Carnegie Mellon University- 2nd Supplement Essay

Colleges and Universities A-Z Carnegie Mellon University
1

<p>I'm applying to Carnegie Mellon for fall 2014, and I have to write for the same prompt for my second supplement essay and this is the prompt:
"List the books (if any) you’ve read this year for pleasure. Choose one and in a sentence describe it’s impact on you. "</p>

<ol>
<li>Do CMU really want us to list the books, like "Invisible Man, The Giver, The Sun Also Rises, etc.."? Then wouldn't that technically be two sentences if I talk about one book and its impact?</li>
<li>Would CMU know if I read the book for pleasure last year, rather than this year?</li>
<li>Would CMU know if I choose one of the books I read in AP English?</li>
</ol>

<p>Thank you so much for helping me out!</p>

2

<p>1) I wrote the list in list format, so it didn’t count as a sentence.
2) No, they won’t know that you read a book for pleasure last year. They have no way of officially checking up on that.
3) No, they won’t know that you read a book in AP english.</p>

<p>Good luck!</p>

3

<p>This is my first time using this website so I don’t know if you’re going to get this response, but thank you so much “ssrunner95”!</p>

<p>For my third question about the AP English books, wouldn’t the admissions team know the book list by contacting my high school or if it sounds too classical to be read for pleasure? </p>

<p>I just don’t want to risk my chance of admission by messing up on this. Thanks again!</p>

4

<p>Hehe they won’t know you’re fine. If it’s gonna make you stress out, then don’t include the AP Lit book, but I don’t think this is something they’d check up on/deny you for</p>

5

<p>This prompt has a maximum of 500 words (which is quite a lot), yet asks for the applicant to describe the book in only one sentence.</p>

<p>So do I try to form a long sentence by adding details to cover up words or do I post a long list of books?</p>

6

<p>@determined2300 Someone please answer this question…</p>

7

<p>I don’t think you have to try and fill all 500 words. It’s the maximum, not the suggested length. Mine is only about 150 words.</p>

8

<p>Should I be completely truthful in this part? Because I read some pretty nerdy books like Star Wars…</p>

9

<p>list whatever you want! the supplement is there so that they can get to know you better, and everyone at CMU is pretty much a nerd anyway :P. definitely do not need to fill all 500 words, mine was a total of maybe ~100 words at most</p>

10

<p>Haha I think you should. It shows you’re being genuine. I actually just started reading regularly a few years ago so in the past year I read (and was disappointed by) a lot of bestsellers. They’ll probably just think I’m listing popular books off the top of my head.</p>

11

How many books can we list? Would my chances to the uni be low if I have less books?

12

I listed some of my books as “X” series, so I didn’t have 5 or 6 separate ones when it could be easily abbreviated as a series. I figured they’d understand. But as for even remembering everything I’d read, I had to go look back at my goodreads lists and just start listing them out! I’m glad I kept track on there b/c there’s no way I would have remembered all of them.

13

Mine is only 71 words. I don’t think they want to see how many words you can pile into a sentence.

14

Admissions officers can obviously tell if you read it for fun or for school. If you put down A Doll’s House, Tale of Two Cities, the Iliad, The Awakening, etc etc the chances of you actually reading those for fun are pretty slim. They don’t want you to put down what you think they want to see; just put down the truth.

Edit: Just saw this thread was old, but in case anyone had the same question.

15

Are we allowed to add context to to book we are reading, or are we only allowed to write 1 sentence?

16

@vpm3660 Well it does say only one sentence, so unless you include the context in that one sentence, then I’d guess no.