o0shuo0o

to oblivion: well, 3rd quarter grades are not required. how are your grades in other classes? if they are not good, then just don't send your 3rd quarter report card. i didn't send mine because i had a b- from my swarthmore college class.

for others: my "personal statement" was a little over a page. i wrote how cmu is my no.1 choice, and i also included some of my recent accomplishments since January. i also sent them a rec from my english teacher. if anyone is interested in reading my letter, just pm me.

Fistandantilus

I agree with o0shuo0o ... if it doesn't make a positive contribution to your application file there's no point sending it in

In any case, I think the worst thing anybody can do now is 'nothing'. At the very least, hunt down some recommendations for yourself - making the effort to do so is a way of showing interest too

o0shuo0o

well said^^.
if you are serious about going to CMU, then you definitely need to do something about it. you are not gonna get in if you just sit around.

Anomandaris

Btw, does anybody know how CMU determines its maximum enrollment size?

Does it have a quota for each school (ie. HSS, Tepper, MCS etc.) ... or a quota for each Major?

What's the usual practice in other colleges?

lfecollegeguy

There is an overall quota but I believe it is mostly done by school because a certain school has to take care of its students in terms of making sure they get in the classes, there is enough professors to teach those classes, there are enough spots, etc.

For example. Tepper has a max spot of around 100-120 or so per class and usually try to fill 80-100 and take the rest from the best internal transfers (of which there are many a year).

oblivion

o0shuo0o, thank u. I sent couple of paragraphs and my achievements for FIRST robotics tournament. Our team was finalist in the CA regional.

I am not sure what else shall I write in my personal statement. I made it clear that CMU is my first choice. I am not sure how did u manage to write full page.

Anomandaris

Thanks lfecollegeguy. Going by your logic though, wouldn't class size be restricted for each major as well? Since there are only so many professors for each subject to go around

Fistandantilus

Interesting questions Anomandaris. Now I have more of my own

Are there statistics for the yield rate of each individual school in CMU?

Is HSS a popular school? Is psychology a popular major there? (Most interested in these as they are what I applied for)

To oblivion: Since you remain undecided on what to include in your personal statement, does that mean it hasn't been sent yet? If so, you should hurry up because I think they rank the PWL around May 1st/2nd (not too sure about this, I recall it being stated somewhere).

o0shuo0o

i found some stat for waitlist 2007-2008

http://www.cmu.edu/ira/CDS/cds_2007_...0Admission.pdf

it says on there: 2007 -2008
number of qualified applicants offered a place on waitlist : 2898
number accepting a place on waiting list : 290
number of waitlisted students admitted : 82

from the data given, it seems like 10% of waitlisted ppl remained on the waitlist. about 28% got off the waitlist eventually. i am not sure if all 290 people were on the priority waitlist.

Fistandantilus

o0shuo0o, according to the link that Anomandaris provided in his first post, this year's waitlist acceptance rate has exceeded 10% (>450 out of ~3000)

I also think that all purely waitlisted candidates (ie. no acceptance at any other CMU school) are offered the PWL option.

Would very much like to be proven wrong though

Anomandaris

Here are some CC threads that might interest you Fistandantilus:

MY D just got priority waitlist ...BUT (lower half of the page)

Attention: all you priority waitlisted students

So PWL might not be offered to everybody after all. Taxguy from the 2nd thread seemed quite certain ... but I guess you can consider everything posted as hearsay (And yeah, the threads are from 2006. May no longer be applicable now).

Just wanted to show some 'evidence' to the contrary.

o0shuo0o

from what i heard, if you are accepted to one or more cmu schools and waitlisted at other cmu schools, you are not given the option of pwl. so, only the people who didn't get in any cmu schools will be given pwl option.

Fistandantilus

That doesn't change anything o0shuo0o

I'm pretty sure the ~3000 labelled as 'Waitlisted' in the CMU common data set doesn't overlap with the ~4000 who have been admitted

So what we're both saying is that all 3000 are given the PWL option

Would really like to think you're right Anomandaris. Just keeping my expectations low so that I won't be too disappointed later

o0shuo0o

did you guys get a waitlist conformation email? it says that you have to email them back indicating whether or not you want to remain active on the waitlist. it also says in the email that they only a few open spots for waitlist students.

oblivion

I got an email and I did reply. It is really confusing about how many openings. Which school in CMU are u applying?