Carnegie Mellon (CMU) is an amazing STEM school with a reputation for being innovative, friendly, and full of motivated students. Getting waitlisted from a school that awesome is hard, and we’re sure you’re feeling bummed about it. While that’s totally valid, and we encourage you to take a few days to process, we want you to know you’re not out of the game yet.
CMU hasn’t published waitlist data in a few years, but we know from previous cycles, trends, and their peer schools that they have some years where over a hundred kids get off the waitlist and other years where no students get off the waitlist. It’s safe to assume that getting off the CMU waitlist is hard, but it’s not impossible. We’ve helped students get into CMU off the waitlist, and we have lots of tips to help you do the same.
We also want to mention that CMU recently changed their policies around waitlisting.
They no longer accept traditional letters of continued interest (LOCI) – more on that later – and seem to have removed the “priority” and “regular” waitlist markers, too. When CMU makes admissions policy changes, other schools often follow suit – which may not impact you right now, but it’s interesting to note!
Now, let’s get into everything you need to do to maximize your chances of getting off the CMU waitlist and onto the campus.
Step One: Accept Your Spot
If CMU has placed you on its waitlist, your first move is to officially accept the offer through their application portal. Without doing this, you won’t be considered for admission. It’s important to remember that this is not an outright rejection, although it can feel that way. If they didn’t see potential in you, you would have been outright rejected.
Step Two: Secure Other Plans
While you wait to hear back from CMU, secure a spot at another university where you’ve been accepted. This typically means putting down a deposit, and if CMU later offers you admission, you’ll forfeit that deposit, but that’s just part of the process. We know you’re hoping to get off the waitlist (and we’re here to help!), but having a solid plan ensures you’re going to college no matter what happens.
Step Three: Update Carnegie Mellon… kinda
As we said, CMU has made a change to their policies around waitlisting, which means you won’t be sending them a standard LOCI. In fact, they actually strictly say to not send them a letter of continued interest: “Our waiting list process is designed to give everyone who is interested in remaining on our waiting list the opportunity to respond about their uniqueness by sending us a paragraph at the appropriate time, only when we know there are additional places to fill.”
Now, not to be those people, but that whole paragraph business does sound like a LOCI, but we digress. Because this is new, there are not many examples of what this paragraph will be, but we are pretty confident it will be similar to either CMU’s original supplements or other standard supplement questions you saw in other applications.
The best blanket advice we can give to you for this ominous paragraph (besides, of course, giving us a call—we helped tons of kids get accepted to CMU off the waitlist) is that you want to tell them a story. In their description, they say this is about your “uniqueness,” which probably means you will want to think about a few key personality traits or values you have that set you apart from your peers. From there, you’ll want to think of a story that exemplifies those traits or values.
You also won’t be given the prompt unless a spot opens up on the list – so there’s a chance that you accept a spot on the waitlist, but no spots become available, which in turn means no paragraph. We’re sorry we don’t have more concrete info on this new (and slightly annoying) process right now! But, if this is what CMU is doing, it’s a sign that other schools may adopt this in the future.
Step Four: Wait
Once you submit your paragraph, sit back and wait. That’s super annoying, we know, but that’s the game.
CMU does not want you to call, visit, or email any admissions officers, they do not want any additional rec letters, and they will only consider the paragraph. Don’t do a lot of extra work for them if they won’t accept it! Make sure you focus on your other options for right now – hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.
You got this! Best of luck!
If you’re on a waitlist and feeling anxious, we can help! Please reach out to us today if you need help with your waitlist letter.