<p>All the problems I've read about regarding CMU decisions gives me a bad feeling about the school. Even I had a problem because online it appear that I was waitlisted, only to discover that the waitlist was for the ECE program, though I was admitted to CIT. (By the way, the letter that came in my FAT envelope was a little obnoxious...it was 90% about ECE and it took a while for me to even understand I was admitted to CIT. Nowhere does the word "congratulations" appear!)</p>
<p>There are so many posts about blank lines, unclear messages, poor communication, some people without letters yet, etc.</p>
<p>How much does this correlate to being a student there?</p>
<p>The central administration of CMU is terrible. Individual departments are top notch, always willing to help, and will become the people you learn to depend on when you need stuff to get done.</p>
<p>I imagine CMU’s also having a tough time with applications since in the past few years they’ve been getting many more applicants than they had historically, so they might not have had the manpower to be prepared for it.</p>
<p>Ignore the posts on blank lines, etc. We still live in paper world when it comes to applications. Think on how many pieces of paper are submitted, all which sorted and filed and read. Multiple times.</p>
<p>I understand they may have gotten more applications this year and that we live in a paper world. But all the schools live in a paper world and many schools received a lot more applications than CMU. It just gives a bad feeling of no confidence.</p>
<p>To be clear, the ‘blank line’ phenomena was a creation and construct of college confidential. If you call up CMU admissions and ask them to explain “The Blank Line” (as we’re apparently now calling it), they’re going to be looking at you funny unless you find someone who has already dealt with a ton of CC’ers.</p>
<p>Their computerized system - which is far more informative than any other school I applied too - puts a blank line in some applicants profiles. Maybe it has to do with information that is private to admissions officers that the system sees but doesnt print, I don’t know. </p>
<p>The point is, I don’t know how you can see the blank line as some failing of CMU’s administration. The only reason you see it as so important is because you’re looking at CC’s forums, where college applicants are stressed beyond belief and grabbing on to each possible piece of information that they think will let them predict their decision - in a thoroughly competitive and therefore unpredictable environment.</p>
<p>There have been a lot of complaints about how students were notified of their admissions decision, and how you read into that is up to you. My personal belief is that they fulfilled their obligations based on what they told everyone up front. “We will notify you by April 15 for RD, and your decision will be online 3-4 days after we mail it to you”. If some people didn’t like that particular system, thats one thing, but the fact is that in the VAST majority of the cases, CMU lived up to their stated policies. Again, this seems like less of an issue with the administration of the admissions office than the policy.</p>
<p>And finally - perhaps most importantly - all of these examples come from the office of admission. An office that, in every way, is segregated from the main administration for good reason. The president and perhaps some other administrators gave a guiding philosophy to the admissions office this year (as reported on campus - candidates that expressed leadership and the formation of a well-rounded class’) and then get out of the way.</p>
<p>I received the fat letter on tuesday saying I was admitted to MCS…</p>
<p>on wednesday I received a skinny letter saying I was waitlisted at MCS.</p>
<p>Hm.</p>
<p>CMU is definitely dysfunctional in some way. But when I called to ask for their FINAL decision, at least the lady was nice and apologetic for the big scare.</p>
<p>Again, its not like I have any more knowledge about it than you do, but applying what the admissions office does as representative of the whole school seems really short sighted. They’re segregated for a reason.</p>