CMU-CS
Resume
Submit your current resume in PDF format. Any other format will not be accepted. Outline your education, research experience, work experience, publications, scholarships awarded, prizes and honors received, society memberships, and extracurricular activities.
Statement of Purpose
Prepare a concise one or two page essay in PDF format that describes your primary areas of interest, your related experiences, and your objective in pursuing a graduate degree at Carnegie Mellon. Your essay should be specific in describing your interests and motivations. When describing your interests, you should explain why you think they are important areas of study and why you are particularly well-suited to pursue them. You should describe any relevant education, research, commercial, government, or teaching experience. If you are applying to more than one program, you may (but are not required to) submit a separate Statement of Purpose for each program. If you are submitting different statements, please upload as one file. Include your name and User ID on the essay.
Notes for specific programs:
- Human-Computer Interaction applicants: Indicate your intended area of emphasis in the first paragraph of your Statement of Purpose. If appropriate to your background, you may include a link to your portfolio. If you are unable to provide a link, you may mail a CD of your portfolio to Kelsee Hibner, Admissions Coordinator, please contact applyweb@cs.cmu.edu for instructions.
- Software Engineering applicants: Concisely summarize your background in software development, experience with particular phases of software development activity, and how your industrial experience prepares you for graduate-level academic work. Submit this information in the Supplemental Information section under Experience (Research, Industry).
- Computation, Organizations and Society applicants: Indicate your intended area in the first paragraph of your Statement of Purpose along with the name of a possible advisor. For those with industrial or government experience, please describe how this experience prepares you for graduate-level academic work. Submit this information in the Supplemental Information section under Experience (Research, Industry/Government). Applicants may also submit a short prior publication related to their research interests.
- Masters in Robotics System Development applicants: Please provide some background information on your academic/industrial career to date, and why/how that leads you to be interested in CMU's unique industry-oriented MRSD degree-program. In order to aid in our candidate evaluation it would be helpful for us to understand your career aspirations, how you see the mix of technical/management education in the MRSD-program assisting you in achieving these, and what you see yourself doing in 5 to 10 years after graduation.
- Masters in Computer Science applicants: Please discuss your purpose in pursuing a Masters degree in Computer Science. For example, you might explain how advanced study in Computer Science fits into your future career ambitions. There are no right answers, and you do not need to have worked out your future plans in detail. We just want to see that you have thought your purpose through. If your background is unusual, this is also the right place to explain it to us.
