Even though we've already passed the Early Decision I application deadline, the Early Decision II deadline is fast approaching on December 1, 2009 and the Regular Decision deadline is not far behind on January 1, 2010. Sometimes we get questions about writing college essays, so I thought I'd mention a few things in case you're working on the finishing touches!

When you apply to Carnegie Mellon, we require you to write two essays as part of your application. You will be asked to write your first essay when you submit the Common Application. You can choose from six different prompts on the Common Application and the last option is a "topic of your choice." In reality, you can write about anything, but it's helpful for you to tell us something that we wouldn't have discovered somewhere else in your application. It is ok to be creative, funny, or serious, as long as the essay gives us a better idea of who you are!

The second essay we'll read comes to us with your Carnegie Mellon Supplement. On the supplemental application, you'll find our prompt that says:

"Please submit a one-page, single-spaced essay that explains why you have chosen Carnegie Mellon and your particular major(s), department(s) or program(s). This essay should include the reasons why you've chosen the major(s), any goals or relevant work plans and any other information you would like us to know. If you are applying to more than one college or program, please mention each college or program to which you are applying. Because our admission committees review applicants by college and programs, your essay can impact our final decision. Please do not exceed one page for this essay."

When writing your Carnegie Mellon essay, don't be afraid to tell us about the research you've done, when you've visited campus, had an interview, met with an alum, or just paraded around wearing a kilt! We really do want to know why you're interested in Carnegie Mellon and why you think you might be a good fit for the University. In addition to "Why Carnegie Mellon," you'll want to tell us about your academic interests. This is very important, especially if you are undecided between two majors or colleges. If you have any questions, feel free to post a comment on one of the blogs.  Justin, Mike, and I would be happy to help!  

I can't believe that fall has already flown by. I've spent the month of October juggling a few recruitment trips with our overnight visit programs, known as Sleeping Bag Weekends. I spent about a week in Texas and a week in California, with a short trip to Atlanta in between. I met some great students on the road and even more here on campus during our Sleeping Bag Weekends!

If you attended our October 4-5 or October 25-26 Sleeping Bag Weekend, post a comment on my blog and let me know how it went! I'd love to hear your impressions of campus and more about your experience attending classes and meeting current students.

If you haven't had the chance to visit campus yet and would like to, there are still a few more spaces for our November 8-9 weekend. We'll have another Sleeping Bag Weekend on January 24-25, 2010, but it will only be available to senior students who have submitted an application to Carnegie Mellon. To learn more information, ask here, or check out our website!

Also, if you have any questions regarding the application process, Pittsburgh, campus life, etc., please ask. The student bloggers would love to hear from you and so would I!

I hope you're having a wonderful summer. For those of you who I've met on campus this summer, I'm happy that you were able to visit, whether you came for a group information session, an interview, or a tour. Feel free to post a comment about your trip. I'd love to hear your impressions of campus and Pittsburgh!

Speaking of Pittsburgh, I thought you might be interested in an article about all of the green roofs in the city. According to the article, "Pittsburgh's biggest cluster of green roofs is in Oakland: six on the Carnegie Mellon University campus and one more under way; one at the University of Pittsburgh and two in the planning stages; and one at Phipps Conservatory."

The picture you'll see is one of the green roofs on Carnegie Mellon's campus, atop the Posner Center. This is the same location where Dan Archer's blog picture was taken. It's one of my favorite places on campus, so if you're planning to visit, make sure to check it out while you're here!

If you need help planning your visit, you might find one of Mike Kozak's blog entries helpful. He's also an Assistant Director of Admission and newer to the blog scene. It includes links that will direct you to sign up for on-campus events. We look forward to seeing you!

Last year, I wrote a blog entry about the Three Rivers Arts Festival, but since it's one of my favorite Pittsburgh traditions, I thought it warranted another entry. The Three Rivers Arts Festival is celebrating its 50th Anniversary this year from June 5-14, 2009. That means you still have one more week to go experience it for yourself!

I spent yesterday afternoon enjoying the sunshine and warm weather at the Festival. The event is held in downtown Pittsburgh, in areas known as Point State Park, Gateway Center, and the Cultural District. This annual event is one of the things that makes me proud to be a "Pittsburgher." 

According to the Three Rivers Arts Festival website, the "Three Rivers Arts Festival quickly grew from the 'little outdoor art show...' to what is today the region's largest multidisciplinary showcase of visual arts and performing arts. Despite a rapid growth, the Festival's mission to connect the community to arts and culture has remained consistent throughout the event's 50-year history."

Point State Park has been going through a revitalization project for the past year or so and the renovations so far are wonderful. One of the most well-known focal points in the park is a large fountain where all three rivers in Pittsburgh meet. This area is known as "The Point." The fountain itself (see picture above) is still undergoing its final stage of revitalization, but will eventually be restored to its former glory.

The picture above was taken along the fountain at "The Point." Across the river (in the background) you can see the Carnegie Science Center and Heinz Field!

One of my colleagues came across a great article about Carnegie Mellon and I wanted to share it here since it might be interesting to you as prospective students and families.

The title of the Blogger Press Release is, "Nationwide College Contest To Reduce Carbon Footprint Gains Momentum." Carnegie Mellon is among the top 10 universities competing for the title of “America’s Greenest Campus.” I've included an excerpt of the press release below, but click on the link to read the full article!

"In its first two months, America's Greenest Campus, the nationwide contest where colleges compete against each other in reducing their carbon footprint, has grown to over 10,000 individuals and 450 colleges participating to win up to $20,000 in cash prizes [...]

The top-ranked colleges in the first two months of the contest include:

1.    University of Maryland - College Park

2.    George Mason University

3.    Rio Salado College

4.    University of California - Davis

5.    American University

6.    Oberlin College

7.    Carnegie Mellon University

8.    Stanford University

9.    Harvard University

10.  Penn State University"

I really think you'll enjoying reading the new student blogs as well. Clare Graziano, Mohit Moondra, and Emily Walker all just finished their first year at Carnegie Mellon, so they should have some good insight for you as prospective students and families. If you're reading the blogs, post a comment or two and let the students know! As always, questions are more than welcome.

It’s hard to believe that we’ve already made it through another year in the admission cycle. On behalf of the Carnegie Mellon Office of Admission, we’d like to say congratulations to the new Class of 2013! We look forward to welcoming you on campus next fall.

While some of you might think that things are slowing down for our office, we’re actually gearing up for our summer Pre-College programs! On Saturday, June 27th, we’ll welcome a number of high school students onto our campus for a 6-week summer experience. 

 

According to our website, it says that we will continue to accept applications through May 1, 2009; however, pending space available in the programs, we will continue to accept applications through June 1, 2009.

If you’re not sure what our Pre-College programs are about, you can listen to some student testimonials to learn about some of previous Pre-College participants’ experiences. You can choose from a number of programs we offer in the fine arts such as Architecture, Art, Design, Drama, and Music. You might also be interested in the National High School Game Academy or our Advanced Placement/Early Action program.

 

It’s important to know that you must be 16 years old by the start-date of the program (June 27, 2009) and have completed your sophomore year of high school to be considered for summer 2009!

 

Applications are available online for all of the programs along with detailed information about what to expect from your experience at Carnegie Mellon Pre-College. If you have questions, post a comment on my blog, call our office (412.268.2082), or send an email to precollege@andrew.cmu.edu.

While I would encourage you to experience Spring Carnival for yourself next year, you might also be interested in the website, which covers the daily events such as "Buggy" and "Booth." Buggy is especially impressive, in my opinion. Check out this YouTube clip from one of the Buggy races last year. You have to see it to believe it!

This is my second year experiencing Spring Carnival and I still can't get over how amazing it is. Despite all of the recent rainy days in Pittsburgh, the weather was perfect on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Even the faculty and staff took advantage of the festivities. All of the admission counselors spent some time cheering on our student workers who were participating in the Buggy races or who had helped build a Booth. We even bumped into Scotty, Carnegie Mellon's official Scottie Dog mascot who as Melanie Jo Wrobleski, Assistant Director of Admission, would say, "Is quite the spark-plug!" Here's a picture of four Assistant Directors of Admission with Scotty. From left to right you'll see me, Allison Jedinak, Scotty, Krista Gregan, and Melanie Jo Wrobleski.

I'll leave you with some words from one of our student bloggers, Justin Mohney, who wrote some really great entries about this year's Spring Carnival. Scroll down to the entries that begin with "Epic Adventures." He also posted a ton of pictures! Enjoy.

This year, Carnegie Mellon received the largest number of applications we've ever received in the history of the University… over 23,000. That being said, we want to extend a sincere CONGRATULATIONS to all of our admitted students! It was not easy to be admitted to Carnegie Mellon University this year, and you should be proud.

As admitted students, we hope that you will have a chance to visit campus throughout the month of April. We wish you the best with your college decision process and hope that many of you will call Carnegie Mellon "home" for the next four years.

For those students who were not admitted or given a waitlist decision, I'd like to leave you with some words from Michael Steidel, Director of Admission at Carnegie Mellon University.

"Each year we have a very large pool of applicants and we are only able to admit a very small number of students in order to maintain an optimal class size that supports good student and faculty interaction. We do turn down many great candidates simply because we do not have the space. It’s not that these great students did something wrong, it was just a matter of the remarkable competition for these small programs.

This year, Carnegie Mellon had to turn down hundreds of valedictorians and even more students with an un-weighted GPA of 4.00. Thousands of students with a combined SAT verbal and math score of 1400 or higher were also put on the waitlist or not admitted.  

All applicants are individuals, with individual extracurricular activities, interests, and experiences. They have varying personalities, received a wide variety of recommendations, wrote about wide ranging essay topics, posted excellent standardized testing results and received strong grades for challenging classes. All applicants are reviewed individually and all decisions are overseen by admission committee.

We expect to have some wait list activity. Given the strength of our waitlist, we would like to wait and see exactly how many spaces we have to fill and then we’ll review the whole group of highly talented students for those openings. If students are on the waitlist there is still a chance that they may be offered a spot (in some years we have more than one hundred openings while in other years only a few dozen).
We do not know how many openings there will be or if there will even be openings, nor do we know the exact number of students who will chose to remain active on the waitlist. Students must respond to our waitlist offer in order to remain active and have a chance for admission."

Once again, we wish you all the best, regardless of where you choose to spend the next four years of your lives. Thanks for considering Carnegie Mellon University.

Quite a few students inquired about our Waiting List statistics on my last blog entry. Because admitted students are not required to submit their enrollment deposits before May 1, 2009, there is no way for us to forecast how many spaces will be available in each college until after May 1st.

Depending on the number of students who choose to enroll in Carnegie Mellon, we may or may not have space available. The number of spaces available is also different for each college at Carnegie Mellon.

It's possible that we may admit students from the Waiting List in CIT and H&SS, but not the other colleges. In some years, there might be space available in all of the colleges or maybe just one college.

According to our publications, "Students on the Waiting List are encouraged to write about their continued interest in Carnegie Mellon. We prefer a written statement that can be shared with the entire admission committee. The written statement will be added to your application file and reviewed by our staff when we review and rank the waiting list. You can also send us information about any activities, honors, awards, etc."

Someone also asked if we rank the Waiting List. At this point in time, we have not ranked the Waiting List. Once we know how much space is available in each college, we will rank the Waiting List and contact the students in that order.

That being said, we believe that it is "important to assure yourself a place at another college where you have been admitted by the appropriate reply date. If you are ultimately offered admission from the Waiting List at Carnegie Mellon and you choose to accept our offer, you will forfeit the tuition deporsit which you sent to the other college."