@chicago50 and @temporaryworker For ED the students that didn’t have the option to request an information session were students that had alumni reach out to them about information sessions directly. So you may get contacted asking if they would like to talk to an alumni.
Others had the “click here if you’d like an informational meeting” option.
It seemed those who turned their applications in earlier were the ones that didn’t have the option on their portal. Their goal is to try to offer informational talks to every applicant. In the past they found they were barely reaching half if that.
yes, I’ve interviewed on and off for decades. They are purely informational. Alumni ambassadors are told this repeatedly. I didn’t interview this year because I had a kid applying but it’s even less evaluative this year as alumni ambassadors don’t even submit narratives, just a statement regarding the date and time of the meeting.
Cornell has stated that they only consider legacy in the ED round. The admissions officer we spoke didn’t specify whether they were referring to primary legacy (like a parent) or second legacy (like a sibling). Anecdotally, I’ve seen multiple siblings at many selective schools, even those that claim to ignore legacy status. Good luck to you!
I am an international student and just done my Cornell interview for RD. It was the WORST interview I had, compared to my Columbia one for ED. My interviewer shared the same nationality with me, and asked me questions like ‘Why not other univerisities but Cornell’ and ‘Why not other majors’, even ‘Any improvements between the time you submitted your application and this interview day(Which is about 15 days)’. I tried my best to answer these questions but I still got a tough time. I sincerely hope interview does not affect the admission process as Cornell website states, because I think I will not look any better on my interviewer’s report.
As a fellow CAAAN ambassador, my goal is to share my experience at Cornell, answer questions, and in general “be an ambassador for Cornell”. Easy for me to do as I loved every minute of my experience there. Good luck to all of you, and I may speak to some of you soon! (I mostly speak to Engineering applicants)
I decided to take a second look at my essays for Cornell and things I’ve submitted, and I’m a little curious as to how much “other” stuff affects my application. I don’t have the best GPA (3.4), though my grades have become exponentially better (B student to A-/A student). I honestly do think I’ve written really good Common App and Why Cornell Essay’s, and I also have good EC’s, and applied to CALS as a NY resident. Do I have like zero chance because of my GPA?
I got accepted ED to Cornell this year. I have no legacy, a 34 ACT that I had in my common app when I submitted but CALS is also blind so idk I guess they didn’t see it? I have a 3.86 ( maybe 3.87? ) gpa (scale is like A+=4.4, A=4.0 A-=3.7) unweighted. This year Im taking 5 AP classes, and my school is known for being pretty hard and I took mostly (but not all definitely) top classes throughout high school. I have kinda a lot of extracurriculars idk if u want to know them. Also I am from New York. I also thought my essay was trash I did not spend a lot of time on it it had typos lol.
Yeah I had a really bad time my freshman year. I forgot to mention that I go to a Private school that Is kind of a feeder, and that you have to apply to AP’s so I have only taken two. But my issue with that is just that if they’re comparing me to my classmates, I might not seem as good
