Carnegie Mellon University
2025-2026
What are the Carnegie Mellon supplemental essay prompts?
The questions on this page are being asked by Carnegie Mellon University
Prompt #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? (300 word maximum)*
Prompt #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? (300 word maximum)*
Prompt #3
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 word maximum)*
Example #2:
How would our world change if we could print any image or text onto any surface with just a small portable printing device and a mobile app? Designing walls, tunnels, roads– all these jobs would become effortless. To make my vision into reality, I created an Augmented Reality & Machine Learning app as well as a handheld printer prototype at Cornell’s Computer Systems Lab last summer. My application harnesses the motion detection data and on-device deep neural networks to determine the surfaces surrounding the smartphone camera’s view. Afterwards, the user can tap and drag an image on the camera screen of the smartphone to “prop up” an image onto any detected surface. Using the handheld printer, the user can print the virtually propped image onto the actual wall. I’ve grown more enthusiastic in my work every day because I’ve seen how innovative mobile apps can magically merge virtual objects into the real world for billions of smartphone users. The combination of data collection, analysis, and implementation of computer graphics and machine learning in my project has intensified my interest in Data Science.
From analyzing the refugee crisis in the Middle East to detecting tumors at an early stage, the benefits that three quintillion bytes of data every day can provide are endless. As a Statistics and Machine Learning student at CMU, I look forward to continuing my project with deep neural networks and mixed reality, as well as discovering other interdisciplinary applications. Courses such as Modern Regression and Statistical Computing will help me use scientific methods to draw meaningful insights from data.
As the unprecedented increase in scale and importance of data revolutionizes a multitude of industries, Carnegie Mellon’s groundbreaking Statistics & Machine Learning curriculum and research opportunities will support my ambition for making a genuine impact in the world.