<p>I'm looking for some reassurance following a bad freshman year in high school, and a mediocre first half of sophomore year with major improvement on its way, yet limiting me to a max of a 3.6 gpa, 3.7 if I get perfect scores in all of my classes from now on, which isn't going to happen despite my hard work :(.</p>
<p>A girl from my school got into Cornell with a 3.1 GPA and a 1430 / 1020 SAT. She was a URM though, but even still, that’s pretty insane. Not sure of which school in Cornell though.</p>
<p>what is URM?</p>
<p>^Under-Represented Minority, referring to a demographic that is deliberately sought after by selection committees to boost campus diversity. URMs are given a competitive advantage in the admissions process at many colleges and universities, though the practice has stirred up tremendous controversy, both legally and amongst the general public.</p>
<p>Well someone gitta give em a chance to get good education.</p>
<p>I know an alumni whose daughter was recently rejected from Cornell and had to settle for Northwestern. One week later, a current Cornell student called the mom asking for a donation. The mom conceded that her daughter had just gotten rejected, so she wasn’t feeling up to it. The current Cornell student laughed: her top choice was Northwestern, but she had to settle for Cornell.</p>
<p>Funny how these two ended up having to go to the other’s dream school.</p>
<p>Man, I wish I got to “settle” for Cornell or Northwestern.</p>
<p>Ok thanks all for responding.</p>
<p>Sent from my SCH-I405 using CC</p>
<p>I honestly didn’t have the best of everything when I applied to Cornell. I wasn’t the president of the debate team or anything, and I had the resume of what some people here deem as “no-chance” or atrocious. </p>
<p>I had a 3.7 GPA, with a 1700/2400 on my SAT’s.</p>
<p>I am rank 6 in my school, but this is out of 101 students.</p>
<p>I am a Hispanic male of a Puerto Rican/Dominican background. </p>
<p>My SAT 2’s were not great either. I got a 660 on US History and bombed English with a 550. Mind you, I applied to the Hotel School which REQUIRES a math SAT, but I still was able to get accepted.</p>
<p>My essays weren’t stellar either. I wrote one essay on how my mothers stroke impacted my family and I because she still half-paralyzed to this day and I have to take a lot of responsibility for myself, ect. The reason I say it wasn’t stellar because although it is a good story, I didn’t get it fully checked by a professional writer. I had to cut down a 1300 word essay to 500 words by myself without anyone checking it.</p>
<p>My second essay was about my fit for the hotel school and no one even helped me with it. All I did was research Cornell, the goals of the school, and incorporate it into my essay along with what made me fit for the school. I didn’t even check for grammar errors because I had a deadline coming within an hour.</p>
<p>So it’s safe to say I had weak essays.</p>
<p>I took one AP exam (US History with a 4) and my senior year am currently taking AP Bio, AP English, and AP Government and Politics. My school opened in 2008 so these are the only AP’s we offer (colleges like it when students show they challenge themselves academically and used all the available resources the best they could). </p>
<p>My extracurricular activities were centered around the performing arts.</p>
<p>I have done the following:</p>
<p>Acting (4 years consistently) - Have always been lead/supporting role</p>
<p>Men’s Ensemble - Performing Music Group</p>
<p>Cuidate - Peer educating group</p>
<p>School Shakespeare Fair - Fair we do once a year on Shakespeare’s birthday that includes reenactment of scenes, use of films, raps, music videos, ect. I did a lot of scene work personally and played the lead in usually 2-4 different activities. </p>
<p>Possibility Project - Teen activist group that works every Saturday for about 8 hours that has spent considerable time preparing for a off-broadway show called “Home-Free” that is intended to make a difference in the lives of others</p>
<p>History Fair - Some research project on Voltaire that was presented to the students and the teachers were the “judges”</p>
<p>Basketball (Power Foward) - 1 year</p>
<p>Soccer (Goalie) - 1 year </p>
<p>“Real Talk” Group - Just a twice a week thing I did in my freshman year where we talked about community issues, ect. </p>
<p>iMentor - Program that matches a “Mentee” (me) with a mentor who generally gives advice on college, highschool, work, ect. We send e-mails every week and meet at a once-a-month event with our mentors. </p>
<p>Those were my top ten activities I listed when applying. I didn’t do anything special like save starving children from Africa or join a law firm as a student intern. I wasn’t president of anything either (even though at my school we don’t have any president of anything really).</p>
<p>Also, the only work experience I had was working at two pizzerias. The first one I only worked for a month and the second one I actually helped advertise. It was under a new owner and really needed exposure so I just advertised at school. I worked with the owner on suggestions for improving the menu’s, trying new recipes, handing out flyers, bringing in customers, ect. That was the only real work experience I had.</p>
<p>For the interview for the Hotel School I did really well because my family is technically rooted in the industry. My grandma has worked at hotels as a maid for decades and my uncle did go to college for hotel management in Dominican Republic and works in the marketing division. He has taught me everything I know about the industry and it really helped during the interview. (Interviewers actually work in the industry and can smell BS easily.) I also did look up some interview questions online as well to see what type of questions I should be expecting.</p>
<p>I could have done better in high-school and had a stronger GPA, probably had been rank one or two if I was more focused on my school work (I spent a lot of time getting distracted with my two and a half years of now girlfriend). I also passed up opportunities to make my resume stronger. For example I dropped out the NYU Step Academy and passed up the opportunity to spend the summer studying at Syracuse University.</p>
<p>Some might say the Hotel School is easy to get into, or me being a minority is what got in me. I believe it was a combination of a lot of factors. Personally, you shouldn’t really stress out too much about petty nuances Cornell probably doesn’t pay attention to when selecting applicants. If you can demonstrate you used your opportunities to the best of your ability, write good essays that reflect you know what program/school you are applying to and are fit for it and maintain a respectable average/SAT score then you should be fine. It is even more important to show you pushed the extra mile.</p>
<p>Don’t be afraid to take any risks either. When I wrote my essay for Brandeis I didn’t have my essay checked but they accepted me. I took a risk when writing the essay about what if you were given a package on your front door and what you would do with it. I wrote about a lottery ticket that would get my publicity and swerved the essay readers about my true project – the worlds largest burrito. </p>
<p>I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t have accepted me if it weren’t for that essay. </p>
<p>I know I’m going on and on, but I have been a lurker on this website for months and it upsets me to see some of the posts I see. “Omg are my stats good enough for HPYS.” or “Omg is this ivy league better than this one.” It’s all non-sense really. I didn’t go on a website touting my grades, scores, EC’s for advice. When I applied I followed my heart and just went through with everything. I worked with my guidance counselor closely and she is one of the reasons I got into Cornell. I made sure to meet deadlines and she even called the school and spent weeks trying to get in touch with the admissions director at the Hotel School just to put in a good word for me. The director said it was so rare for a public school teacher to call him because he has private school teachers calling him all the time. I’m not trying to discourage private high-school applicants or anything, but if you really try to utilize all your resources you can never go wrong.</p>
<p>Just believe in yourself and make sure you do everything for the right reasons. Don’t apply to ivies just for the prestige. Earlier this year I wanted to apply to uPenn, Yale, Princeton, Columbia just to get into the ivies. I ended up only applying to Cornell as my only Ivy. Why? Because it was the only Ivy (besides uPenn’s Wharton) that has a concentrated major I have interest in rather than a Liberal Arts Core. I thought Columbia was my dream school before I went on a tour there and realized they had no business major. </p>
<p>You should really pick schools that are fit for you rather than just apply for the hell of it. Why do you think HYPS have such low acceptance rates? Because so many people just apply “for the hell of it” and most aren’t even a real fit for the institutions. Of course they’re very fine schools, but they aren’t the greatest in everything. If you were looking into engineering for example, it would be much better to get into Cornell’s more respected engineering school than that of Harvard. Name isn’t everything.</p>
<p>Anyway, I probably went on a million different tangents and didn’t focus on what the OP was asking. Maybe I even contradicted my point, who knows. Regardless, I think what I am trying to say to everyone is to not stress yourself out. Choose schools that are the best for you. If you believe they are the Ivy’s and still get rejected, there are still fantastic schools that rival that of the Ivy’s. If you don’t see it that way and still get rejected, then just go to college for a year and then transfer to an Ivy. Getting into one is a blessing, but not a requirement to be successful.</p>
<p>Simplyatease, thanks for the thoughtful response.</p>
<p>I was just given a GT with a 3.9 weighted GPA and 1750SAT and I’m white 
Very shocked but excited!</p>
<p>Congrats! And thanks for the thought full responses, especially Simplyatease. And I agree with you about people touting their stats on here. It’s annoying. My school, a very good public school, doesn’t even offer the amount of AP courses kids on here claim to take in 2 years. The people on here who act arrogant are just…well, arrogant.</p>
<p>I had a 3.5 in high school (given, my school was nationally ranked) and a 2200+ SAT. I was not exactly accepted but was offered a transfer option for the next year.</p>
<p>I have sort of the opposite haha:
I was rejected with a 3.99 GPA and perfect ACT score.</p>
<p>That said, I’m an Asian-american engineer (ouch) who wrote pretty boring essays.
In the end, you can’t be mad about stuff like this! Congratulations to all those that were accepted.</p>
<p>What’s a GR?</p>
<p>I got into ILR with an early/likely letter and I’m a Hunter R. Rawlings III Cornell Presidential Research Scholar…with a C in calculus in my first semester senior year. (I am really and truly not a math person. But ILR also is not math heavy, so it makes sense).</p>
<p>My son had a 3.6 GPA but took really challenging courses. His freshman year in High School was not great, sophomore was average, then had a nice upward trend in junior and senior year-- but not straight As. His recs were good- he often went to class early to meet with teachers to either get help or deepen his understanding of a topic. I think that genuine intellectual curiosity helped him in his recs. He had some unusual ECs but no leadership, just lots of engagement in a few things that really interested him. He also was a great fit for Cornell and that came thru in his essay. His essay was funny and really showed who he was. The director of admissions sent him an email about how his essay made her laugh out loud and that she was looking forward to presenting him to the committee. He is not normally a comedian, but he had a good line that tied to his interest and the school.</p>
<p>So, a good essay, and showing how/ why Cornell is a good fit can help. </p>
<p>Admissions depends on a lot of things-- the school, your fit, what they need in the freshman class, etc. I would be that his stats put him in the bottom 20% of accepted students but he is doing really well there in engineering which is a really tough major at Cornell.</p>
<p>Okay, thanks!</p>
<p>Sent from my SCH-I405 using CC</p>