My GPA by application time will be a 3.5 and with first semester grades will be a 3.6. I am an URM (African American) and I have extenuating circumstances for my bad grades freshman and sophomore year (parents used drugs, we couldn’t really sustain ourselves). I have pretty good extracurriculars and my junior year I had around a 3.9 and this year I have a 4.0 bar an A- in econ. Do you guys think it’s even worth it for me to apply ED1 to the Cornell Hotel Administration school or to save my ED for somewhere else?
First off, congratulations for turning things around after going through a tough time with your family. It’s not easy to recover from that kind of trauma. In order to answer your question, I’d need to know more about your academic background - have you taken rigorous courses (AP’s - and how you did on the exams) how are your SAT scores etc. Just based on your gpa I probably wouldn’t spend my ED spot on Cornell - it’s a high reach for every student and I don’t think you’d be admitted. You are probably better off finding a reach school that isn’t quite so insanely competitive.
11 APs counting senior year and probably 1400 on the SAT (probably would go optional).
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. Thanks for being kind of a third party I needed to get a reality check of some sort. With that being said, do you think I have any kind of chance at an ED to UVA? That’s my second highest reach school and I’m in state.
I don’t want to give you false hope, but . . . if your extracurriculars and interests and coursework and recommendations all show that you are extremely interested and committed to the hospitality field, then you have a shot. Most applicants will have better stats, true, but as long as your entire application screams alignment with SHA, they might be willing to see past some weaknesses.
Otoh, if you are just looking at their much higher acceptance rate simply as a way to get into Cornell, and do not have a visible and obvious compelling interest in the field, then definitely do not bother, you’d simply be throwing away your ED shot. The acceptance rate is higher because the pool of applicants is self-selecting, and the yield is very high, around 80%. They see people acceptance-rate-shopping from a mile away and ding them even if they have great stats.
Virginia’s going to be a reach; how do you feel about W&M?
I don’t know a lot about how selective UVA is for in-state or if ED gives you a boost. Is UVA affordable for you? Do you have a college budget and will you qualify for financial aid? That’s a major consideration with ED since it precludes you from being able to compare aid/merit packages.
Ok got it, I probably won’t ED to Cornell then. Yeah, I’m applying to W&M as well and that’s where I’m hoping to realistically go to, I’m applying ED2 to there I’m pretty sure. Thanks for the guidance
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If you are interested in Hospitality Management and are In-State Virginia you might consider Virginia Tech’s HTM Program in the Pamplin School of Business.
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