<p>I was deferred from Penn ED. Cornell is now one of my top choices... I was wondering what my chances look like.
Any insight is appreciated.</p>
<p>Academics:
GPA: Overall; 96.5/100.0
(Freshman; 94.9% / Sophomore; 97.1% / Junior; 97.4%)
Rank: 13 of 372 (Top 3.5%)
SAT I: 2330 (Critical Reading; 740, Math; 790, Writing; 800)
SAT II: Biology-E; 690, Math Level 1; 740</p>
<p>ECs/Awards:
Math Club - Officer, Vice-President, President
Mathlete Team - Captain
Certificate of Merit - New York Math League
Silver - Nassau County Interscholastic Math League (NCIML)
Spanish Club - President
School Newspaper - Feature Editor
Published by The America Library of Poetry
Local Youth Football Clinic Volunteer - Assistant Coach
General Student Organization Volunteer - Senior Leader
Studio Art
2nd Place - School Art Contest
National Honor Society
Honor Roll every semester
National Merit Semifinalist
1st Place - School Biology Fair
Brown University Summer Program
Babysitting job</p>
<p>Subjective:
Recs- One is probably excellent, other very good
Essays- For the free topic essay, I wrote about how my love of the American Museum of Natural History in NYC prompted me to take an anthropology course at Brown, and how I not only learned about anthropology within a classroom setting, but also outside of the classroom, from the diversity of my peers... My best friends were from Bangladesh and South Korea.</p>
<p>State: New York
School Type: Private (Catholic)
Ethnicity: Caucasian
Gender: Male</p>
<p>WOV-- I was deferred from Penn too, it sucked for the first day or two didn't it?! Anyways, I think you have good chances (high match), but as you can see its totally unpredictable. Good luck!!</p>
<p>Yeah, it is unpredictable. Coming from Long Island, I really feel the brunt of that. I don't think it's fair that colleges accept students who are legacies or from under-represented states over more qualified kids who aren't. My top choices now are Cornell and Georgetown, and if I don't get into one of those, I really think I'll just break down.</p>
<p>I hope I have a good shot at Cornell.
Then again, everyone told me I had a good shot at Penn ED, and we see how that turned out.</p>
<p>I wish you well, but it makes perfect sense for a school to strive for diversity, including geographic diversity. There's also a certain amount of unattractive hubris involved in thinking one is "more qualified" when one has had many of life's advantages when others have not. I would much rather go to school with a bright kid from a small town in Montana whose Weltanschauung is interesting than yet another cookie cutter product of Nassau County public schools.</p>
<p>I never said I don't understand why schools do it -- Having a diverse student body is something that colleges strive for. My high school is very homogenous, and I definitely want to attend a college with a wide variety of people and personality types... I talked about this in my personal essay. If you actually read my post above, where I talk about that essay, it says I enjoyed spending my summer with kids whom I had never met before from Bangladesh and Korea.</p>
<p>All I'm saying is that it is unfair when Person X is rejected from a college because he is from New York or Pennsylvania, while this same Person X would have been admitted had he come from a state like Wyoming or Delaware. Even kids with slightly better credentials from NY and PA will be rejected so that a college can fill that quota of having admitted at least one student per state. What are you talking about, having had more of "life's advantages"? Maybe you just don't understand because you aren't in my shoes.</p>
<p>I immediately thought I had been a bit harsh, and I apologize. Still, there is nothing "fair" about most of what we encounter in life, and a slight bit of discrimination in favor of someone who enriches a class's diversity by bringing a set of different experiences is not a bad thing.</p>
<p>I think your chances are quite good at both places based on stats and in-range EC's, and certainly you have a shot anywhere. Although it's a fine school, I guess I never understand why someone would want to go to Penn instead of Cornell for anything except business (and that is a tighter choice now) unless it is purely a medium-large city environment with an urbanized campus on its fringe that is more appealing than a smaller city dominated by its more pastoral campus. In any event, best wishes.</p>
<p>u have a very decent chance with regards to ur high SAT score and good Ecs. Don't worry, just apply to others and with ur stats, u are sure to hit at least one of them.</p>
<p>"but also outside of the classroom, from the diversity of my peers... My best friends were from Bangladesh and South Korea."
Cornell will eat that up. </p>
<p>Aside from that, you'll have a very good chance simply based on your stats and ECs.</p>