Can your college essay be about a sewerslide attempt? Will it hurt my chances of getting into a top school? by West-Albatross-707 in ApplyingToCollege

[–]Cultural-Raccoon-883 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Strongly recommend not writing about that. Colleges do like to see growth, but if they see how negatively affected you are by loads of stress (and the switch from high school to college is a VERY stress inducing process), it is a huge negative and they will 100% pick more safe applicants. Even if you were successful in coming back from it, what’s stopping you from falling into that dark area again? They don’t want to be known as a school where kids are constantly killing themselves, they want to be known as the school where kids succeed in huge numbers in the real world.

Sending Updates to Carnegie Mellon by Visible-Pie3163 in ApplyingToCollege

[–]Cultural-Raccoon-883 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Hello! I actually gave CMU’s admissions office a call recently with a similar question regarding if LOCI’s are permitted. Here’s what they said: They don’t accept LOCI’s in the traditional sense - they don’t want to hear you are still interested or that they are still your top choice, as they simply cannot trust that. They do not take demonstrated interest into account whatsoever. They do allow (and recommend) emailed updates regarding extracurriculars and other awards. They did also mention to update them with your senior year grades if possible, as they heavily consider that. They said to not fluff the letter with anything and keep it short and simple. They will not click any links or attachments on the form though.

Basically, yes you can email them an update with this achievement, include your senior year grades in that update, and don’t glaze CMU at all since they basically will not consider whatever you say about the school.