<p>Yayitsme, true story. Not MIT, but…my son’s first job post CMU (cs) graduation was at a very well known NYC investment bank. The fellow who ended up working next to S, during one of his interviews for the firm, was asked by his interviewer ‘why should we take you over someone from Carnegie Mellon?’ That fellow at the time was a student at Princeton. Don’t worry. You will love CMU (and, surprisingly, Pittsburgh).</p>
<p>I love Pittsburgh and really liked CMU. Eng and CS (and drama and…) are incredibly strong programs and very hard to get into. I think you will be happy there. CMU kids get free bus passes to explore Pitt…they’re good on the inclines too - go up to Mt Washington around sunset and hang until dark…so cool. All the CMU grads I know are incredibly successful. I think you made an excellent call.</p>
<p>Son also turned down his EA acceptance at MIT. Did you have a chance to visit MIT? Son was doing his visits AFTER acceptances, and found a better fit elsewhere. So it does happen.</p>
<p>Kat</p>
<p>
Cobrat it’s definitely the underdog school compared to MIT. Just as an example - at the welcome meeting for the new CS class the Dean of SCS asked everyone who had been rejected by MIT to raise their hands. I’d say about 90% of the kids sheepishly raised their hands. Then the Dean went on to tell the story of how he had to get over being second in his high school class. His point being that second is still pretty terrific and you shouldn’t let it define you. Everyone who counts knows that CMU is right up there with the big guys, but it still doesn’t have the name recognition of MIT, Stanford and Berkeley with the general public. So yes underdog.</p>
<p>OP, you did the right thing. That’s what matters the most.</p>
<p>Congratulations on being a person of character and knowing that you needed to do the right thing.</p>
<p>The “I could’a gone to MIT” thing will fade away once you get to CMU and make friends and start classes (but might come up from time to time if you get frustrated). Your values will last a lifetime.</p>
<p>Attend the school that feels right. As a previous poster said, if you love MIT that much attend grad school there.</p>
<p>My neighbor graduated CMU 2 yrs. ago after turning down Stanford because she felt it was “too far from home”. She raves about how wonderful the experience was…when she isn’t studying for her classes at Yale Medical!</p>