What do you think of CMU CEE?

[Voidaaa]

Rarely anybody was rejected by CMU's CEE Master program, but CMU ranks among the TOP 10 in Civil Engineering! Why?

[whitbee]

What are you basing that off of? If it's the results here on grad cafe, that's just a small sample, and people are more likely to post their acceptances than their rejections.  I haven't looked at CMU's results, but some schools don't reject applicants until late in the season, when they're sure they can't offer them a spot. 

But most of all... selectivity and the quality of a program aren't perfectly related, and one school that ranks above another doesn't automatically have lower admission rates. I wouldn't judge a school by admissions!

[Voidaaa]

1 hour ago, whitbee said:

What are you basing that off of? If it's the results here on grad cafe, that's just a small sample, and people are more likely to post their acceptances than their rejections.  I haven't looked at CMU's results, but some schools don't reject applicants until late in the season, when they're sure they can't offer them a spot. 

But most of all... selectivity and the quality of a program aren't perfectly related, and one school that ranks above another doesn't automatically have lower admission rates. I wouldn't judge a school by admissions!

Sorry, I'm not basing that off, but wondering why is that happening for years. My classmate, who is ignorant of mechanics and mathematics, got admitted with his extremely low GPA and GRE scores. Really confusing...

[DiscoTech]

On 3/14/2018 at 12:59 AM, Voidaaa said:

Sorry, I'm not basing that off, but wondering why is that happening for years. My classmate, who is ignorant of mechanics and mathematics, got admitted with his extremely low GPA and GRE scores. Really confusing...

It really isn't.

(1) US News specialty rankings are only a little more accurate than a monkey throwing feces at a dartboard. CMU's civil engineering department does a paltry $3M worth of research each year. Anyone who knows what they are doing doesn't apply here (link). For comparison, Purdue and UIUC do ~$20M in research per year. And schools like UCSD are at around $11M per year. US News specialty rankings are nothing more than a brand name familiarity contest. Worse they are snapshots of the past since it takes a while for reputations to catch up with actual program decline.

(2) CMU might also be operating their CEE program as a cash cow. Did your classmate get funding? I am guessing not. A lot of top engineering schools have moved to cash in on their brand names by offering up glorified participation trophies (essentially a 5th year of undergrad with lax grading) for $50,000 since a lot of foreign students (and a depressing number of domestic students) are willing to light money on fire to get a fancy name on their diploma. In my field, masters programs at USC, CMU, Columbia, and Penn are nothing more than revenue generators.

(3) You friend could have had great recommendation letters and maybe your sense "extremely low GPA and GRE scores" is a little skewed. 3.5s are good enough to get into a lot of top programs.

(4) Why do you care where someone else goes to school?

 

 

[Voidaaa]

17 hours ago, DiscoTech said:

It really isn't.

(1) US News specialty rankings are only a little more accurate than a monkey throwing feces at a dartboard. CMU's civil engineering department does a paltry $3M worth of research each year. Anyone who knows what they are doing doesn't apply here (link). For comparison, Purdue and UIUC do ~$20M in research per year. And schools like UCSD are at around $11M per year. US News specialty rankings are nothing more than a brand name familiarity contest. Worse they are snapshots of the past since it takes a while for reputations to catch up with actual program decline.

(2) CMU might also be operating their CEE program as a cash cow. Did your classmate get funding? I am guessing not. A lot of top engineering schools have moved to cash in on their brand names by offering up glorified participation trophies (essentially a 5th year of undergrad with lax grading) for $50,000 since a lot of foreign students (and a depressing number of domestic students) are willing to light money on fire to get a fancy name on their diploma. In my field, masters programs at USC, CMU, Columbia, and Penn are nothing more than revenue generators.

(3) You friend could have had great recommendation letters and maybe your sense "extremely low GPA and GRE scores" is a little skewed. 3.5s are good enough to get into a lot of top programs.

(4) Why do you care where someone else goes to school?

 

 

Gee, I'm an international student, sadly, from China. I have a friend enrolled in CMU last year.

(1) I'm told that this CEE program is totally course based and offers few opportunities to join the research group.

(2) Some of his peers are from low ranking Chinese universities (without 985 & 211(Chinese Ivy) titles). He doubted if CMU actually reviewed their application.

(3) My classmate? GPA 3.2/4.0. Without great recommendation letters. Can believe it!

This program must be a cash cow. That's why I care who will be my peers.