I am interested in applying to the information science program at Cornell but am really confused about which college’s program to apply to. CALS, CAS and the Engineering College offer the major and how can I decide which one to apply to? Also, if there isn’t much of a difference, what is the college that I have the highest chances of getting into?
The info sci program will be the same regardless of the college; the difference is in the individual college requirements. Look at the requirements for each of them and see if one best fits what you’re looking for.
I would go to an information session for each of the colleges to see which one is the best fit for you. If you consider this very carefully, your application will be much better. If you can’t attend in person please spend a good deal of time communicating with the admissions offices so you understand the differences between each college. At Cornell you apply to one college–that’s your shot–make the best of it! For example, if you apply to Engineering and they think you are a better fit for CAS, they will not pass your app to them, they just reject you from Engineering and that’s that.
Ps the admissions folk who run the info sessions for the individual colleges at Cornell do an excellent job explaining the mission and program of each college using terms and ideas that high school students and their parents can understand. You have to understand the general mission if the colleges in order to understand how the focus of the major changes in each college; one school might be more applied, one might be more theoretical, etc. Some of the colleges strongly suggest in person visits–pore over the colleges admissions sites to see what they suggest.
My daughter is a CAS first year and interested in Info Sci. I would agree with prior posters about finding the right college fit. Engineering will require you to take more science and math courses and CAS will require you to fulfill their broader distribution of requirements, so it depends on what your interests are. My daughter has an interest in music and design, so CAS was a better fit. Her application was better suited to CAS as well, with her musical performance background, so you do have to think about what college you’d have a better chance of getting accepted to. By the way, I think the Cornell Info Sci program is awesome, very different from other undergraduate programs in the field that come from more of a “we were a library school” perspective. A real 21st century information science program that is closely tied to the Computer Science program, as it should be. Good luck.