With CMU in particular, it is important to know to what school an applicant was applying. The considerations for admissions are very different for the individual schools (see http://admission.enrollment.cmu.edu/pages/undergraduate-admission-statistics). For example:
[ul]
[li]**School of Computer Science/b[/li][li]**College of Fine Arts/b[/li][/ul]
And within the College of Fine Arts, there is substantial variation (e.g., 52% acceptance for Architecture vs. 3% for the elite Drama school); decisions there are also mainly based on auditions and portfolio, not grades and test scores.