS, not ED

Anonymous wrote:CMU was my sons top pick initially. 1560 SAT (taken once in 10th grade), 4.4GPA, 30 hours in AP/DE including an A in College Cal 3. Strong ECs. Top 1% of class, good/expert in 11 programming languages. He was waitlisted and not admitted.

His friend with around a 1500 SAT and lower GPA was admitted to ME.

I do think CMU tries to do a 50/50 gender split. The reality is, its just generally impossible to get in for CS, numbers wise.

They told us there was no preference for ED, which I found odd, but admissions told us that directly. That said, we know one other kid who went there two years ago and he got in ED.

My son is going to Purdue honors instead. He may look at CMU again for grad school.

They just lied about ED to you. They have two rounds of ED and they accept more in ED than RD. They are just a bunch of liars.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Following - DD is interested in Economics and Statistics

My guy is starting his second year there in econ and he loves it. That said, they really do believe it's "in the work" and he says there is a fair amount of stress. In terms of admissions, he had been urged by his HS to apply to some Ivies and Chicago, so you have a sense of where he might theoretically have been, but he did not get into any of them. That said, CMU econ is not the impossible-to-get-into program that CS is.

One more thing - the campus is very diverse, and by diverse, I mean it runs from east Asian, to south Asian, and back, with some white along the way. My guy hits two or three of those metrics and is fine with that, but some of the middle-class white families I grew up with decades ago would have found CMU's culture to be a bridge too far, back then.

First paragraph right-on, bolded utterly useless and unnecessary.

My friend's kid (who was very strong mind you) only got in because they did ED. Expensive, but worth it for the right majors.

CMU was my sons top pick initially. 1560 SAT (taken once in 10th grade), 4.4GPA, 30 hours in AP/DE including an A in College Cal 3. Strong ECs. Top 1% of class, good/expert in 11 programming languages. He was waitlisted and not admitted.

His friend with around a 1500 SAT and lower GPA was admitted to ME.

I do think CMU tries to do a 50/50 gender split. The reality is, its just generally impossible to get in for CS, numbers wise.

They told us there was no preference for ED, which I found odd, but admissions told us that directly. That said, we know one other kid who went there two years ago and he got in ED.

My son is going to Purdue honors instead. He may look at CMU again for grad school.

Anonymous wrote:Following - DD is interested in Economics and Statistics

My guy is starting his second year there in econ and he loves it. That said, they really do believe it's "in the work" and he says there is a fair amount of stress. In terms of admissions, he had been urged by his HS to apply to some Ivies and Chicago, so you have a sense of where he might theoretically have been, but he did not get into any of them. That said, CMU econ is not the impossible-to-get-into program that CS is.

One more thing - the campus is very diverse, and by diverse, I mean it runs from east Asian, to south Asian, and back, with some white along the way. My guy hits two or three of those metrics and is fine with that, but some of the middle-class white families I grew up with decades ago would have found CMU's culture to be a bridge too far, back then.

My Son was waitlisted for engineering and was an athlete. 4.8 WGPA and 1480SAT. The coach had provided a list of class requirements for the school of engineering- Math through Calc B/C- At least one year of physics and 4 years of lab science.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DD was waitlisted. 1590. 1 B in competitive HS magnet HS. 1 national level award. Typical type activities. Dad was an alum. Computer Science.

That is exactly why I say it sucks. CMU doesn't want high performing girls for some reason.

CMU's top programs are all over 50% female - so that is incorrect. They also have a very high percentage of female faculty. Are you arguing they want low-performing girls? That would make no sense.

For Engineering and CS - top scores are required. Business and social sciences, not so much. The Arts schools are more largely talent-based, but you better be amazingly talented and have top 25% scores. CMU has cut the size of its arts programs with the goal of only graduating those who can make a living with an arts major (no sense in paying 80K a year and waiting tables for the next 40 years).

CMU tries to have 50:50 ratio, but my point was it doesn't accept high performing girls who took rigorous math/CS classes. Whether you believe it or not, in my DC's school, all girls who were having a high GPA with rigorous math/CS classes were waitlisted for CMU SCS unless they ED-ied. The girls who were accepted are above-average but with lower GPA/rigor than those who were waitlisted and did not have any extra-ordinary ECs.

OP, here is your hint.

This does not make any sense. Why would they want girls who would struggle? The school wants a high retention rate. A few actual facts, students have to take a math test the summer before freshman year to get placed for math. How does this fit into your "theory"?

Here's some anecdotal info for yours: My CMU's son GF had a 1600 and the highest rigor. Her roommate (who was here this past weekend with GF) had 1590 at first sit - I didn't ask her math classes - but as a math major, I would assume she had the highest rigor.

You also don't have to take a ton of CS languages in HS to get into the CS program. CMU, like a handful of other schools, approaches CS from a different perspective.

I said, the girls who were accepted are above-average but with lower GPA/rigor than those who were waitlisted and did not have any extra-ordinary ECs. How this sentence means they want girls who would struggle? They just don't select top performing girls from my DC's school.

Anecdotally, every single grad I know from CMU has talked about how miserable they found it, and how much the social life lacked. And, incidentally, I also know three people who transferred out of CMU and graduated elsewhere.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DD was waitlisted. 1590. 1 B in competitive HS magnet HS. 1 national level award. Typical type activities. Dad was an alum. Computer Science.

That is exactly why I say it sucks. CMU doesn't want high performing girls for some reason.

CMU's top programs are all over 50% female - so that is incorrect. They also have a very high percentage of female faculty. Are you arguing they want low-performing girls? That would make no sense.

For Engineering and CS - top scores are required. Business and social sciences, not so much. The Arts schools are more largely talent-based, but you better be amazingly talented and have top 25% scores. CMU has cut the size of its arts programs with the goal of only graduating those who can make a living with an arts major (no sense in paying 80K a year and waiting tables for the next 40 years).

CMU tries to have 50:50 ratio, but my point was it doesn't accept high performing girls who took rigorous math/CS classes. Whether you believe it or not, in my DC's school, all girls who were having a high GPA with rigorous math/CS classes were waitlisted for CMU SCS unless they ED-ied. The girls who were accepted are above-average but with lower GPA/rigor than those who were waitlisted and did not have any extra-ordinary ECs.

OP, here is your hint.

This does not make any sense. Why would they want girls who would struggle? The school wants a high retention rate. A few actual facts, students have to take a math test the summer before freshman year to get placed for math. How does this fit into your "theory"?

Here's some anecdotal info for yours: My CMU's son GF had a 1600 and the highest rigor. Her roommate (who was here this past weekend with GF) had 1590 at first sit - I didn't ask her math classes - but as a math major, I would assume she had the highest rigor.

You also don't have to take a ton of CS languages in HS to get into the CS program. CMU, like a handful of other schools, approaches CS from a different perspective.

Anonymous wrote:This is from 2021, but gives you an idea of how much the acceptance rate and stats of students varies at CMU depending on what school within CMU they apply to:

https://infolearners.com/carnegie-mellon-acceptance-rate-2/?amp=1

Wow. Stats are across the board very high. Not just for SCS.