@IndoorCloud25 thank you for the feedback!
I’m a little worried because I have good SAT scores (770 CR, 770 Math, 790 Writing), good extra curriculars, and I’m valedictorian right now but my school is very small (55 students per graduating class) and not rigorous at all, like for example we do not offer any AP classes.
hey could someone chance me
, i am a Baruch college freshman at the Macaulay Honors College. My school is basically a commuter school. I want to go to a better family-oriented school.So I’m trying to transfer and the only school on my list so far is Cornell. Where else should I apply to??? PLEASE HELP!! Also Please Chance me!
Here are my stats:
High School GPA weighted: 96.58 ( really bad senior year grades, like 10 points lower than my gpa)
SAT: 2130 Math and Reading: 1400
SAT 2: Math2 770, Math1 710, Physics 730
ACT: N/A
Got rejected once, but by a different school.
College GPA: idk yet, but hopefully close to a 4.0)
Courses
Fall
Bio 1 with lab
English Composition
Calculus 1
The Arts in NYC- Liberal Arts
Anthropology
Winter
Psychology
Spring-
Chem 1
Bio 2
English Composition
The Arts in NYC- Liberal Arts
Recommendations- great, I volunteered for this tutoring center for the past 5 years, 20 hours a week. Bio teacher, and anthropology teacher, although she doesn’t have a phd. IDK if that affects anything
Essays: very risky. I’m afraid I am being too creative
E.C.- Possibly work for kaplan, and continue tutoring at my center. But not much
Can anyone rank the importance of the supplemental essay as compared to GPA/Test Scores/Common App Essay?
@bloodythunder I would say it’s up there. Of course, GPA and course rigor are usually the pillars in your application, but you will undoubtedly be discarded if no particular interest is put into your supplemental essay. From what I’ve gathered, Cornell relies greatly on the “fit” factor. That essay is there to show precisely that… How you would contribute to that specific college and are not applying just because of the Ivy League diploma.
As for ranking them in order of importance, boy that’s hard to do… GPA and the essay are the bases though, so go with that.
@bloodythunder Just a general piece of advice for applying to Cornell and other schools: consider each part of the application as important as the other, and put as much effort to perfect each part as possible.
This is not quite true. Part of adcoms job is to visit and know as many high schools as possible. Schools do get “punished” if their students do not matriculate or back out of EDs. My kid was the first one to be admitted from her high school in 5 years because for one year Cornell admitted 5+ students and no one matriculated.
If your school does not have much of history (good or bad) with Cornell, I would suggest for your GC to call Cornell admission to let them know your interest and inform them of your school’s profile.
@oldfort I partially agree and disagree. Unless you’ve been with Cornell’s admissions office for the 5 years between your kid’s admission and the last admission, it’s hard to say that Cornell was “punishing” the school for not having kids matriculate. There are so many confounding variables that go into that factor. You don’t know the quality of applicants the school was pumping into Cornell during that time and things like financial aid that steered some accepted students away. On top of that, high schools have virtually no say in where a student decides to go, that’s the student and family’s decision. A piece of anecdotal evidence that contrasts your example is that my high school got students into Cornell every year I was there and years before; all but one of the tens of admits decided not to attend. However, my graduating class had 6 people admitted, which was the highest number accepted and highest acceptance rate in school history. Of course anecdotal evidence is good to use purely as examples, but they certainly do not represent what actually happens.
The regional adcom’s primary job is to better understand the schools in his or her represented area in terms of grading, curriculum, extracurricular activities offered, student demographics (racial make up, average family income, etc.), standardized testing, etc. The part that I do agree is that they will consider past admits as more of a basis of the kind of student they look for from a particular school in addition to the information they already have on a particular school, but each student is unique and can’t be compared to a standard template. Also, I agree that a good relationship between HS and the university can help and a poor one could be a hinderance, but that doesn’t hinge on how many students from the HS matriculate because as I said earlier the decision on where a student goes is not made by the HS.
In all, this is a tougher topic to talk about because neither one of us can say definitively that admissions officers will punish a HS for low matriculation numbers as I’m assuming you nor I have been admissions officers for Cornell.
No one had ever been admitted from our high school and when my daughter’s GC called on her behalf last year when she was applying ED, admissions said they don’t take calls from GCs. Hmm. Oh well, she was admitted anyway!
My younger daughter went to an American international school where they consistently had students admitted to HYPS every year, but those same students were not admitted to Cornell. My older daughter went to a top private school in the NE where the GCs often had conference calls with top tier college adcoms. My older daughter’s GC knew where she was admitted and rejected before the results came out. The GC shared adcoms’ feedback with me. It’s not a folklore adcoms have their favorite schools - just look at how many students Cornell admits from Stuveysant.
Sorry for my basic question,…but I wanted to ask can we change schools in Cornell?,…Let’s suppose I apply to the College of Engineering and I get admitted. But into my freshman year, I realize that engineering is not the thing for me and I’d be better at Economics. So can I then switch to the College of Arts and Sciences?,…Another question,…Cornell is best known for its engineering. Can I thus infer that if I apply to the College of Arts and Sciences, my chances of acceptance are higher?
@Barcelona17 Yes, you can do an internal transfer if you find that your college doesn’t have what you want, but doing an internal transfer is quiet the process, and depending on how far along you decide to transfer, you may not graduate in time or will have to stay or summer and winter sessions to catch up; however, this rarely happens. Internal transfers require a certain GPA, but switching into CAS probably has a lower minimum GPA since CAS is the largest college and is where many tend to transfer into. Transferring between other schools that aren’t CAS can be much more difficult especially AEM since some programs are slightly more selective.
With regards to applying to CAS and going into CoE, don’t do it. That’s something called backdoor admissions where you apply to the part of the university that takes the most people (higher acceptance rate) and immediately switch into a different school within the university that may be more difficult to get into. Admissions officers will be able to tell that you’re taking advantage of this and will reject you flat out as much as you may think you got away with it. I’d suggest applying to the college that suits your interests right now, and if you get in, do the first semester as if you will finish all four years in that college. If you find that within the first semester you don’t like what you’re learning, then commence with the internal transfer to where you’d like to be.
Adcoms are very good at what they do, but I do not believe they could tell if someone is trying to use “backdoor admission,” especially if one has a well crafted essay. As far as having the right ECs or course work, it is hard for me to believe a high student would have different ECs or curriculum whether he/she is applying to ILR vs CAS (government), CS in CoE vs CAS, Biology in CAL vs CAS.
I have known students transfer from Hotel to CAS and vice versa. I know a student who started in CAL to save some money (NY resident) and then transferred into CoE. Most 18 year olds change their mind about what they want to major in and what they want to do for career. The great thing about Cornell is it is not as hard to transfer from one school to another, and students are allowed to take courses in different schools. Unlike Columbia, to transfer from CAS to engineering is treated as external transfer.
Most people are not aware of this…One could get just as good of business management education from the Hotel school as AEM, and it is easier to get into relative to AEM. Graduates of Hotel school have the highest employment rate and strongest alumni network. Of course to get into Hotel school, it is important to have hospitality experience, so it’s important to have the right experience before senior year.
Admission is very competitive at top tier schools, and sometimes it can seem random. If you can find any hook, may it be backdoor, legacy, full pay, URM, by all means use them. As pointed out by IndoorCloud25, if not done properly, it could also back fire.
When students write about “Why Cornell” or “Why School X,” try to write about what you could contribute, not what the school could do for you. Cornell (Engineering) already knows what they could do for its students, they are more interested in what you could bring to the community. Same essay, but from a different prospective.
Although it may seem like backdoor admission may be easy to get away with, at Cornell it really isn’t. The reason being is that all 7 undergrad colleges are highly specialized save CAS and look for a very specific student. It’s true that you could craft an eloquent essay to answer each undergrad college’s specific prompt, but it will likely lack passion and other nontechnical values that make an admissions essay standout if it were written for the college you really want to be a part of. Furthermore, your course work and extracurriculars are a good indication of where you’ll fit best within Cornell, and fitting in is what matters most hence the 7 independently run admissions offices.
When I applied last year, I considered applying to CALS for the engineering majors, but found that writing the supplement for CALS to be difficult no matter how well I wrote it because I lacked the passions that the CALS supplement was looking for. I found it much easier applying to the more rigorous CoE because my essay had much more passion and nontechnical traits that made it strong.
Certainly adcoms are great at their jobs, and will weed out a large majority of students using backdoor tactics, but there may be the occasional applicant that gets by though I haven’t met anyone that said they got in by that.
Finally, internal transferring seems easy for anyone who hasn’t undergone the rigor at Cornell. During freshman year, most large intro courses are curved to a B/B- except the FWS. Approximately 75% of those students will be at or below the mean. Internal transfers where CAS isn’t the final destination may be really tough due to GPA and EC expectations as well as caps on the major (As of now AEM and BME are stringent with caps). Because of this, the advertised minimum GPA for internal transfer consideration is generally higher that the 2.5-2.7 most colleges advertise. It can be anywhere from a 3.3 to 3.7 for near guarantee. Anyone who has gone through the course work knows that managing to get those kinds of grades can be extremely difficult hence Cornell’s reputation as the hardest to graduate from, and being disinterested in your required courses only exacerbates the problem. On top of that, most internal transfers require an additional essay and interview on top of those you submitted for your admission to Cornell.
I’d say avoid all the extra work and just get it over with in one shot by applying to where you really want to be now.
Median grade at Cornell is between 3.3-3.4, grades are curved to B+.
http://www.gradeinflation.com/cornell.html
http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/grade_inflation_at_cornell/
Cornell used to post median grades for every course. I think they stopped posting it around 2010.
That takes into account upper level classes, most of which curve much higher than intro level classes. I know that CHEM 2090 (Intro Gen Chem for Engineers) curves to a B (3.0) and MATH 1910 (Calc II for Engineers) curves to a B-(2.7). The school you’re enrolled in also matters as engineering is well known for having fewer classes that curve to A- or higher. Additionally, by the time you reach 3000-4000 level classes that have generous curves, changing majors and transferring between colleges can be a setback if there are few to no overlaps. In the case of the original poster’s question, engineering classes don’t overlap with econ classes.
Re: transferring within the university…A&S does not have the highest # of transfers, nor would I think it would be the easiest transfer, but those on campus presently will have more insight. Engineering and AA&P are difficult transfers b/c of the mandatory course sequences.
Transfer enrollment data from four years ago:
A&S–66
Eng --23
Hotel–56
AA&P–11
Ag–309
Hum Ec–44
ILR–123
Dyson has a fair number of transfers. I cannot locate the fact page that used to list the # of freshmen enrollees, the total school enrollment, and # of internal and external transfers. IIRC, freshman enrollment was just under 100 and transfer enrollment was very close with a roughly 50-50 split between internal and external transfers.
There’s a data set online from 2011 with very similar numbers. I assume that’s where you got the stats from. The data table specifically states that the data is for external transfer admissions. I don’t believe Cornell publishes data on internal transfers as I can’t find any place that has something remotely near it. In general, internal transfers into CAS and maybe CALS are much easier to do because CAS and CALS cover a broad range of fields and don’t specialize heavily like the other undergrad colleges. They also happen to be the two largest colleges, which means they likely have the resources to take in more students. On top of that, the high transfer enrollment numbers in CALS and ILR can probably be attributed to the fact that they’re contract colleges and not endowed, meaning they’re the preferred destination for many in-state transfers where tuition would be lower.
Question for applying to CALS: Would you recommend sending in your SAT subject test scores even if they’re not the best scores (say mid to high 600s)? Are there any guideline scores that you guys think would be good to not send in? I know the college doesn’t require subject tests but it could help your application if you do send them in. I’m contemplating on sending my future December scores because I’m really not that prepared in 2/3 tests and I bit off more than I can chew when I signed up for them…
@Ngzk07
I’m in the same boat as you essentially. I’m also taking the subject tests month(originally two, but I’ll be taking another one on the day, because I might just be a little twisted.) From what I recollect about the subject tests, a good score benefits you, but a below average score is just desconsidered altogether. Don’t quote me on it but I don’t see how an optional test can work against you, especially since the college doesn’t require them in the first place.
Do them, send them. It sucks having money wasted, might as well just put it some use. By the way, which tests are you taking?
I’m doing the Biology-E, MathII, and Litorture.(Which is the third wheel of the group. I feel I can stand ground, but I’m not too hopeful for that one.)
I’ve been preparing for the MathII for months now, and now I’m dedicating this month entirely to Biology E. I don’t have too much time to spare to add in another content-heavy subject like World history or Physics.
@Ngzk07 send the scores and try the exams again. I did that for the Chemistry SAT II since my first score was not as hot as my second score.