I have a big dilemma:
I applied ED to Cornell in September, but Yale slowly became my first choice. Because of this, I emailed Cornell in October and asked them to move my application to the regular decision pool so I could apply early to Yale (I ended up getting rejected from Yale, sadly). They never responded to my email. I sent another email a few days later. Crickets. I sent a THIRD email and they still didn’t respond. Finally, I called the admissions office and asked them to move my application to the RD pool. The guy I talked to was super nice and he was happy to move it, telling me that I would receive my decision in late March. I thought everything was great. Over the whole application process, Cornell did a really bad job of responding to emails about updates I needed to make to my application due to some large commitment changes in my life (extracurriculars and such; mostly due to Miss Rona). Keep these email snafus in mind. Fast forward to December 17th. I went to my Cornell portal to check to make sure my checklist was up to date and I saw that there was a status update. I clicked it, and it was a rejection letter. Not only was I completely confused, but angry and severely disappointed. How could they mess up this badly? Part of me wonders whether the Cornell admissions office is notorious for not responding to emails or not following through with requests that they said they would honor. I am planning on emailing the admissions office tomorrow and asking for either a chance at the RD pool or my money back. I paid 80 dollars of my own money for this application, and I worked so hard on it, as Cornell is one of my top choices. I really hope that this gets resolved in a way that would allow me to actually have a fair chance at getting a valid decision.
My advice at this point is to realize that emails are not the best means of communications here, you’ve experienced this directly several times…make a phone call. If you have any notes from that ED to RD conversation you had in October, such as who you spoke to or the date, that would help your case. Good luck!
Honestly if you were rejected in ED and not deferred, chances are you would not be admitted in RD either. I’d move on.
But I wasn’t supposed to even receive an ED decision. I asked them to change my ED application to an RD one back in October and they said that they would. Then they sent me a rejection in December, which just shows their negligence to even pay attention to application updates. They have been really bad at responding to emails this year and this is just the icing the cake for me.
Seeing as I paid 80 dollars to apply to their university, I would hope that my application would be processed on my own terms. I realize that the final decision lies with them, but this was just a blatant disregard of an applicant request that I was told over the phone would be honored.
They processed your application and gave you a valid decision - they just did it earlier than you requested. Frankly, I think being considered in the ED pool gave you a better chance at acceptance than if they had done as you requested and moved you to RD. It’s time to move on. Most people who apply to Cornell get rejected. They are not going to reconsider your application after they gave you a rejection.
I’m sorry about the surprise rejection—that really sucks 
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We live in NY and a lot of super qualified, amazing kids from our town were denied, so you are in good company. Very best of luck with the rest of your applications! Maybe you could start imagining college somewhere that isn’t covered by slate gray sky half the winter😉.