At a Glance
Carnegie Mellon admits 11.1% of applicants.
What You'll Actually Pay
See what families at different income levels actually pay after aid.
What families actually pay, by income level
After grants and scholarships. Before loans. Public school prices shown at in-state rates.
Source: College Scorecard / IPEDS, 2024-25
Where the Sticker Price Goes
Based on average need-based grant. Actual cost varies by family income — see chart above.
Debt at Graduation
38.1%
receive need-based grant aid
Not reported by this school
average debt at graduation
Merit Aid
Not reported by this school — some schools award aid based on need alone, without merit scholarships.
Getting In
Carnegie Mellon admits 11.1% of applicants.
Carnegie Mellon University's Early Decision applicants are admitted at nearly 2x the rate of Regular Decision applicants — 20.6% vs 10.3%. Note: ED is binding — you commit to attending if admitted.
SAT mid-50% not reported with a submission rate, so there is no band to chart. This school does not publish what share of its class submitted a score.
ACT mid-50% not reported with a submission rate, so there is no band to chart.
82.5% were in the top 10% of their high school class.
What They Value
Academic
Nonacademic
Carnegie Mellon University considers your essay Important — a strong essay can differentiate an otherwise average application. Demonstrated interest is Not Considered here — campus visits and emails to admissions won't affect your odds.
Student Life
Class size distribution not reported by these schools' Common Data Sets.
Share of undergraduate class sections at each size, from CDS Section I-3. More red = more large lectures.
Carnegie Mellon data pending.
Class size data reflects all undergraduate sections including labs, seminars, and lectures. Large research universities often have smaller upper-division and graduate-level sections that improve the overall distribution. First and second-year students typically experience larger classes than these averages suggest.
Source: Common Data Set 2025–26, Section I-3 (class sizes)
6:1
student:faculty ratio
Campus Life
Live on campus
51.5%
Men in fraternities
6.9%
Women in sororities
6.8%
On-campus housing and Greek-life participation from the school's prior-year Common Data Set (2024-25) — not reported in Carnegie Mellon's 2025–26 Common Data Set.
Who Attends
Racial and ethnic breakdown of enrolled undergraduates, as reported in each school's Common Data Set. "Unknown / Other" includes students who did not report or selected "other."
Carnegie Mellon's student body is 19.5% white.
Popular Majors
Majors data isn't reported yet for this school.
Will They Graduate?
Carnegie Mellon graduates 78.9% of students in 4 years.
Graduating late means paying for extra semesters. The 6-year rate tells you who eventually finishes — the 4-year rate tells you what it actually costs.
Carnegie Mellon graduates 78.9% of students in 4 years.
What finishing late actually costs
Based on each school's published cost of attendance. Public school costs shown at in-state rates.
Carnegie Mellon
78.9%
4-yr grad rate
Extra year cost: $83,654
Graduation rate data from Common Data Set 2025–26, Fall 2018 cohort (most recent available). 4-year rate = students completing in 4 years or less. 6-year rate = students completing within 6 years.
Graduation rate broken down by financial-aid status (e.g. Pell Grant recipients) isn't reported in this school's Common Data Set.
Freshman Retention
96.6%
96.6% of first-year students return for sophomore year.
City & Culture
Beyond the data — what it's actually like to spend four years in Pittsburgh.
A compact campus in Oakland, Pittsburgh's university district, next door to a large park and a few minutes from downtown. The city is cheap by the standards of its peers, built on rivers and hills, and has turned a steel economy into a robotics and health-care one.
Notable Alumni
Andy Warhol
Defined American pop art, and the museum devoted to him sits a few miles away in the city where he grew up. He graduated here in pictorial design in 1949.
Class of 1949
John Nash
Won the 1994 Nobel Prize in Economics for the equilibrium concept that carries his name. He took both his bachelor's and master's here in 1948.
Class of 1948
James Gosling
Created Java, still one of the most widely used programming languages in the world. He earned his doctorate in computer science here in 1983.
Class of 1983
Holly Hunter
Won the Academy Award for Best Actress for The Piano. She graduated from the drama school here in 1980.
Class of 1980
Alumni selected for name recognition and range of fields. Not from the Common Data Set.
The City
Mid-size city
Pittsburgh, PA
Best For
Traditions
The Fence
A wooden fence in the middle of campus that student groups repaint overnight to claim it — the rule is that you must be physically present to hold it, so groups camp out.
Buggy
Sweepstakes, run since 1920: student-built streamlined carts pushed uphill and driven downhill around Schenley Park at dawn on carnival weekend.
Kiltie Band and the tartan
A Scottish inheritance from Andrew Carnegie, down to the pipes and the tartan the athletic teams are named for.
Interdisciplinary by default
Degrees that cross computing with art, drama with engineering, and cognitive science with design are ordinary here rather than special arrangements.
Weekend Escapes
Within driving distance from Pittsburgh
Schenley Park
About 5 minutesFour hundred acres directly beside campus, with trails, a golf course and the botanical conservatory.
Ohiopyle State Park
About an hour 15 minutesWhitewater on the Youghiogheny and waterfalls; Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater is on the way.
Laurel Highlands
About an hour 30 minutesSkiing at Seven Springs in winter, hiking the rest of the year.
Cleveland or Washington DC
About 2 to 4 hoursTwo very different cities within a reasonable drive for a long weekend.
Getting There & Game Days
Nearest airport
Pittsburgh International (PIT)
About 30 minutes from campus
For international flights: Newark Liberty International (EWR) — about 5 hours 30 minutes by car.
Pro sports nearby
- Pittsburgh Steelers NFL
- Pittsburgh Penguins NHL
- Pittsburgh Pirates MLB
Career Proximity
Pittsburgh's robotics and autonomy cluster grew directly out of this campus, and much of it is still within a few miles of it.
Top Industries Nearby
Major Employers
- Aurora
- UPMC
- PNC Financial Services
- Duolingo
Oakland and downtown Pittsburgh, a few minutes apart
Who Thrives Here
Carnegie Mellon admits 11.1% overall and 20.6% under early decision — close to double, and the widest early advantage among the highly selective privates here. Early decision is binding, so it is only the right move for a family that has already decided, and CMU's own filing notes the plan is not available for several drama programmes. It also remains test-optional, which changes what an application is built out of: with the middle half of enrolled first-years at 1500 to 1560, a strong score still helps, but its absence is not disqualifying. Teaching is unusually close for a research university — a 6:1 student-faculty ratio and 68.0% of sections under 20 across 7,728 undergraduates. 78.9% finish in four years and 94.3% within six. Aid meets 100% of demonstrated need, though only 38.1% of undergraduates receive need-based aid at all, so many families here pay close to the full price. The social shape is worth knowing before committing: 51.5% live in university housing and Greek life takes in under 7% of either men or women, so this is a less residential, less Greek place than most of its peers, and the intensity people describe is largely about the work.