<p>I don't know how CMU works, but just as an example when I was a student rep on an admissions committee at Columbia's architecture school three people read every application. We each gave it a score, and there would be some sort of cut-off number determined by how big they wanted the class to be. Scores on the cut-off probably got a second read before final decisions were made - though I don't know for sure what happened after our part was done.</p>