Carnegie Mellon University, in Pittsburgh, PA, is a great prospective home for any aspiring engineer or future tech innovator. With award-winning academics, cutting edge industry partnerships, and vibrant student culture of problem solving through innovation, CMU offers students a comprehensive STEM education on an urban campus steeped in the industrial grandeur of the past, even as it looks towards the future.
Unfortunately, Carnegie Mellon also boasts a selective acceptance rate, with 2024’s admissions cohort only accepting 11.7% of applicants. As such, it’s vital to stand out in the crowd, and there’s no better way to do that than crafting great supplemental essays. Here, we’ll walk you through the Carnegie Mellon supplemental essays and provide tips and tricks to make the best essays you can out of the three prompts provided.
What Is a Supplemental Essay?
First things first: when applying to colleges, you typically have two types of essays: the personal statement, and the supplemental essay. Each have their own set of priorities and strategies.
The Common App Personal Statement
The personal statement reflects an opportunity to focus on YOU. Your priorities, story, and values are all easily communicated in this long-form essay, typically around 650 words. Focus on yourself here—no need to tailor to specific schools.
Supplemental Essays
Supplemental essays, on the other hand, focus on why you’re a great fit for a particular school. They show that you’ve researched the college deeply and understand how your goals, passions, and personality align with that university’s values and community. Supplemental essay prompts vary widely from school to school, ranging from three short words all the way to 500 word essays delving deep into your personal values. Most schools will typically ask for an essay articulating your intended major and why the school is a good fit for you.
Personal Statement vs Supplemental Essays
While personal statements focus on you and your values, the supplemental essay is a meditation on how a school fits you—and how you fit at a school. They typically differ in length, and while the personal statement is nearly universally applicable, supplemental essays vary greatly from institution to institution.
Carnegie Mellon Supplemental Essays
For the 2025 admissions cycle, there are three Carnegie Mellon supplemental essays, each with a 300-word limit.
Why Major?
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? (300 words)
Goals
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? (300 words)
About You
Consider your application as a whole. What do you personally want to emphasize about your application for the admission committee’s consideration? Highlight something that’s important to you or something you haven’t had a chance to share. Tell us, don’t show us (no websites please). (300 words)
How to Write the Carnegie Mellon Supplemental Essays
The Carnegie Mellon supplemental essays are an opportunity to showcase three different aspects of yourself. Here’s our guide to how to write each essay, with helpful tips:
“Why Major?” Essay
This prompt specifically asks what sparked your interest over time and how it developed, which goes a layer deeper than a typical “Why Major?” essay. This essay lets you tell your origin story: Carnegie Mellon wants to see not just that you like your major, but that you’ve engaged with it meaningfully and independently, and you know how to contextualize that interest within your personal growth.
For example, if you’re applying to study mechanical engineering, you might describe how tinkering with robotics in middle school grew into a fascination with machine learning applications. Show how your passion evolved and what experiences confirmed your commitment. Was it a Lincoln Logs kit at age 5 that sparked a passion for material science? Or was it a sick loved one that spurred your pursuit of medicine?
Tip: This is a great opportunity to flex your storytelling skills. Use vivid language to really transport the reader to that pivotal moment in your own academic formation that set out the path you follow today. If you were to write the movie script of your life, how would you write your academic origins?
“Goals” Essay
This essay is trickier than it might seem, and requires you to do some self reflection on your own values in education. What is your mindset towards learning? How do you define success in your education? What do you hope to gain—academically, personally, or professionally—from your college experience?
Think beyond your intended career. Reflect on the kind of learner you want to be and how you’ll take advantage of CMU’s interdisciplinary and hands-on environment. Consider your graduation day: to leave Carnegie Mellon with no regrets, what must you accomplish?
- List the values that matter most to you in a learning environment (do you value collaboration, investigative research, practical learning, or something else?).
- Consider what a successful collegiate experience looks like for you.
- Avoid simple goals like “get good grades.” Instead, discuss how you’ll grow through challenges, research, and teamwork.
While tricky, this will help the admissions team assess your values and how they align with the community at Carnegie Mellon.
“About You” Essay
This prompt is your chance to share something your application wouldn’t otherwise be able to showcase: a passion, a project, or a perspective that your application doesn’t already emphasize. Maybe it’s a community service initiative, love of art or music, or even a passion for family recipes and cooking that influenced who you are and how you move through the world.
Focus on showing the admissions team what drives you and what you value most. Write with honesty and specificity—general statements won’t stand out. If you can, tell a story, with you as protagonist to avoid the trap of writing more about your influences than how you are influenced.
Tip: Look at what your personal statement covers as well as your other two Carnegie Mellon supplemental essays. Do you feel like they have a complete picture of you? What would they be interested to know that helps you stand out from the crowd? It might be an artistic pursuit, a specific story, or even something you feel is especially important to communicate. If it helps, make a Venn diagram of important aspects of you and what your essays cover: is there anything missing?
Get Writing!
There’s no better time than now to start working on your Carnegie Mellon supplemental essays. They require lots of reflection and brainstorming. It’s a good idea to ask for feedback from a friend, loved one, or teacher to help you puzzle out what you value in education as well as what brought you to this place at all. Each prompt invites you to reveal a unique layer of who you are and how you’ll fit into the CMU community.
If you’d like expert guidance on brainstorming, editing, or refining your essays, HelloCollege can help. Our team of expert Essay Coaches specializes in supplemental essay strategy, helping you find your authentic story and communicate it with confidence, from brainstorming to final copy edits. Get started with HelloCollege today and make your Carnegie Mellon application shine.
