<p>I got waitlisted to both CIT and SCS. I'm surprised as to why CMU would waitlist me considering I seemed like a competitive applicant. Is it because I didn't turn in my Mid-year Report early? Is it because I didn't show a lot of interest in my 'Why CMU' essay? Awwwh man... and I had set my hopes up for CMU, too? Can anyone speculate as to the factors that caused me to be waitlisted?</p>
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<p>Dude… You got into MIT and Stanford.
Dont worry about CMU haha</p>
<p>I’m the exact opposite. I got rejected from Stanford and MIT, but got into CMU SCS.</p>
<p>What really stands out about your application? Are you insanely good at one thing or just awesome at everything? I’m curious as well as to why you wouldn’t get in.</p>
<p>Contact your admissions officer and tell him/her that you will be accepting your Stanford (or MIT offer), but that CMU is your top choice and that you will stay on their wait list and accept if offered a spot.</p>
<p>You might be someone they are making an example of to show they do turn down top candidates. There is also a game people play to improve their yield.</p>
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<p>Why is that funny? SCS at CMU is an extremely competitive school to get into and is as good as, or even for better for compsci than MIT or Stanford.</p>
<p>@texaspg: That’s what I suspect as well, since I’ve heard of WUSTL doing the same thing–that is, waitlisting the more competitive applicants so as not to decrease yield…</p>
<p>This just makes think that adcoms will only be waitlisting more and more students year after year as college gets more competitive…</p>
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<p>@arteest90: Not sure… But I’m entertaining the possibility that turning in my midyear report late would cause me to get waitlisted.</p>
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<p>Are there any statisics for the CMU SCS waitlist? I was placed on it as well… I am beginning to really hate waitlists.
Waitlisted at MIT, Caltech, Harvey Mudd, and now this…</p>
<p>Turning in your midyear report did not get you waitlisted.</p>
<p>Every adcom board is just different. They value and notice different things on applications. I have a friend who was waitlisted by Rice and UVA and rejected by Harvard, but got into both Stanford and Yale. Go figure. You can’t pin it down on anything.</p>
<p>Everyone blames Tufts Syndrome (waitlisting best applicants to increase yield) just to make themselves feel better. Tufts syndrome exists but not in most cases. Given the strength of your profile, and given it was CMU, I can 100% guarantee you were not wait listed to increase yield. It just happens. There’s nothing funny about it. CMU is just as good, if not better than Stanford and MIT in Computer Science. Your profile showed essentially zero interest in Computer Science, and when you’re applying to SCS, that’s important.</p>
<p>Take your acceptances with a grain of salt- Many students with significantly more impressive profiles than yours were rejected by MIT/Stanford.</p>
<p>From CMU Common Data Set for 2010…</p>
<p>Number of qualified applicants offered a place on waiting list 4,463
Number accepting a place on the waiting list 563
Number of wait-listed students admitted 70</p>
<p>Probably not about the mid-year…mine was filed in my application on March 21st (LOL so on the ball.) and I was accepted.</p>
<p>Anyone knows the waitlist statistics for specific schools?</p>
<p>Honestly, your stats are acceptable but they aren’t stellar. As an applicant, just from reading your stats, you seem a little “vanilla”. By saying you are a “more competitive applicant” and that is why they waitlisted you, you are really just diminishing the accomplishments of those who were accepted in order to ease your ego. That’s not really fair to everyone else.</p>
<p>No one wants to be in limbo on the waitlist, but there are plenty of reasonable explanations as to why you were placed on it. Maybe they had a TON of SCS applicants this year at CMU. Maybe they had enough people with your skills. Maybe your essays didn’t read well to them. Maybe you grabbed their interest, but not enough to accept you (i.e. they want to know more). If it’s your first choice, of course stay on the waitlist. CMU SCS isn’t something for anyone to laugh at.</p>
<p>It may have been CMU thought your “demonstrated interest” was lacking but my guess would be that both Stanford and MIT may have given you a slight “bump” because you are a female. I know of several instances where females go into both schools with slightly lesser stats and/or resumes than their male counterparts because of an intended major such as CS and Engineering.</p>
<p>Update: I still got a fat envelope from CMU today! Even though I’m not admitted to EE, I’m admitted to other departments in CIT! This is actually pretty good news, as I wasn’t 100% sure that I wanted to do EE anyway. :)</p>
<p>In response to the posts above… Haters gon’ hate.</p>
<p>You asked for factors that may have put you on the waitlist, then when people tossed some ideas around, you said “haters gon’ hate”?</p>
<p>I guess that makes sense… #sarcasm</p>
<p>goodness, everyone calm down! She was probably miffed that somebody basically said she got in because of her gender.</p>
<p>LovelyBones, congratulations on your acceptances.</p>
<p>Yeah… I got straight up rejected by CMU CIT. I was admitted to MIT, though. OP: I’m wondering the same thing.</p>
<p>I mad.</p>
<p>Thanks archguy! And well-said. I created this thread to ask for possible factors that made me get waitlisted, but what I got instead was a bunch of ad hominem attacks from bitter CC posters! Oh well–they mad, breh. They mad.</p>
<p>Also, since epilepc had a similar situation as mine, I don’t think we should discount the possibility that CMU is pulling a Tufts on us.</p>
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