Yes!!! I am so excited after seeing the financial aid…it is truly a #BLESSING , Carnegie knows this poor girl struggled her whole life and wants a solid college education. I am in disbelief, I refreshed the page, unconnected to my Wi-fi, restarted my computer, put on my glasses to make sure the financial aid reward was correct and I wasn’t dreaming…this is so surreal. CMU has always been my top choice, I hope I 1. pass my classes & 2. financial aid remains relatively the same because my single parent household isn’t going to hit the lotto anytime soon
@MandomeLife My son got presidential as well, 20k. Can you send me the information as well? Thanks!
only got 10k a year 
I found out some information about the presideintal scholarship: http://www.cmu.edu/leadership/pres-fellow-scholar/
Perhaps they would do better marketing this if they wrote a congratulatory letter to recipients instead of just embedding the award in the financial aid package?
@doody1425 what are your stats?
@psycholing do you mind sharing your sons stats?
@jeffrandell Sure – but I think I can say definitively he did not get the scholarship because of stats … my guess is it was a combination of his interests fitting into a new Deitrich major and a new integrated MS program (behavioral economics +IR) and strong international experience (rotary club exchange in a south american country for a school year, fluency in 2 non-native languages and studying a 3rd language). He also had several civil rights internships where he was able to use his language skills. It may be difficult for CMU to find people with these strengths, who also have the quantitative chops to survive at CMU.
Stats: ACT 33 (34 superscore), GPA (not counting freshman year) perhaps 3.7 – upward trend each year at private competitive school, SAT math 2 > 750. It was to my son’s great advantage that CMU drops freshman year from GPA calculation, since he had health issues that year which decreased his GPA.
We are in for some difficult decision making.
This may be the wrong place to ask, but can fellow Deitrich applicants share their impressions of this school? My son never visited. We are now trying to squeeze in a visit before decision time.
@2sunny So here at CMU we combine Computer Engineering and Electrical Engineering into one major: ECE. I’m a mere freshman, so I’m not really sure what’s up, but you definitely get a solid software background along with all your hardware needs. There’s a lot of requirements that overlap between ECE and CS. (Is there anything specific you want to know?)
Dorms are pretty important your freshman year; honestly it’s a really good indicator of the group of friends you’ll make. Just by proximity, you’ll get to know your dorm quite well. At least it’s the case for me in Stever. Basically, we have Mudge, Morewood, Stever, Donner, Rez, and the Hill. The Hill is a cluster of dorms that are either themed or single gender, and they do have a good community even though a lot of people make fun of them. The Rez is far, but it’s apartment style, which means you get your own kitchen, and they also have a good community going on. Donner houses most of the athletes and is a very social dorm in general. They don’t have the best facilities, but the people that live there tend to be more outgoing. Mudge is literally a mansion and it’s prime style, which means that 4-5 people share a bathroom. Usually ED kids live here. Morewood is pretty much a typical dorm. It’s coed by floor and I’d say there’s less socializing going on just because the lounges aren’t that accessible, but the Underground(foooooood) is right downstairs, so when it’s cold it’s really nice. Stever is the best. Jk, Stever is coed by wing, and we have two lounges on each wing; it’s also the newest dorm, so we have really clean and nice facilities. One con in Stever is that the toilets have a mind of their own; they flush on their own accord.
Food isn’t too bad. We have a several food places. They’re mainly grab and go, kinda like fast food chains. We don’t have buffet style places except for Shatz.
Almost everyone’s really nice and welcoming here. We’re all nerdy, but it’s not like everyone’s a shut-in. We have parties; we go out; we have fun. It’s just that if you want a social life you do have to make an effort.
let me know if you want to know more about anything!
Have any admitted students not received their FAT packets yet? I haven’t received it yet and I live in Cali.
Hey @spadeillusion , I think this is a perfect opportunity to address my concerns. So, I applied to a crap ton of schools, and when applying to CMU, I accidentally applied as an ECE major instead of SCS. After being offered a spot on the priority waitlist for the College of Engineering (not guaranteed for ECE), I called the admissions office to see if I could be moved to the SCS waitlist (lol it doesn’t work that way). I applied as a CS major for all my other schools, and I acknowledge that I screwed up pretty badly on this one, but I have two questions if I am admitted off the priority waitlist:
-
As an ECE major at CMU, what is the software development like, especially compared to SCS? Do you cover software engineering extensively?
-
Can you explain to me the process for internal transfers from ECE to SCS? How difficult is it to transfer, or is it even recommended since both ECE and SCS are impacted?
Thanks!
@wormholes great name. We received packet today and live in Pennsylvania. I wouldn’t worry about not getting it yet in California.
@wormholes I received mine today and I live in california. Im sure you’ll get it tomorrow
@psycholing haha thank you 
@doody1425 i hope so! thank you
@spadeillusion Thank you for the info!
@DrCounsel Thanks
@psycholing The congratulations come after a student decides to matriculate. And there are many, many congratulations.
@MandomeLife I have a few questions about CMU that I would really appreciate if you could answer for me since you’re a student there!
I know this is probably too general to really answer, but how would you characterize CMU’s social life? I want to have a healthy social life in college and go out on the weekends with friends (by go out I don’t only mean partying, but also just going out to dinner or a movie or even staying in for a movie night with friends). I really don’t want to be studying 24/7. Of course, I’ll take my classes very seriously but I want a balance between the two. Do you think it’s easy to find that at CMU, or do most people prefer to just stay in all day and study?
Also is there a lot of school spirit? Not just with sports but in general?
@I don’t know what I’m doing, 
-
As an ECE major at CMU, you’ll still still have to do all the core classes 18-220, 18-213, 18-290, and 18-240. But, 18-213 is cross-listed as 15-213, which I believe is a CS core. Furthermore, we literally have a Software track you can check out here: https://ece.cmu.edu/programs-admissions/bachelors/academic-guide/index.html . If you don’t like software, you only have to take the bare minimum of software classes, which are the intro to programming class and principles of imperative computing. If you do like CS, there is a lot of opportunities for you to take CS classes and have that add to your major requirements. It’s really flexible in terms of adding in CS classes. However, due to our requirements, we still have ECE core classes which won’t have much CS at all. It’ll be a lot of lower lever stuff. Software engineering isn’t really covered extensively with set major requirements, but with all the more flexible area requirements, you can pursue CS, since there is a lot of overlap.
-
Transfering to SCS is notoriously hard. You have to only have 2 Bs or 1 C in 6(?) core CS classes. I have friends who are trying to do so, and know people who have done so. But if you’re in ECE, unless you hate hardware with a passion, I don’t see much of a reason to transfer. You’ll still be able to access the same classes, and even skip out on some CS requirements. Having only 2Bs or 1C in the CS classes are hard, and a lot of actual CS majors don’t even have that. Don’t let me persuade you to not transfer though. If CS is your passion and you love proofs, then try your best to transfer to CS. If that doesn’t work out, you can always just take on a CS minor.
I’m not @MandomeLife but I think I can provide my opinion.
CMU’s social life is what you make of it. Some people stay in 24/7. Some people party on the weekends. Some people go out on weekdays. I would say that it takes more effort to go out than you would a typical school, just because people are always busy with one thing or another. I have friends in other schools that would just send mass snaps for people to hit them up because they’re bored, but here, it’s more of a deliberate effort to be with people because you enjoy hanging out with them.
But honestly, if you want to go out and get food or stay in and watch a movie, there’s always someone down for it. When I want to find someone to hang out and just chill with, I haven’t had a problem doing so. Like any college, CMU has a variety of people and although I would say 99% of us are nerdy, it doesn’t mean that we all forget about the outside world.
As a freshman coming in, it’ll be especially easy to just go out with people because you’ll be living in a freshman dorm, where many people will be taking classes you’re taking and have a similar courseload. Don’t worry too much!