<p>A reminder that Cornell filled only about 35% of the Class of 2016 early, a much lower percentage than many of its peers. If you're procrastinating, complete that supplement! Hope to see many of you this fall far above Cayugas waters...</p>
<p>Thanks! I appreciate it and I’m submitting today :)</p>
<p>That’s encouraging! I submitted my app in late October. Good luck everyone!</p>
<p>Only 35%? I don’t see the reasoning behind this. I’m pretty sure that in other years, Cornell filled closer to 40% ED. I was expecting the same this year and a drop in RD acceptances due to the increasing trend in yield the past few years (accepted 0 from the waitlist past 3 years I think), and yet Cornell pulls this stunt. If I’m not mistaken, this will mean they’re planning on accepting more people RD round, which will probably lower the yield to under 50% again. </p>
<p>I don’t understand why Cornell is trying so hard to become less selective every year (at least it seems like they are); anyone care to explain? I mean, use the waitlist for Pete’s sake; that’s how Wash U and every other school keeps their acceptance rates low.</p>
<p>I believe the number of ED acceptances this year represent slightly less than 37% of the class. Yield last year was 51.4%, an increase of 3% from 2010. I assume Cornell cares more to enroll the best class it can, rather than to game the admit rate like some of its competitors by enrolling 50% of the class early or accepting many from the wait list.</p>
<p>behappy7, this isn’t targeted specifically towards you.</p>
<p>I think that Cornell students/alums should stop defending Cornell’s acceptance rate by saying that the school cares more about “fit” and “building a better class” than “gaming the rankings”. Cornell’s acceptance rate has historically been on the high side relative to its peers (part of it being that it is a larger school), but it could do so much more in terms of marketing, ED/RD acceptances, waitlist usage, etc. and yet fails to do so. Alums always argue that Cornell is staying true to its motto and focusing on building a better class…and yet if you look at the data of its graduating class, it is no better, if not worse, than those of its peer schools.</p>
<p>If Cornell was truly focusing more on student body instead of rankings like its peers, evidence should show that Cornell’s graduating students are more diverse, intelligent, or more suited to the job market than those of its peers. However, this is not the case. In terms of Rhodes/Truman/Marshall scholars, Nobel Laureates, Med/Law school acceptances, IB/Consulting Feeders, etc. it does no better (in fact worse) than the other Ivies and peer schools. </p>
<p>Thus, it’s only hurting itself in the long run the way I see it. It’s sacrificing its rank (and maybe even reputation among prospective applicants) by adhering to different, “fit”, standards, and yet its student body ends up being no better than the other “gaming the rankings schools”. </p>
<p>I don’t know. That’s just my take on this.</p>
<p>I agree. In some ways, Cornell is unique from its peers because it has so many specialized colleges. And I would love for it to retain that aspect. However, Cornell needs to realize that branding and marketing are important if it is to draw the best students. And selectivity is part of the equation. It does a lot of things that really make no sense (such as accepting hordes of community college transfers, not using the waitlist and ED enough, etc.). </p>
<p>I’ve been on this forum a long time and frankly a lot of people posting chances threads have no business coming to Cornell. If you have a 1800 SAT score, you are not going to be successful at Cornell. People continually say that great essays and EC’s can overcome poor GPA and test scores. Tell that to these same applicants when they’re at the bottom of the curve at Cornell.</p>
<p>IIRC Cornell’s undergrad body is twice as much as the rest of the ivy league. So inherently Cornell will be less selective than the rest of the ivy league.</p>
<p>FINALLY! There are some sensible alums who actually agree with me that Cornell needs to get more selective and stop this whole “fit” bs.</p>
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<p>Agree 100%. There are sooo many community college transfers in the state schools. It actually boggles me why I tried so hard in high school when I could’ve partied and bombed the SATs, gotten a 4.0 in some random state school, and transferred here and still be in the same position. </p>
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<p>I’ve been a lurker in CC for quite some time too, and I noticed that Cornell’s the only ivy forum with list after list of 1800 SAT chance threads and all these people saying “write a great essay and you’ll be fine” or “I’ve had tons of friends who got in with those scores”. It just pains me to see how prospective students view Cornell as the safety Ivy and think they have a shot when they seriously have no business applying to Ivies with some of the resumes I’ve seen. Yet, they manage to get in…and so others view Cornell as a joke while alums constantly preach the whole “fit” and “Cornell doesn’t game the rankings” argument.</p>
<p>Look where that has gotten us. We’ve been kicked down to bottom ivy in the past decade and every day I see community college transfer chance threads appearing with 2.0 HS GPA people thinking they have a shot - and in fact they do since ILR accepts like50% of transfer applicants. I would seriously pay money if you found more than one cc transfer thread in other ivy forums. I read somewhere that Yale accepts like 1 cc transfer every 6 years, and Cornell accepts like 100 every year. </p>
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<p>We’re saying that Cornell could do BETTER. Of course it has to accept more people since it has a larger student body, but it could do so much more in terms of marketing and ED/RD/Waitlist manipulations as well as not accept so many transfers.</p>
<p>As someone who wants Cornell to grow in reputation and prestige, this just pains me, not to mention tons of Cornell alums supporting Cornell’s admissions standards pains me further. Call me whatever you want, but it is FACT that Cornell’s current admissions and selectivity is not doing any favors for the school.</p>
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If you were to make a new US News Ranking where the rankings were based on a function of the amount of undergrads in the school, Cornell would constantly be #1. In fact, Cornell is the only school in the top 20 that has more than 10,000 students. </p>
<p>I agree with you on the community college transfer thing (even though I’m a prospective c.college transfer). It’s one thing to have had obligations in high school that prevented you from succeeding (like in my case I worked 50hrs a week), but it’s another to have been privileged socioeconomically and still end up doing bad.</p>
<p>You are misled with the transfer rates for Cornell though. Community college transfers aren’t as prevalent as you make it sound. There were only 53 students who came from a c.c that was out of state last year.</p>
<p>My basic point was that the quality of the class enrolled is more important than the admit rate. If you assume RD enrollees have superior stats/qualifications, would you still choose to admit more early just to lower admit rate? And despite the lesser use of ED, no use of the wait list, larger undergrad enrollment [30% larger than Penn btw], and existence of several specialized colleges, Cornell still admitted fewer than 18% of applicants and enrolled a class with 90% in the top 10% and median SAT’s of 1410. CAS and Engineering had higher scores than the university medians. Yield was also higher than projected, so Cornell overenrolled. Cornell has a new admissions director and a lot of positive momentum, including winning the NYC technology campus competition. I’m confident Cornell can and will do better.</p>
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<p>That sounds high to me considering most top colleges admit only a handful of transfers total. </p>
<p>And his guess of 100 CC transfers a year is probably not off if 53 come from OOS. I would bet at least that many if not more come from NY community colleges, especially since Cornell has guaranteed transfer agreements with a few community colleges.</p>
<p>My point is that one or two good years at a community college should not absolve 4 years of ineptitude in high school. A lot of these transfers refuse to post their SAT scores (I think it is absolute idiocy for Cornell not to require transfers to send in SAT/ACT scores) citing that they are too “embarrassing.” I don’t know what that means but if you are Ivy League material, even if you didn’t try or didn’t have the resources for a prep course, you should still manage better than a 2.0 HS GPA and an embarrassing SAT score. Heck, in the 8th grade, I scored a 1290 (out of 1600) on the SAT as part of JHU’s Talent Search thing with no prep. </p>
<p>There was already a plenty lengthy discussion on this topic so I won’t say much more but Cornell seriously needs to reexamine some of its admissions policies if it truly wants to attract the best students.</p>
<p>And financial aid. Cornell is pretty stingy…</p>
<p>Cornell has materially improved its financial aid in recent years. I suggest those interested read about it on the Cornell website. For example, among recent policy changes, students from families with a total annual income under $75,000 have no student loans as part of their financial aid award.</p>
<p>Yes I’m aware but in comparison with other ivy league schools Cornell can do better</p>
<p>The aid offered by HYP stand apart, but Cornell’s aid is comparable to the rest of the Ivies. Furthermore, if you’re admitted to another Ivy, Cornell will match their awards.</p>
<p>So, I just submitted my Cornell app, but I am wondering whether or not I need to send all my official ACT score reports (I reported all 3 that I have taken) to Cornell? Could anyone let me know. In addition, is it ok if the score reports arrive a day or two late?</p>
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<p>You are right that Cornell has the largest undergraduate student population, and that this fact affects its selectivity to some degree; however, Penn has an undergraduate size that is not far off (10,394 undergrads), and they have managed to improve their selectivity to an incredible degree over the past two decades.</p>
<p>As an aside, it’s interesting that with respect to overall student populations Cornell is not the largest, but 4th in the Ivy League (contrary to popular belief). Columbia, Harvard, and Penn have more total students than Cornell.</p>
<p>Biggest Student Populations in the Ivy League</p>
<h1>1 Columbia University</h1>
<p>Undergraduates = 7,934
Postgraduates = 19,672
Total Students = 27,606</p>
<h1>2 Harvard University</h1>
<p>Undergraduates = 7,181
Postgraduates = 14,044
Total Students = 21,225</p>
<h1>3 Penn</h1>
<p>Undergraduates = 10,394
Postgraduates = 10,809
Total Students = 21,203</p>
<h1>4 Cornell University</h1>
<p>Undergraduates = 13,935
Postgraduates = 7,004
Total Students = 20,939</p>
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<p>LOL. Sad, but so true.</p>
<p>What I noticed is in college of engineering or arts & sciences, community college transfers are virtually non-existent. At Ag school and ILR, I swear half of their student body transferred from community colleges and other random no-name state schools. </p>
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<p>It really is a shame. I ran into so many kids at Cornell who are literally dumb as a rock, and most of them were 1) community college transfers in one of state colleges at Cornell, 2) recruited athletes, or 3) URM. Frankly, these kids have no business at Cornell.</p>
<p>What puzzles me is why Cornell rejects some of highly qualified applicants in Freshmen admissions, only to later ending up accepting a TON of dumb transfer students with unimpressive SAT scores from garbage community colleges. This is not only unfair to those qualified applicants who are denied admission to Cornell, but this kind of screwed-up admissions policy also really does damage the school’s reputation and the overall learning experience among students and alumni.</p>
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<p>Isn’t this because these colleges accept a substantial number of students as (what used to be called) “guaranteed transfers?” Also, if this is true, weren’t these applicants accepted up-front on their merits? Additionally, Cornell claims that the transfers it accepts are carefully screened, and isn’t the percentage of transfers that are accepted (of the non-guaranteed sort) quite small?</p>