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Carnegie Mellon University Data & Information Overview

456 awards Ranking Badges
Great Price Value for Your Money
14% Acceptance Rate
This overview covers the essential stats on Carnegie Mellon University, including its rankings, majors, diversity, and more.
Want to know more about a specific stat? Just click on its tile, and you’ll go to a page that goes more in-depth on that subject. You can also use the links below to go directly to any section on this page.

How Well Is Carnegie Mellon University Ranked?

#9 Best Colleges in Nation
#2 Best Colleges in PA
Information Technology Highest Ranked Major
Quality Badge

2024 Rankings

College Factual analyzes over 2,000 colleges and universities in its annual rankings and ranks them in a variety of ways, including most diverse, best overall quality, best for non-traditional students, and much more.

Carnegie Mellon University was awarded 456 badges in the 2024 rankings. The highest ranked major at the school is information technology.

Explore Best Ranked Schools for You

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Overall Quality

Carnegie Mellon is ranked #9 out of 2,217 schools in the nation for overall quality on College Factual's 2024 Best Colleges list. This puts it in the top 1% of all schools in the nation!

Carnegie Mellon also holds the #2 spot on the Best Colleges in Pennsylvania ranking.

See all of the rankings for Carnegie Mellon University.

Is It Hard to Get Into Carnegie Mellon?

14% Acceptance Rate
52% Of Accepted Are Women
48% Submit SAT Scores

Acceptance Rate

Even if you have the best grades and high test scores, that may not be enough to get into Carnegie Mellon since the school has one of the most selective in the country. Its acceptance rate is a mere 14%, so there's no shame if you don't get in. Be sure to apply to other schools just in case.

Average Test Scores

About 48% of students accepted to Carnegie Mellon submitted their SAT scores. When looking at the 25th through the 75th percentile, SAT Evidence-Based Reading and Writing scores ranged between 710 and 760. Math scores were between 770 and 800.

SAT Reading and Writing Scores for Carnegie Mellon University  ( 710 to 760 )
200
800

SAT Math Scores for Carnegie Mellon University  ( 770 to 800 )
200
800
Carnegie Mellon received ACT scores from 22% of accepted students. When looking at the 25th through the 75th percentile, ACT Composite scores ranged between 33 and 35.

ACT Composite Scores for Carnegie Mellon University  ( 33 to 35 )
1
36

Learn more about Carnegie Mellon University admissions.

Carnegie Mellon University Faculty

5 to 1 Student to Faculty
92% Full Time Teachers

Student to Faculty Ratio

The student to faculty ratio at Carnegie Mellon is an impressive 5 to 1. That's quite good when you compare it to the national average of 15 to 1. This is a good sign that students at the school will have more opportunities for one-on-one interactions with their professors.

Percent of Full-Time Faculty

Another measure that is often used to estimate how much access students will have to their professors is how many faculty members are full-time. The idea here is that part-time faculty tend to spend less time on campus, so they may not be as available to students as full-timers.

The full-time faculty percentage at Carnegie Mellon University is 92%. This is higher than the national average of 47%.

Full-Time Faculty Percent  92 out of 100
0
100

Retention and Graduation Rates at Carnegie Mellon University

97% Freshmen Retention
76% On-Time Graduation Rate

Freshmen Retention Rate

The freshmen retention rate of 97% tells us that most first-year, full-time students like Carnegie Mellon University enough to come back for another year. This is a fair bit higher than the national average of 68%. That's certainly something to check off in the good column about the school.

Freshmen Retention Rate  97 out of 100
0
100

Graduation Rate

The on-time graduation rate for someone pursuing a bachelor's degree is typically four years. This rate at Carnegie Mellon for first-time, full-time students is 76%, which is better than the national average of 33.3%.

On-Time Graduation Rate  76 out of 100
0
100

Find out more about the retention and graduation rates at Carnegie Mellon University.

Carnegie Mellon University Undergraduate Student Diversity

6,341 Full-Time Undergraduates
52.2% Racial-Ethnic Minorities*
49.9% Percent Women

During the 2017-2018 academic year, there were 6,622 undergraduates at Carnegie Mellon with 6,341 being full-time and 281 being part-time.

How Much Does Carnegie Mellon University Cost?

$36,775 Net Price
37% Take Out Loans
$28,592 Total Student Loans
The overall average net price of Carnegie Mellon is $36,775. The affordability of the school largely depends on your financial need since net price varies by income group. See the table below for the net price for different income groups.

Net Price by Income Group for Carnegie Mellon

$0-30 K $30K-48K $48-75 $75-110K $110K +
$16,456 $13,608 $21,526 $31,094 $52,564

The net price is calculated by adding tuition, room, board and other costs and subtracting financial aid.Note that the net price is typically less than the published for a school. For more information on the sticker price of Carnegie Mellon, see our tuition and fees and room and board pages.

Student Loan Debt

It's not uncommon for college students to take out loans to pay for school. In fact, almost 66% of students nationwide depend at least partially on loans. At Carnegie Mellon, approximately 37% of students took out student loans averaging $7,148 a year. That adds up to $28,592 over four years for those students.

The student loan default rate at Carnegie Mellon is 0.7%. This is significantly lower than the national default rate of 10.1%, which is a good sign that you'll be able to pay back your student loans.

Get more details about paying for Carnegie Mellon University.

How Much Money Do Carnegie Mellon Graduates Make?

$99,998 Avg Salary of Grads
High Earnings Boost
Yearly salaries vary depending on what you major in, but on average, bachelor's degree recipients from Carnegie Mellon make around $99,998 per year during the early years of their employment. That's great news for Carnegie Mellon students since it is 135% more than the average college graduate's salary of $42,485 per year.

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See which majors at Carnegie Mellon University make the most money.

Location of Carnegie Mellon University

Pennsylvania State
6,341 Full-Time Undergraduates
Large City Campus Setting
Located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Carnegie Mellon University is a private not-for-profit institution. The location of Carnegie Mellon is great for students who prefer living in an urban area.

Get more details about the location of Carnegie Mellon University.

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Contact details for Carnegie Mellon are given below.

Contact Details
Address: 5000 Forbes Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3890
Phone: 412-268-2000
Website: www.cmu.edu/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/carnegiemellonu
Twitter: http://twitter.com/carnegiemellon

Carnegie Mellon University Majors

106 Majors With Completions
1,989 Undergraduate Degrees
3,376 Graduate Degrees
During the most recent year for which we have data, students from 106 majors graduated from Carnegie Mellon University. Of these students, 1,989 received undergraduate degrees and 3,376 graduated with a master's or doctor's degree. The following table lists the most popular undergraduate majors along with the average salary graduates from those majors make.

Most Popular Majors Bachelor’s Degrees Average Salary of Graduates
Computer Science 247 $161,723
Statistics 171 $89,636
Electrical Engineering 164 $116,935
Business Administration & Management 141 $78,783
Mechanical Engineering 121 $68,038
Systems Theory 109 $82,123
Computer Information Systems 66 NA
Economics 63 $78,188
Biomedical Engineering 54 NA
Drama & Theater Arts 50 $26,994

Learn more about the majors offered at Carnegie Mellon University along with which ones have the highest average starting salaries.

Online Learning at Carnegie Mellon

31% Take At Least One Class Online
2% Take All Classes Online

Online learning is becoming popular at even the oldest colleges and universities in the United States. Not only are online classes great for returning adults with busy schedules, they are also frequented by a growing number of traditional students.

In 2020-2021, 4,666 students took at least one online class at Carnegie Mellon University. This is an increase from the 431 students who took online classes the previous year.

Year Took at Least One Online Class Took All Classes Online
2020-2021 4,666 241
2019-2020 431 15
2018-2019 833 24
2017-2018 1,324 27
2016-2017 1,311 37

Learn more about online learning at Carnegie Mellon University.

If you’re considering Carnegie Mellon University, here are some more schools you may be interested in knowing more about.

Curious on how these schools stack up against Carnegie Mellon? Pit them head to head with College Combat, our free interactive tool that lets you compare college on the features that matter most to you!

Notes and References

Footnotes

*The racial-ethnic minorities count is calculated by taking the total number of students and subtracting white students, international students, and students whose race/ethnicity was unknown. This number is then divided by the total number of students at the school to obtain the racial-ethnic minorities percentage.

References

More about our data sources and methodologies.

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