In this guide, we’ll cover how to write the Carnegie Mellon waitlist essay.

Unlike other waitlist essays, there are a few unusual rules to CMU’s waitlist essay that may complicate things. We’ll discuss them below, plus some of our top tips on how to write the essay and stand out in the waitlist pool.

Table of Contents

1. What are the Chances of Getting Accepted From the CMU Waitlist?
2. How to Answer the Carnegie Mellon Waitlist Essay Prompt.
   • Conceptualize What Your Competition is Like.
   • Gather Reasons Why You Were Rejected/Waitlisted.
   • Write Your Essay to Compensate for Insufficiencies.
   • Remember: CMU Does Not Consider Demonstrated Interest.
   • If You Have Nothing to Update on, Consider Seeking Help From an Admissions Consultant.
3. Final Thoughts

What are the Chances of Getting Accepted From the CMU Waitlist?

So, here’s what CMU’s Common Data Set has to say about their Waitlist acceptance rates for the 2021-22 year.

As you can see, 35 out of 5,319 waitlisted students is a rather dreadful number. That’s a .65% chance of acceptance, which is less than 1%.

Yikes.

This is where the rules start to change. Unlike other waitlist acceptance rates like that of UC Davis, Carnegie Mellon has a very, very minuscule percentage.

In other words, getting accepted is a bit like winning the lottery.

Thus, one’s perspective of the Carnegie Mellon waitlist process should NOT be that of trying to get accepted. With as slim an acceptance rate as .65%, you are no longer fully in control of whether you get accepted.

Instead, you should be focused more on maximizing your acceptance rate. That’s a very different perspective from trying to get accepted. The former means doing everything within your power to bring a positive result whilst accepting whatever the application decision is. The latter means trying to control the result.

In short, have an action-oriented plan when tackling the essay, not a result-oriented one.

How to Answer the Carnegie Mellon Waitlist Essay Prompt.

We’ve pasted Carnegie Mellon’s waitlist essay prompt below.

“What additional information or updates would you like to share with Carnegie Mellon? Is there anything else you’d like to bring to our attention about your application?”

CMU waitlist essay prompt

There are two sections to this essay. The first is asking for additional info or updates that may sway the admissions office into accepting you. The latter is on anything else that they may want to know. The second half of this question is not as important, as the additional info and updates are already considered.

However, if you have a strange or unusual circumstance that you need to explain to the admissions office’s attention, consider adding it here.

With that out of the way, let’s cover strategies on how to write the CMU Waitlist essay. There are 5 main points to keep in mind: conceptualizing the competition, articulating reasons you were rejected, compensating for said reasons, avoiding topics of demonstrated interest, and

Conceptualize What Your Competition is Like.

One of the first things you’ll need to do before you begin writing the Carnegie Mellon waitlist essay is to think about what the competition is like.

You can easily do this by asking other people you know in your school or local community who were also waitlisted.

However, we know not every student applied to CMU. So, depending on where you’re located, waitlisted students could be a rare find. You may live in an area with only a small sample size of people who were accepted or waitlisted by CMU. If that’s the case, you may want to look at online forums such as Reddit, College Confidential, and more to see the kinds of people who were waitlisted by CMU.

Note: online forums can be biased, and no user on forums is obligated to source or provide proof of their statements. So, take what you read on college admissions forums and communities with a grain of salt.

Pay attention to the kinds of students who were waitlisted by CMU. What did their stats look like? Did they have strong extracurriculars? Did they conduct projects or research with professors? Are there strengths or weaknesses they have that may change the way you appear to admissions officers?

With a good look at the competition, you can approach the essay knowing who you’re up against. You’ll know how your stats may beat the competition, and how they may also beat you. This perspective will also help you in the next section below.

Gather Reasons Why You Were Rejected/Waitlisted.

This is perhaps the most important step to writing a strong Carnegie Mellon waitlist essay.

It’s crucial to look at the reasons why you were waitlisted by CMU.

Now, this is not as easy as it seems. Universities don’t really inform students of the reason why they made an application decision. The most you get is some obscure reason for rejecting, waitlisting, or accepting you. Either your email comes with streamers, or it doesn’t.

Look at the average accepted student and waitlisted student’s stats. What are their strengths? Did they have attributes that were strong/weak compared to the values that CMU holds? CMU values certain things such as academic GPA, class rank, and, weirdly enough, volunteer work very heavily! The essays are rather important; and, the standardized tests are slightly considered.

You can also see the average based on CMU’s student profile.

Notice how students with a GPA between 3.75 and 3.99 made up 40% of the student body? And, students with a GPA of 4.0 made up 44.5% of the student population.

Now, how do we use this data to write a strong Carnegie Mellon waitlist essay? Let’s cover that in the next section.

Write Your Essay to Compensate for Insufficiencies.

You can use the data from Carnegie Mellon’s website, or based on stats you’ve seen from accepted and waitlisted students in your school, to write the waitlist essay. The Carnegie Mellon waitlist essay should not just update admissions officers of your activities after you submitted your application. It’s also a time to compensate for the weaknesses of your submitted application.

84.6% of accepted Freshmen had a GPA of 3.75-4.0. So, you can use this data to determine where you stand amongst others and what weaknesses you need to compensate for.

As a general rule: if your GPA is lower, write about GPA. If your GPA is higher and you were still waitlisted, write about other attributes CMU values that were your weak points.

If you have a GPA of less than 3.75 and you were waitlisted to Carnegie Mellon, you most probably had other qualities that made you a strong candidate that they wanted to accept; but, your GPA was low. So, instead of writing your waitlist essay to be about how you planted extra trees, you may want to write about how you honed your ability to maintain academic stability over the past few months by experimenting with new study strategies.

Now, if you were waitlisted to Carnegie Mellon with a GPA of greater than 3.75, you were probably still considered due to your GPA. But, your extracurriculars and other attributes were not solid enough to really get your foot in the door. So, you should write about some of the new activities, projects, or volunteer experiences you’ve gained over the past few months.

So, here’s a recap.

If you don’t know what to write about in your Carnegie Mellon waitlist essay, consider your stats. If your GPA is less than the freshman average of 3.75, write about how you’ve honed your skills to maintain academic stability. If your GPA is over 3.75, write about how you did volunteer work, conducted new projects, or got involved with new activities.

Remember: CMU Does Not Consider Demonstrated Interest.

It’s crucial to remember that CMU does not consider demonstrated interest. Unlike other university waitlist processes, Carnegie Mellon won’t care about how much you want to attend. So, stories about your visit to the campus and how you fell in love with the community and area will not be considered.

This also includes other factors such as supplementary materials that are often sent to schools to show particular interest. Things like portfolios, extra writing samples, demonstrated talent, and other materials won’t sway admissions officers. So, it won’t belong in the Carnegie Mellon waitlist letter!

Here’s more info on the matter below.

“Demonstrated interest is a term used in undergraduate admission that describes the ways in which a prospective student shows a college that they’re interested by visiting campus and submitting additional materials that aren’t required in the application…

As a result, we do not consider a campus visit or communication with the Office of Admission or other members of the Carnegie Mellon community when making admission decisions. Also, we do not accept supplementary submission of materials, including:

• Resumes
• Research abstracts
• Writing samples
• Multimedia demonstrations of talents
• Maker portfolios

These extra materials haven’t been useful in making our admission decisions and allowing optional materials has deterred some people from applying.”

Carnegie Mellon University Official Website

If You Have Nothing to Update on, Consider Seeking Help From an Admissions Consultant.

If you don’t have anything to write about to the admissions office, or you simply don’t know how to write your Carnegie Mellon waitlist essay as a whole, you should consider seeking help from a professional.

The waitlist essay prompt is presented to students who the admissions office was most probably willing to accept into the Freshman class. However, they simply were lacking in a few elements that made them less desirable to other applicants.

Because of this, the Carnegie Mellon waitlist essay prompt is phrased in a way that asks students to provide updates and additional information in between the time of submission and now.

If your academic performance or study habits have not improved, and you have not done any new activities/volunteer/projects, you may want to speak with an expert. Not having any content to write about will certainly make it difficult for you to stand out amongst the rest in the waitlist pool. However, an expert can help consult you on the right path to take and the right things to say when you feel you have nothing to write about.

Final Thoughts

Take note of Carnegie Mellon’s acceptance rate for waitlisted students. It’s less than 1%. Although there is nothing more you can do for your transcript like increasing your GPA, the Carnegie Mellon waitlist essay still serves as one of your only tools to sway the admissions office. It’s your key to increasing the .65% acceptance rate to something higher.

In addition, you’ll need every minuscule chance of acceptance rate to maximize your chances of getting in. For competitive applications like these, every bit of help… well, helps!

Here at PenningPapers, we’ve helped students get accepted to many universities in the US News and World Report’s Top 25 schools in the nation. We can do the same for you.

With such a slim acceptance rate, we highly recommend you schedule a free consultation with our college admissions essay editing and consulting experts. We’ll get back to you within 24 hours to help write the best possible Carnegie Mellon waitlist essay.