Acing Carnegie Mellon University’s (CMU) 2024-2025 Supplemental Essays
2024-2025 CARNEGIE MELLON SUPPLEMENTAL ESSAY PROMPTS
Carnegie Mellon is one of the top schools we love assisting applicants with at Cosmic Academic Advising. We appreciate their meritocratic admissions process and their strong emphasis on academic achievements. Additionally, Carnegie Mellon is a leader in STEM, consistently ensuring that its academic programs prepare students for careers at the forefront of many industries.
This year, Carnegie Mellon requires applicants to write three supplemental essays. Let's dive into the best approach for tackling these essays.
1. Most students choose their intended major or area of study based on a passion or inspiration that’s developed over time – what passion or inspiration led you to choose this area of study?
For this essay, you want to hone in on either recent experiences, or a contemporary problem within the field you want to major in that resonates with you. If you choose to talk about recent experiences, show, don’t tell, the reader what these experiences consisted of, and how each one of them informed you about the field you want to major in. If instead you choose to talk about a contemporary problem, tell the reader how you came to learn about it, why they, the reader, should care about it being solved, and how majoring in a specific area will grant you the tools to solve it. This essay should also answer the question why you want to major in this particular field. To convey this, explain why you love the field in general. Highlight how its challenges and mysteries motivate you, and how you enjoy engaging in the nitty gritty of it.
2. Many students pursue college for a specific degree, career opportunity or personal goal. Whichever it may be, learning will be critical to achieve your ultimate goal. As you think ahead to the process of learning during your college years, how will you define a successful college experience?
For this essay, cite specific clubs and research opportunities at Carnegie Mellon that you believe would be crucial for you to consider your experience there a success. In doing so, provide your own definition of what constitutes a successful college experience, and make sure you cite specific opportunities at Carnegie Mellon that will allow you to fulfill your definition of success. Your definition should align with the values of learning, meeting new people from diverse backgrounds and perspectives, and pursuing your academic passions and interests to the fullest extent of your abilities.
It is critical that you don’t include any information that is provided in other essays or in other parts of your application. Additionally, the topic you choose to write about needs to be relevant to the admission officers. That means, your essay can either showcase a well-developed skill that you possess, which required a lot of effort to develop. That skill should be presented in a way that demonstrates to the reader how it will allow you to contribute to academic and social life at Carnegie Mellon, and how it will enable you to also benefit from the social and academic opportunities on campus. Alternatively, it can showcase a non-trivial perspective that you hold, which will allow you to contribute to the intellectual diversity and vibrancy of the incoming class, and the role your life experiences played in helping you formulate that perspective.
If you would like a review of your Carnegie Mellon essays by an admissions expert or have any further questions about Carnegie Mellon’s essays or other college admissions essays, please schedule a free consultation with us below. We would be more than happy to answer any questions you may have.
