<p>What does it take to get one at CMU?</p>
<p>id like to know also.... A friend of mine received 1/2 tuition a couple years back.... but she was a girl, and CMU doesnt have too many female applciants. bump</p>
<p>bump .......</p>
<p>Some combination of luck, being in a demographic CMU wants, having an outstanding high school record, and research experience while in high school.</p>
<p>I think the demographic requirements are more important to CMU than the high school record or other achievements. Even if your numbers are great (and most applicants have great numbers and EC's), they are more concerned with their numbers. And unfortunately, there's not much you can do to change who you are or where your're from.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I think the demographic requirements are more important to CMU than the high school record or other achievements. Even if your numbers are great (and most applicants have great numbers and EC's), they are more concerned with their numbers. And unfortunately, there's not much you can do to change who you are or where your're from.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Taking that into consideration, how likely would it be for a female MCS (biology) applicant from Michigan to get any merit aid? Excellent test scores, good GPA (3.97 weighted, ~3.5 unweighted).</p>
<p>I'm thinking not very, but you never know. XD</p>
<p>FWIW, U.S. News numbers show 8% of first-year students get merit aid, with an average of award of $11,533.</p>
<p>I'm guessing (and it's only a guess) is that a bunch of those go to outstanding students who happen to be football players, female tech whizzes, URMs, or concert musicians. Fingers crossed, but not counting on one for my kid, as he fits none of these categories. (Congratulation to all of the Pacific Islander oboe-playing defensive back female engineering majors out there with 4.0/2400!)</p>
<p>D was offered a half scholarship for visual arts last year. She is local, caucasian, class validictorian, and had a good portfolio...</p>
<p>Does CMU provide full ride?</p>
<p>Full tuition scholarships exist, though there aren't many. I don't <em>think</em> that there are any full ride, but I'm not sure. Room/board isn't as ridiculous as at some schools, though.</p>
<p>At first, I didn't get any aid. However, if you do get aid at another university, you can send that offer into CMU and have them reconsider. I went from getting nothing to getting 10,500 / yr in merit-based scholarship after I sent CMU the much-better financial aid offer I got from another school. It never hurts to try. Well, actually....if you are going to go to CMU anyways it doesn't matter; I was potentially going to attend the other university if I didn't get anything from CMU, so I didn't send my deposit for housing in until almost the deadline to accept admissions. As a result, I didn't get any of my choices for housing (in fact, I got stuck in the one place I didn't want to be). But one year of bad housing (which is actually far better than I had hoped, and I actually have come to like where I live right now) is little price to pay for a quarter tuition.</p>
<p>I got a Judith Resnik-Challenger scholarship, which provides a half ride. I applied to CIT regular decision, by the way. :)</p>
<p>I got the Andrew Carnegie Scholarship (1/2 tuition, CIT RD).... you can find my stats if you want....</p>
<p>I got the carnegie mellon scholarship for ful tuition and apparently im a finalist for the Charpie scholarship which is a full ride they give to only 4 students.</p>
<p>OMG - those scholarships are amazing! If I got a half-ride I would most definitely go to CMU. Arrgh! this is killing me!</p>
<p>Those of you that got a merit scholarship - please post your stats!</p>
<p>The trend I've been seeing, at least from those who have been posting on CC, is that merit scholarships have largely been awarded to qualified females and URMs.</p>
<p>Here's one we got a few years back. This is the "we know you deserve a scholarship but you don't fill our demographic need" award. I think it was a total of $500. I remember seeing "Presidential Scholarship" listed, feeling excitement, and then reading the amount over and over again, thinking it must be an error! LOL! It's a nice pat on the back, but it doesn't even buy books for a semester.</p>
<p>*From the website:
Presidential Scholarships are awarded to artistically and academically talented middle-income students who qualify for little or no need-based financial aid. Unlike our other academic scholarships, you must apply for need-based financial aid to be considered. (This verifies that you are not eligible for significant financial assistance.) *</p>
<p>Here's wishing you all better luck than we had! :)</p>
<p>im guessing the only two people on this thread who got schols are girls....not gonna say nething.</p>
<p>My son, who is neither female nor a URM, was offered a $5,000 merit scholarship at CMU. His interest is Biology (as opposed to all you wonderful CS and Tepper School types) and his SAT's were high (2280 superscored). If I had to guess I would bet that those 2 facts were factors in his merit award. I would never assume any broad quantitative notions based on cc responses. The only reason I'm posting this is to warn you not to make such assumptions...</p>