Carnegie Mellon University Undergraduate Admissions recently released news that they are making some significant changes to their application process. One big change is eliminating the “demonstrated interest” aspect, which previously was used to judge how much a student seemed genuinely interested in the university through participating in CMU events on campus or in their hometowns, completing an alumni interview, and other options.

Carnegie Mellon admissions is also no longer encouraging supplementary submissions like resumes, research abstracts, additional writing materials, or multimedia pieces like CDs of students playing music. (Note: This is different from if a student is applying to the School of Music or School of Art and is completing a required portfolio.) They are also no longer offering alumni interviews and switching the on-campus individual counselor meetings from interviews to true counseling sessions where advice is shared.

The biggest change and the one I am most excited about is switching their standard “Why CMU and why this major/school” required essay into a series of short essays. I am very curious if Carnegie Mellon will take a more quirky approach to these prompts, or if these short answers will cover more traditional areas that other schools’ application short answers are already doing.

The Common Application will re-open August 1st, 2018 for this upcoming application season, so we’ll find out then what those new short answers look like! In the meantime, I’ll be keeping an eye out for other competitive schools’ admissions changes in what seems like a larger trend towards inclusivity and diversity in admissions.

Read the full news release from CMU here.