How does admissions difficulty at Carnegie Mellon compare to Tufts for undergraduate applicants?

The biggest practical difference is that Carnegie Mellon’s selectivity varies a lot by school and major, while Tufts is highly selective in a more uniform way across the university. For undergraduate applicants overall, both are very hard to get into, but Carnegie Mellon is often perceived as tougher for applicants targeting its most sought-after programs, especially computer science, engineering, and some arts fields. Tufts is still extremely competitive, just with less of that major-by-major swing in difficulty.

If you are comparing them at the broad university level, they are in a similar tier of admissions difficulty. In real application strategy terms, though, Carnegie Mellon can become the steeper climb if you are applying to one of its especially high-demand colleges, because admission is tied more directly to the specific school or program. Tufts tends to read applicants more as fits for the university as a whole, even though certain academic interests can still be more popular than others.

That means the answer depends a lot on what you plan to study. A student applying to Carnegie Mellon for computer science is usually facing a harder admissions landscape than a student applying to Tufts for a less capacity-constrained major. On the other hand, for some non-CMU specialty programs, the two may feel much closer in difficulty.

So the clearest bottom line is: neither is meaningfully “easy,” and both should be treated as reaches for most applicants, but Carnegie Mellon is more likely to be harder in the specific programs that drive its reputation for selectivity. Tufts is also very selective, just a bit less defined by ultra-competitive major-based admissions.