<p>OK, so I am extremely excited to have gotten a likely letter from UPenn today (also my 18th b-day! It's been a good day.) and I was just wondering how it compares to Cornell. Note, this is not about which school I should pick (I'm personally leaning towards Cornell, but this can change), but about their selectivity. In other words, if I'm getting into UPenn should I also expect to get into Cornell. I always thought about them as relatively near each other in their selectivity (similar SAT scores and admit rates) and I actually grouped them as the same selectivity in my college app decisions.</p>
<p>Also, I want to note that my apps to the same schools were about the same, especially since their supplemental essay prompts were similar (I actually used the same base essay and then edited it for each one with details about each school that I liked)</p>
<p>Don’t expect to get into cornell if you get into upenn. Likewise, don’t expect to get into upenn if you get into cornell. If you are an ivy level applicant, usually what happens is that a few number of ivies may accept you but you never know which ones. All of them may accept you or none at all. There is lots and lots of luck involved in RD.
If you choose a top top school like cornell and upenn based on how selective it was, you are going to regret it. Find out for yourself the level of academics in each school, its strengths, the opportunities that each offers, and which one fits you more. Where you’ll have more fun, learn more, and make more friends. I would personally choose cornell cas over penn cas but i’m biased. So would penn kids, too. you should have got a feeling from when you visited the campus and talked with the students. If you pick penn over cornell, that is totally fine. Just know that this is a decision for yourself, and this statistics game matter very little after getting in college. It’s your performance in those top top universities that matters.
In terms of selectivity (at least statistically, since there is a lot of luck that goes into admissions), it’s about equal for the past several years for cas. This year i would believe penn cas would be more selective statistics wise (because of the application number surge). But like i said, getting into one ivy does not mean anything for the other ivies (independent events). They’re just that selective. They receive more qualified applicants that they can take in each year and they have to make room for those hooked applicants (URM, etc).
Cornell A&S in my mind offers more freedom in curriculum and majors, and transfers are really easy here. Penn A&S is located in a city area, so if you like the cities, penn may be the place for you. Cornell has more focus in the sciences and engineering, and you have more choice in your time here, but Penn students may have more business opportunities or internship/job opportunities because of wharton and because it’s located in a city area. Cornell studies are generally seen as more rigorous on the whole, though.
So it’s your choice to go to a large college in a mountainous rural area or a medium-large one in the middle of a city. The level of academics is pretty much level among the two schools and employers view them that way, depending on what courses you take, what your major is, and what you do with your time.<br>
Cornell really works out for me personally because I don’t think I can focus my studies as well in penn, and I don’t see myself enjoying city life too much.</p>
<p>Sorry. I meant ED Cornell is definitely much easier statistics wise. RD is probably still about the same, in terms of numbers. But each school looks for different things in a student (like how cornell does not consider writing score), and it really depends who gets to read your app, what mood he or she is in, and whether you seem like a qualified student in his or her eyes. To summarize things, business, finance, economics, etc->penn, engineering, ag., hotel, physics, bio->cornell, everything else -> your call.</p>
<p>@Jalmoreno: How were you notified by Penn? Was it an email? I heard that Penn sent likely letters mid-march and didn’t know that they went out so early. Congrats!</p>
<p>If you are URM (hispanic or black) and get accepted to UPenn, you will get into Cornell. If you are White/Asian, getting into UPenn doesn’t translate into automatic Cornell acceptance.</p>
<p>Congrats on getting into Penn. Don’t worry about the selectivity of one vs. another; it makes no difference for you at this point. Penn may take a much lower % (and thus be more selective) but that is irrelevant and you should just pick which is best for you regardless of selectivity. I think from the numbers published in the NYT, penn may be as low as 10% this year while cornell will be around 20% overall acceptance rate - meaning it is basically twice as hard to get into penn so you should be very proud. In terms of cross selection, the data here at cc and published elsewhere shows that someone accepted at cornell and penn usually goes to penn. whether that is because of ranking or whatever is irrelevant. you need to pick what is best for you. pick what is best for you regardless of selectivity. good luck</p>
<p>The University of Pennsylvania is more “selective” than Cornell, but that doesn’t mean that they’re looking for the same types of students. You’ll have to wait to see.</p>
<p>“I think from the numbers published in the NYT, penn may be as low as 10% this year while cornell will be around 20% overall acceptance rate - meaning it is basically twice as hard to get into penn so you should be very proud.”</p>
<p>Penn won’t have an acceptance rate that low. It will be something like 14-15%, just like last year. Cornell’s acceptance rate will be like 17-18%, just like last year. </p>
<p>If you do end up getting into Penn, go to Penn. Philly >>> Ithaca.</p>
<p>The colleges of arts & sciences at Cornell and Penn are similarly selective. Both offer an excellent education. If you’re choosing between the two, I’d suggest giving considerable weight to whether you’d prefer to spend 4 years in a wonderful collegetown or a large city.
For the class of 2014, Cornell’s College of Arts & Sciences admitted 15% of its applicants, similar to Penn’s admit rate. Penn’s more agressive use of ED [fully half the class admitted ED] does lower its admit rate.</p>
<p>Lazy - if you look through the college blog by the college editor at NYT, you can check the data.
here is another estimate based upon the statistical data analysis. It looks like Penn at this point is about twice as hard to get into compared to cornell - all the city schools, ivy and others, like NYU, are seeing record applications and much higher selectivity
for some reason, and I don’t know why, cornell is the only one that is not showing big app increases or increased selectivity while the other ivy, duke, etc, are showing much lower acceptance rates compared to last year’s acceptance rates. check out the Jacques stats at NYT - in NYC he is considered a major authority on admissions. good luck to all</p>
<p>Why is Cornell the only one without app increases. And, it sucks to be applying to colleges now, I guess. It became much tougher to get in anywhere, it seems. Maybe last year’s unfortunate events of student deaths have something to do with non-increase in Cornell apps.</p>
<p>maybe, could be. it’s just odd that cornell is the only school that did not go drastically up in apps like the others. the numbers do definitely look like getting into penn or columbia or many of the other top schools can be twice as hard as getting into cornell. those are the numbers, why it is happening I don’t know. the result is that cornell selectivity stays the same around 20% while the others are around 10% or less. it could have something to do with the unfortunate happenings of last year. I wonder if the school made any statement about why this is happening .
whatever, I guess it is a good year to be applying to cornell…</p>
<p>Damn, it is ridiculous how hard it is to get into an Ivy. I think it is easier to get into a top ten law school than it is to get into an Ivy undergrad. It would be crazy if UPenn’s acceptance rate goes below 10%. Do you have acceptance rate numbers for Dartmouth and Brown?</p>
<p>look at the link in #11, for some reason, compared to the stats for last year from the NY Times) only cornell is staying the same close to 20% while the others are getting so many more applications and more selectivity (around 10% or even lower). any opinion on why this is going on - is there something bad about cornell that we don’t know. I hope not - I’m going (ed).</p>
<p>Actually I don’t think acceptance rate numbers would change that much. HYP, Columbia had ~7% admit rate last year. UPenn was like 14% last year. This year it could be like 12%. No big difference. I remember when I was applying to colleges four years ago, UChicago had like 40% admit rate.</p>
<p>Admissions rates go down, people worry that it’s harder to get in. Admissions rates stay the same or go up, people worry that the school isn’t desirable.</p>
<p>Just be happy that it won’t be harder to get in. Cornell still has the most apps on that list (more than Harvard). Technically, that makes it the most desired school on the list.</p>
<p>@lazy, do you think it is just the issue from last year that is causing cornell numbers to stay the same while the others are getting so many more apps?? just seems odd that only cornell did not get the big app increase that the others got. @billy, I don’t think the number of apps is a factor as much as selectivity rate, but even looking at the apps, only cornell stayed the same this year and the others got thousands more than last year. why that’s happening, I can’t figure out, but maybe there is something behind it… are you saying that cornell is becoming less desirable??</p>
<p>I’d think that Cornell’s Arts and Sciences admit rate would be similar to UPenn’s Arts and Sciences. Wharton is a different animal completely. Penn’s admit rate is deflated by Wharton. And, Cornell’s admit rate is inflated by contract colleges. (which have higher admit rate than Arts and Sciences)</p>
<p>I think that has a lot to do with it. Cornell got a lot of negative publicity last year. It was all over the news. 6-7 student suicides at a school in one academic semester just ain’t supposed to happen, anywhere. I am sure I would be scared of attending a place with such negative and horrible news, on top of the already existing myth that Cornell is a pressure cooker and ‘depressing’. Besides, maybe Cornell did not do a very good job of marketing itself to high school kids and encouraging them to apply, as other Ivies might have.</p>
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