Chance me for ED to Cornell

Colleges and Universities A-Z Cornell University
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Applying to a&s as an international female ED applicant ( looking forward to double major in Physics and Economics). Any feedback/comment would be appreciated. Thanks in advance!

Grades (indian education system):

Freshman: 84.8% (ICSE)

Sophomore: 96.6% (ICSE)

100/100 in Physics and Chemistry, 99 in Hindi, 98 in Biology, 97 in Yoga and English Literature 95 in Math, History/Civics, Geography

Junior: 84.8% (CBSE) 96 in Economics (class averages mentioned in the transcript. my scores in all subjects are wayy above the class average. my school has a very strict grading system. i got a scholar badge for these marks lmao)

Senior: 96.4% (predicted scores)

Test scores

my school offers no AP classes. however i took the exams myself- AP Physics C Mechanics- 4/5 AP Calculus BC- 5/5 AP Chemistry- 5/5 AP Calculus AB- 3/5 (2019)

IELTS- 8/9

SAT Physics- 740: SAT Math 2- 760

ACT (sucks way too much completely ruined my life) superscore: 31 (26,31,33,33 for R,M,E,S respectively)

ECs:

i won a competition in which i designed an experiment that was launched into space by SpaceX.

i participated twice in karate nationals, have state level and school level achievements as well.

i have a diploma degree in hindustani music and a 3rd level degree in yoga.

i am the president of my school’s Chemistry club.

i was awarded a 50mm refractor telescope for being amongst the top 200 students in india in the SHOT test conducted by SPACE India.

i started a project called Musarat and helped about 100 orphans and acknowledged the work of daily wage workers.

i presented a case study on need for research in the indian education system in front of government officials from the indian department of science and technology. i worked as the head of partnerships of project reSTEM of the Young Scientists Journal (1.5 million monthly views). the project aims to establish research hubs in schools around the globe.

led the swimming team of my house and won various laurels.

i’m a core member of my school’s mathematics society. organised several events.

i’m a national manager to india for the coronavirus community volunteering (UN recognised organisation). helped connect local organisations which need help to our headquarters in the UK.

i volunteered as a content writer for four months at this local organisation where i put down real life stories of women who have been harassed.

i participated in a 2 month program in Youth Action Hub, an initiative by UNCTAD, wrote extensively about the SDGs and was given an extension for 2 weeks for being amongst the top 6 writers.

Essays:

my common app essay is about how i come from one of the most backward states in my country and i was sent to a boarding school in the 9th grade. it talks about the stereotypes i had to fight, how i debunked them and grew and excelled at all the opportunities boarding school offered. and how after that i gave back to my state and uplifted women and a few other stuff w my newfound confidence

I explained my low act scores in the covid prompt- had to travel to another state in the middle of my mid-term exams and had subject tests, ielts everything at once and some family issues as well

also oops i applied for aid (estimated family contribution- 20k) :confused:

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@srparent15 @Mwfan1921 @Lil_Shortay @sushiritto @VirginiaBelle @momofboiler1 @Starlight25

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I honestly don’t know how things work for internationals, other than it’s really difficult, a ton apply and they are not need-blind. I have often see that if you’re an international and need financial aid your chances are slim, but this year who knows.

If you submitted your ACT that is a low score, so I don’t know if that will hurt you or not. I don’t know about A&S but COE no longer (even pre covid) considers subject tests. Also with regards to the ACT, I don’t think they superscore it when they do take it, although I guess based on self reporting on the common app, I guess that is how it comes through this year anyway.

CAS is the largest school at Cornell and presumably gets the most applications so competition is probably the stiffest. With some schools being test blind this year, I don’t know if that will hold true. Last year they only took about 9% of international applicants and the year before just under 10% so it’s really a crapshoot.

Good luck!!

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Cas is also the largest in the amount it accepts. I am pretty sure that COE and dyson are by far the most selective.

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Agree. One big issue with Dyson however, is that it’s not that it’s so selective it’s that it’s just a very small program that gets a lot of applicants so it has a low yield. If I had a kid applying to business school, it is definitely not one that I would push them to. They may have a lower yield than Wharton if I recall, but there is really no contest to Wharton and much higher ranked business schools than Cornell. Berkeley, Michigan, Texas, MIT, NYU all better than Cornell. It’s just somewhat deceptive since people focus on that yield which is not always the right thing to look at.

This year Dyson didn’t even take any test scores. COE at least was still test optional.

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If Dyson has such a low yield then would Cornell not have to accept more people in order to account for the fact that many if not most wouldn’t end up going? Intuitively this seems as if it would make Dyson have a higher acceptance rate.

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Low yield means they have few spots but many applicants.

For comparison purposes to show how low their yield is and how few spots there are relative to CAS, last year Dyson only accepted 261 students out of 3277 applicants and had 155 enroll. This is pretty consistent with freshmen entering in 2019.

CAS on the other hand, accepted 2312 out of 26,480 applicants and had 1191 enroll, also similar to 2019 entering freshman but less than the prior years.

So for entering 2020, Dyson yield was 8% and CAS was 9% so slightly less. I’m actually surprised it’s 8% because it used to be 3%. Engineering for this entering class was more than CAS but still in the 9% other than those 3 schools, all the other schools were well above 10% yield so I guess if someone wants to give themselves the best chance to get in, they should apply to one of the other colleges at Cornell, but having said that, you’d think that the weakest candidates this year also applied to those schools and that should only help the strong ones.

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I think we were using different definitions of yield. By yield I mean the percentage of accepted students who end up enrolling rather than the percentage of applicants who are accepted.

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Ok well either way, you can see how many they accept and how many attend. Yield is usually admitted/#apply. That’s why school’s like Tulane have no app fee because they want to look like they have a low yield, but duh because they try to entice everyone and their brother to apply so it looks like it’s a lot harder to get in and hence becomes a more popular school. Look at the yield of USC (CA) over the past few years. Ridiculously low, but way harder to get into justifiably than Tulane.

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Yeah your definition of yield rate is mine for acceptance. I always interpreted yield as being #enrolled/#accepted

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Indiekid, extremely important question, are you female or male? Putting down a “physics” major as a girl is advantageous. Thanks!

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thank you!

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i am a female!

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With what you’ve sent us, I think it’s going to come down to how well you rocked those essays, honestly. If those essays weren’t great, then you’ll get deferred, IMO.

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thank you so much for your input! also i wanted to ask that do you think with these stats and ecs i could make it to either nyu, umich, texas austin or columbia? idk I’m really scared bc my test scores are reallyyyy bad. i did explain in the optional covid prompt about my circumstances tho. i just hope my test scores don’t end up harming me too much

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Estimated guesses:

UT Austin-will accept and probably not give you a scholarship, so you’ll have to find aid somewhere. I don’t know if you applied for any of their departmental program scholarships? I’m guessing you didn’t since you would have mentioned those UT departmental specific essays in your last post.

NYU-maybe an acceptance, provided the essays are great?

UMich-I give up on predicting out-of-state/intl people for this school. Probably a denial due to what I’ve witnessed so far. I’ve seen perfect, star kids get the thumbs down here, and then get accepted to more than one Ivy with scholar status, plus get into Stanford. I mean, out-of-state and intl people do get in here; I just have no idea why they choose the people they do sometimes. Someone else could probably chance you better than I could for this one, or maybe not?

Columbia-possible waitlist that you’re likely never to get off. Instead of explaining why you didn’t do as well as you had hoped on the ACT, I would have just taken the test again instead (if that was at all possible).

Again, I don’t know about your essay writing. These predictions are assuming those are on point.

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Also, your yoga stuff is super cool!

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Yield is what proportion of accepted students attend. Acceptance rate is what proportion of applicant are accepted. These metrics have consistent definitions in the industry.

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