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CMU has always been harsher and more unforgiving than MIT.

For the cohort entering 2006, MIT's 6-year graduation rate was 92% for men, 93% for women. CMU's was 85% for men and 90% for women. CMU's entering class of 2011 first-year attrition rate was 5%. MIT's was 3%. MIT's 4-year graduation rate is 85% versus 71% for CMU.

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We don't know that. For better or worse---and I personally would rate CMU's CS undergraute education as superior to MIT's now, but that's because EE and MIT's vision for EECS graduates does little for me---MIT can attract a significantly better pool. E.g. before applications got really crazy in the Great Recession, when 13,000 were applying, it thought 3,000 "could do the work" and chose from that subset.

And MIT doesn't do legacy admits; I get the impression CMU may.

Seems like a simplistic analysis. If the programs are of equal difficulty and MIT admits more a more qualified class, MIT will have a higher graduation rate.

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