I called yesterday and they said that they already made their first few decisions, but will not release them until around the end of January/beginning of February. Not that many people are usually picked in this wave, so do not be discouraged if you don’t get in within the next week. Only one person on CC got in this early. They accept a chunk of their applicants in late February to mid-March.
Also, here is a post I made on Reddit:
Just to add my alumni experience about SAMS:
This program is NOT JUST for low-income minorities I have friends who got in with $100K+ incomes and 3.2 GPAs and $50K incomes and 4.3 GPAs. So your essays really do matter! However, being a minority does help.
The cost of the program is literally FREE! The $100 deposit they suggest you pay is optional and goes onto your CMU card to use as CMU spending money for books and supplies from the bookstore. You won’t really need to spend money on textbooks though, if you know where to look online. Your CMU card allows you to do so much too and the way the program is structured, you are given quite a lot of freedom in terms of what you want to do besides classes. Your CMU card allows you to get around Pittsburgh for free as well as the fact that in-building curfew is 11pm every weeknight and 12am every weekend. They try to make it as much like college as possible. There are literally so many places you could go and honestly you should make as many memories as you can by going, if you get in. I remember all of the late night Target-runs we’d make as we tried to get all of our shopping done before the bus came back and we would miss curfew. And there are so many museums, theaters, and sport stadiums that offer CMU discounts. Not only that, but since SAMS is funded by endowments, every weekend the RAs (residential advisers) would schedule multiple outings that are free for you guys to attend. But yeah, your CMU card will literally take care of you. In terms of spending money, I would say bring up to $250-$300 for to pay for emergencies, birthday dinners, and late-night shopping and anything you could think of. Here are the links to both the SAMS and Pre-College program applications. Pre-College/APEA is a CMU program for the more wealthy kids (meaning you have to pay about $3-7K) but for low-income students, there are a limited amount of full scholarships.
Here are some links:
https://www.cmu.edu/news/stories/archives/2017/september/largest-sams-class.html (That is me in the picture by the way)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQ6Ieu4ST14 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qfja5JMGxz8&t=27s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qJIyr87vk8
In fact, some of my favorite memories include: the late-night shopping, watching Spider-Man Homecoming, playing Assassin, running to my math class everyday and getting there consistently at 8:03am, watching people run away from their Assassins while other college students just stared in awe as to what was going on, going to Google, the 2nd floor boys vs. 3rd floor boys and the wet bed incident, eating at Au Boi Pon, Resnik, and the Underground, always riding the bus for free, ending up on the wrong side of Pittsburgh, going to Kennywood Amusement Park on the 4th of July, fireworks on the CMU campus, the SAMS talent show, going to all of the museums, and so much more.