What are good interview tips for Carnegie Mellon and University of Pennsylvania admissions interviews?

For both Carnegie Mellon and Penn, the best approach is to sound thoughtful, specific, and genuinely curious, not polished in a scripted way. In both cases, a student usually does well by telling a few concrete stories rather than trying to cover everything on their resume.

For Penn, prepare to explain why you are drawn to its mix of strong academics and collaborative campus culture. If you mention a school or program, be precise: Wharton, Engineering, Nursing, and the College each have different cultures, and Penn tends to reward applicants who understand that. Good Penn interviews often sound like a real conversation about what excites you academically, what kind of community you contribute to, and how you use opportunities rather than just collect them.

For Carnegie Mellon, it helps to come across as someone who likes digging deeply into ideas and making things. That matters whether you are interested in computer science, engineering, design, drama, business, or humanities. CMU is especially known for students who are serious about their craft, so be ready to talk about a project, performance, research question, or problem you kept working on because you genuinely cared about it. The strongest answers usually show process: what you tried, what changed, what you learned.

To avoid sounding rehearsed, do not memorize full answers. Instead, prepare 4 or 5 anchor stories: one academic interest, one extracurricular commitment, one challenge, one example of collaboration, and one moment that changed your perspective. Practice saying each in slightly different ways out loud, so you can adapt naturally depending on the question.

Also prepare a few real questions for the interviewer. For Penn, ask about student culture, cross-school opportunities, or how students explore interests across disciplines. For Carnegie Mellon, ask about the intensity of coursework, collaboration within a department, or how students balance depth with broader campus life. Questions that show you understand each school’s character tend to leave a stronger impression than generic ones about prestige or admissions.

A calm, reflective tone usually plays better than trying to impress. Interviewers at both schools are often looking for self-awareness, curiosity, and fit, not a perfect performance.