<p>“*I’m a little more familiar with Cornell than Duke *”</p>
<p>IMHO, that’s no reason to apply ED to any school. It’s a looooong time from November to September, plenty of time to regret your decision (May to September is long enough) if Cornell is not your number one dream school.</p>
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<p>Yes, Cornell is the EASIEST school with their 19 % acceptance…Any half-wit can get into Cornell…uh-huh… Cornell acceptance, Which is close to what UPenns acceptance rate of 18%. OH! And lets just forget that Cornell admissions is Holistic, AKA RANDOM. Yet Cornell is the Easiest because my idiotic highschool friends that never set foot on a ivy campus says so… PUH-LEASE. Lets get real here</p>
<p>Here are the acceptance rates and middle 50% SAT ranges at Cornell by school. There is wide variability. SATs are a better index of selectivity than acceptance rates. Note that Engineering is most selective based on SATs but has a 22% acceptance rate. Acceptance rates are affected by factors unrelated to selectivity. Agriculture, Human Ecology, Hotel, ILR, and Architecture have lower SAT scores but they are the best in the world in their specialties.</p>
<p>14.6% 1270-1470 Architecture, Art, and Planning
15.7% 1300-1510 Arts & Sciences
21.7% 1360-1520 Engineering
26.0% 1220-1400 Hotel
21.2% 1240-1460 Agriculture (NYS)
31.3% 1280-1460 Human Ecology (NYS)
21.1% 1290-1460 Industrial and Labor Relations (NYS)</p>
<p>The SAT scores above are for the class of 2013. The scores for the class of 2014 were materially higher, and the strongest in Cornell history.</p>
<p>“SATs are a better index of selectivity than acceptance rates.”</p>
<p>Not surprising an engineer would look at it that way. In schools practicing holisitic admissions things are not always so clear. Such schools frequently turn down some high scorers in favor of some lower scorers with exceptional personal stories and non-academic achievements. Even at Cornell’s various specialty colleges affinity for a particular program of study can trump a set of SAT scores. These schools are not necessarily less selective, rather they may be equally or more selective but are using somewhat different criteria, or weighting, to implement their selectivity.</p>
<p>Let’s see the 2400 SAT science nerd get admitted to the architecture school, with no demonstrated or evident affinity for its program of studies. I think it earns every % of its 14.6% acceptance rate, despite not having the highest SAT scores. It is highly selective, its just that those test scores are not the highest weighted criteria for admission to that school.</p>
<p>My son has the stats for Hum Ec, but he may not apply in part because he cannot really make the case that his background inevitably leads him to be considering Hum Ec. We feel he might well be rejected due to lack of obvious fit. (Also he’s not sure he wants that program of studies, but that’s another matter). Fit with their program is a criteria that they use (I think). It is not a reported “number” like standardized test scores are, yet it may still be quite important in implementing that school’s particular form of selectivity.</p>
<p>Etc.</p>
<p>Personally I think one ought to consider all relevant information, including scores, admit % and whatever else you know about a school, before deciding, for your own purposes how you consider its selectivity. I’ll bet Julliard’s SAT averages would not be impressive, but to me its pretty darned selective nonetheless.</p>
<p>My nephew´s stats wouldn´t necessary get him into CAS or AEM, but he would have a good shot at Hotel if he could demonstrate his fit. In the last year or so he has been tailoring his ECs and internship (hospitality) for the Hotel school. We will see what happens this Dec.</p>
<p>^^ Good points. monydad. You said it better than I did.</p>
<p>behappy7, do you have the most recent SAT scores by school? Is there a web link?</p>
<p>I don’t think they’re out yet.</p>
<p>Cornell has released admissions data for the total university. Data by college usually takes a couple of months longer to be compiled and disclosed.</p>
<p>Another way to look at admissions is through the subgroups that the colleges are trying to attract. Typical subgroups include athletes, alum kids, math majors, all-arounds, journalists, etc. From within those groups, the Cornell math majors, for example, are very similar to those at Duke (and Harvard, Stanford, Penn, Northwestern, and a variety of excellent private and public schools). Similarly, the people who run the school newspaper at Cornell, Duke, etc are very similar. And the math majors and the journalists within the schools don’t look much like each other (though of course sometimes they’re the same person).</p>
<p>Parsing out selectivity via SAT scores and acceptance rates is easy but uninformative. Yep, it’s generally harder to get into Harvard than Duke or Cornell, and more people accept H’s acceptance, but within subgroups, there is very little difference among top 20 schools. HYP may recruit student athletes who wouldn’t be looked at twice by a school like Duke, Northwestern or Stanford (where the athletics are generally at a different level), while Duke may recruit (and get) some of the students who are being heavily recruited by HYP, often through its full-ride academic packages that are hard for any school to match. And that doesn’t even bring up the issues of geography (Cornell and Duke may be looking for kids from Hawaii and North Dakota to round out the class, but they are also looking hard at their own backyards to get local kids for a variety of political and school spirit reasons. Finally, MANY MANY kids look about the same on paper, and admissions is inevitably something of a crap shoot.</p>
<p>Looked at a different way, graduate and professional schools essentially lump these mid-size elite schools into one category when looking at admissions, and what they look for (and find) is differences between the top students from within this broader category and the students who didn’t fare as well at these schools (ie, for medical school purposes, a 3.8 from Cornell or Duke is likely to be good enough for an interview almost anywhere (though the interview and acceptance will hinge on other stuff), but a 3.5 from HYP is likely to not get an interview from a top 10 med school unless the applicant has some sort of extraordinary EC’s or MCAT’s. Further, these med schools (who are under the same gun with US News as the undergrad colleges to demonstrate high average numbers) find plenty of top-notch students who went to the big, famous public universities as well as the less famous schools that are considered “back ups” by many people at CC.</p>
<p>In other words, find a place you like, enjoy yourself, and excel. The place matters MUCH MUCH less than you do.</p>