<p>When I was little, our household income was $8000/yr (no welfare or anything) all the way until 6th grade. I went to a school that has subsequently been shutdown by the school district because it had an API of 300 for many years.</p>
<p>What should my SAT score have been?</p>
<p>majoreco, I thank you for keeping a cool head and apologize if any of my comments seem inflammatory. In past discussions, potential transfers (understandably) have been indignant. And I appreciate the use of reason and statistics in any discussion.</p>
<p>lazykid - I see my older daughter’s Cornell friends a lot. Since graduation, I have met them for dinners and at various gatherings. All of them are working. They have moved on to the next stage of their lives. Even while they were in college, they didn’t worry that much about transfers. Maybe because they were too busy with their school work and social life. A lot of them are in NY for a New Years Eve party at a restaurant.</p>
<p>My brother, who is an alum, is talking and meeting with administors at Cornell about the new technology campus in NY, it was a long time in the making. That new campus is what will add few more points to the Cornell diploma. If you asked him for his view about transfer students, SAT scores, ranking of Cornell, he would think you were crazy.</p>
<p>Wow. Well, assuming you had been an A student, you should have made around a 1000-1100 as a gifted seventh grader. I’m assuming you have taken intermediate basic algebra by this point. </p>
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<p>You’re good. As an alumnus you have the right to feel the way you do. Strangely enough, even though I don’t go to Cornell, I agree with you. Cornell needs to be more selective. I’d rather apply to a more selective Cornell and be rejected than apply to a less selective one and be admitted.</p>
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<p>Anyway, regarding Cornell and rankings… Cornell will undoubtedly be a top 10 school once the NYC campus is built. So it’s basically moot. Cornell will soon be the Columbia+. If we’re particularly lucky, it might even be top 5.</p>
<p>I don’t think so if you’re looking at US News’ criteria (which is heavily weighted towards things like selectivity and student/teacher ratio, etc.). I think the NYC campus being built is pretty awesome but being even bigger doesn’t help selectivity. It never does. That said, I’m still glad Cornell won the contest and the new campus will be something for alums to be proud of. Selectivity is important but it’s not everything. I would not sell my soul to lower my acceptance rate like Penn and WashU have but at the same time, I think Cornell could be more sensible in its admissions policies (I don’t think any of my 5 suggestions are too ludicrous).</p>
<p>And to the poster complaining about Cornell’s financial aid, I shake my head. Your family makes $200,000. You can’t expect that much FA. Its resources/capita does not come close to Harvard or Princeton so you shouldn’t expect that level of FA. I almost had a stroke in that FA thread when someone claimed their $180,000 family income makes them “middle class.”</p>
<p>Well, if the new school does what it’s intended to do (bring Silicon Valley like innovation into NYC), then it should easily get more people to apply to Cornell and bring more prestigious professors to Cornell as well.</p>
<p>We’ll have to see. I have no idea how the two campuses will be integrated.</p>
<p>BTW: I snuck a peak at your stats. 2100 SAT score. 4.0 CC GPA. URM. 1st gen. Low income. You’re not the typical CC transfer. And judging by the list of schools you’re applying to, I think you know you are a commodity Probably why you weren’t more incensed with lazykid and I’s comments. I actually think the people in that thread were too hard on you. </p>
<p>Anyways, I’m going to bed. New Year’s Eve to prepare for tomorrow with residency interviews starting back up very soon. 9 interviews in January after having done 16 interviews in November and December. Good luck with your transfer apps.</p>
<p>Say what? cc students considering Cornell a safety? I’m just speechless…maybe because it’s partly true thanks to the state schools. </p>
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<p>So you’re saying the cc transfers who graduate with C averages and end up unemployed benefited the school and your daughter while norcalguy and lazykid getting into top med/law schools didn’t? I don’t know what to say. Just because you don’t think Cornell’s image has been tarnished by the overabundance of cc transfers doesn’t mean it’s true. As noted by lazykid and myself, we have personally experienced people mocking our school because of them knowing idiots who easily transferred in.</p>
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<p>Seems like that’s your only defense. For us to grow up like you and your associates. Turning a blind eye to this small yet impactful problem is exactly why Cornell’s reputation has declined in the past decade - and it will continue to decline until it does something about it. The posters here have provided multiple examples, anecdotes, and statistics that show that its current admissions policies are questionable, and yet you just ignore all that and tell us to grow up. Sounds mature to me.</p>
<p>Honestly, despite Cornell’s large student body, it could easily lower its acceptance rate to around 12% (maybe lower) and raise its SAT averages/decile rank. It’s not that hard. It might not matter to employers, but like norcalguy said, it matters to prospective students, which are the future of any school. Top applicants like it when they’ve achieved something that not many others have, and so slight differences in acceptance rates, despite what you think, can determine the quality of the applying and enrolling class.</p>
<p>BTW, top IB/Consulting firms do ask for your SAT scores. I guess they didn’t grow up either ;)</p>
<p>Sad, but true. I know for fact that some CC transfer students are hesitant about coming to Cornell for its perception that it is the ‘safety Ivy’.</p>
<p>I was really ticked off when my cousin’s friend came over to me to discuss his acceptance to Cornell. This kid went to the same community college that my cousin went to, and after my cousin got into Cornell via transfer app this kid also decided to apply to Cornell and got in.</p>
<p>He came to me with a concerned look and asked me: “I am happy I got into Cornell but I am kinda worried about its reputation. Do people make fun of you for having gone to a fake and safety Ivy League school? I don’t want to find myself in that kind of situation. Should I take the Cornell offer or not, I am really confused. Plz help.”</p>
<p>As you could tell, I was speechless. Here was that kid from a freaking community college WORRYING about Cornell’s reputation as a safety Ivy…</p>
<p>Clearly, Cornell admissions has f-ed up a lot in recent years and it needs to get its $hit together. Sooner the better. There is simply no excuse. If Cornell demands top talent and hard work ethic from its current and prospective students, it should live up to its ideology itself. As an alum of this great university, I firmly believe that our school deserves better.</p>
<p>Why do so many people on this thread link the prestige of Cornell to its acceptance rate and not the quality of its programs? Cornell is probably the best Ivy in the sciences, other than perhaps Harvard and Princeton (still living off Einstein’s presence there thirty years after his prime, at which he initiated no major discoveries and was consistently wrong in his debates about dark matter with Max Bohr), and tops in several pre-professional areas. It has a terrific med school in NYC, a top 15 law school, and just won the bidding over Stanford for a $400 million grant from NYC to put together a research institute in NYC that will likely further improve the quality of its already terrific science departments. Plus, Cornell got an amazing plug in Up in the Air, probably not seen by a college since GU and St. Elmo’s Fire (compare with fairly negative portrayals of MIT in 21, Duke Law in Tucker Max, and Harvard/Stanford in the Social Network).</p>
<p>The concept of prestige has high correlation with the notion of exclusivity. Imagine Harvard admitting a bunch of idiots with SAT scores in 1100s… I am sure their reputation will go down the toilet within a matter of few days. </p>
<p>Also, since Cornell is such an extra-ordinary university, it deserves better students and better reputation to go along with it.</p>
I would think once the campus is built, it would attract more students to want to come to Cornell because of its location and opportunity, by definition, wouldn’t it make Cornell more “selective”? Or do we all think the only reason people apply to Cornell is because of the US News ranking?</p>
<p>lazykid:
As a potential future lawyer, that’s your rebuttal? Or is this your personal experience, knowing only 5 people from Cornell of your 4 years there? </p>
<p>muckdogs - you made some excellent points. Those are the things which will make Cornell a better institution, not by having few extra SAT points, yield rate, or changing the original mission of Cornell. I have hired/worked with Cornell graduates, they do well at work because of their practical approach to life, can do attitude, and very down to earth. </p>
<p>There are people who will never grow up and will always tie their self worth to their college degree, they will probably also blame their failure in life to Cornell’s admission policy.</p>
<p>I am pretty surprised! A Cornell graduate is least bothered about the “Ranking” and indeed very proud of the education it provides and the result of it - a vibrant and strong alumni network in the USA, UK , and Asia.</p>
<p>I fully support LazyKid and norcalguy. I wish they were the admissions administrators at Cornell. Can you guys seriously contact the admissions administrators and share your thoughts? I totally agree with the importance of “branding.” Yes, it would be a wonderful world if everyone doesn’t care about the ranking but the diversity. However, it’s a sad reality that the majority of top qualified students DO consider the USNEWS ranking seriously and its difficult to deny many public and private sectors DO care about the quality of student body.</p>
<p>Even Provost Kent Fuchs from Cornell understands the importance of ranking;</p>
<p>Fuchs said elevating the international stature of Cornell was essential because perception impacts reality. He forewarned, If were not perceived to be in the top-ten, then the quality of students will decline, the quality of faculty will decline, and the resources [going] to the institution will decline.</p>
<p>Thank you. I also do really wish that someone with enough of a sense and intellect such as norcalguy would run the admissions at Cornell. The current system is a mess and it has negatively impacted the image, reputation, and caliber of student body at Cornell.</p>
<p>There is no question that the rankings are important. For some people such as oldfort, maybe since she is like 60 years old, (my guess since she has two children at Cornell) she doesn’t give a crap about college rankings. Yet, the truth remains many of young alums do. So do the prospective students. And, so do the majority of current Cornell students. It would be dumb to deny that rankings don’t matter at all and just tell people who are concerned about the issue: “Grow up”. </p>
<p>Also, to say the least, the current admissions system at Cornell is NOT meritocratic. It rejects many of those hard workers with high qualifications and top scores in freshmen admissions, only to later accept tons of sub-par community college transfers that don’t even submit SAT scores. This is really screwed up, and there is no excuse.</p>
<p>After pondering some ways in which this thread has developed, and veered off topic, I’ve come to the conclusion that while certain vitriolic commentators may be well intentioned, they never the less give a distorted view of Cornell – one that exaggerates what they perceive to be negative aspects of the school. They distort the truth to try to blunt-handedly force action on their desire to make Cornell yet more elite. They do not seem to accept the wisdom of the old saying at Cornell that Cornellians are: “Elite, but not Elitist.” Moreover, they also don’t seem to realize that their apparent insecurities don’t reflect very well on the school they claim to love. I am not saying that they shouldn’t work to improve their venerable school’s standing, but implying that entire groups are unqualified (and sometimes saying this explicitly) is mean-spirited as well as being false to facts.</p>
<p>Yes, Cornell may miss on a tiny minority of admits, but so does every other top tier school. Cornell’s policy of admitting a small portion of transfers from cc’s is not as negative as some have claimed in this thread. Why? Because a large section of these matriculates are incoming GTs who went through the rigorous up-front admissions process. Furthermore, the idea that the process has no teeth for non-GT transfers is not quite right. I’ve skimmed through some incredibly long Cornell transfer threads, and I was always saddened by the many well-spoken applicants who were rejected with stats far above the mean. Again, this is not to say that there haven’t been mistakes made in transfer admissions, or that standards shouldn’t be modified to require 4-year colleges. Should Cornell administrators work to maintain and enhance Cornell’s public image? Of course, but as norcalguy said, Cornell should not “sell their soul,” like certain schools, to do so. The reason that I largely agree with norcalguy’s 5 suggestions, while bristling at other posters’ comments that may on the surface seem similar, is because though norcalguy states his opinions with strength, he never-the-less is careful to include qualifications from time to time. Others in this thread have railed against the entire transfer population, making no provisions for the fact that the majority of transfers are great, smart, hard working people who well deserve their place at the school – and I say this having no “horse in the game” since the transfer students that I personally know are not family or the closest of friends.</p>
<p>Back to the topic of the original post:
Thanks behappy7, and I completely agree:
Good luck to all RD applicants!</p>
<p>LazyKid - let me ask you, when you were at Cornell did you try to do anything to change its admission policy? Did you speak with any administrator, volunteer at the admission office, be part of the student government? I think the answer would probably be no. </p>
<p>There are doers and there are talkers in this world. My kid gave much back to Cornell while she was at Cornell. She ran many events for the students. She didn’t like few parties given by some fraternities because they discriminated against certain race group. Even though she was in the Greek life (a very popular sorority), she protested against those fraternities. She wasn’t a popular person for a while, but she did something about what she believed in, and she did bring some awareness to the campus. What she doesn’t do is to come on this board to bad mouth her alma mater.</p>
<p>Talking about prestige, what LazyKid is doing on this board is bringing down Cornell’s branding by sounding like an uneducated person, and by being a bigot by saying URMs are unqualified (not just some).</p>
<p>I may not be the most intelligent person out there, but at least I had 2200+ on SAT and got into Cornell via ‘fair’ standard process.</p>
<p>Also, regarding your daughter - congrats and all on having the most amazing child. I noticed how you brag about your daughter all the time around this forum. Just remember that your daughter’s success story has no relevance to this topic whatsoever and you should learn to argue better. </p>
<p>Regarding URM - although it is politically incorrect to say, many of URM students get into elite colleges despite horrible scores. I actually know a black guy with 165 LSAT score who got into Harvard Law School. If a white guy has that score, that guy would be shut out of top 20 law school. I think it is unfair that just because someone has darker skin color s/he is given automatic huge boost in the admissions game. </p>
<p>However, I am aware that this problem isn’t just existent at Cornell so I won’t go much into it. You need to be also aware that affirmative action is a very controversial policy and there are many who don’t support it.</p>
<p>Lastly, while I didn’t volunteer at admissions office, I did talk to some lower-profile admissions people at Cornell. Some of them seemed to acknowledge that the current system had major flaws, but seemed too afraid to speak out against their bosses. Also, they were trained and conditioned to run admissions the way it is now by senior leadership for some years now, so some of them were doing their job without really ‘questioning’ or ‘thinking’ about the legitimacy of the process. I am afraid their bosses (heads of admissions at Cornell) are people who think just like you. LOL!</p>
<p>I think Cornell administrators understand that some of their admissions policies are, um, unique. But, I suspect Cornell receives more money from NY state than we realize and that’s what’s driving some of these ridiculous admissions.</p>
<p>As I said before, Colm, even though CC transfers make up a relatively small percentage of the total student body, they nevertheless matter disproportionately in the perception of Cornell. Look at affirmative action for instance. Even though URM’s make up a tiny percentage of the study body, it still creates a ton of controversy. Everyone who gets rejected from a university thinks its the underqualified URM who took their spot instead of the 10 more qualified ORM’s who were admitted. Similarly, dumb Cornellians (transfers or not) stand out a lot more than the successful, normal Cornellians. </p>
<p>For the sake of fairness, I did a search for transfer threads related to Cornell in the transfer forum. It is certainly well known in the transfer community that Cornell is lenient when it comes to transfer admissions. In fact, I saw multiple references that corroborate what majoreco was saying: that some CC transfers literally do regard Cornell to be a safety school. I’ll put up with Cornell’s image as the “safety Ivy” because that’s still at least a backhanded compliment. But, it is absolutely ridiculous for community college transfers to be regarding Cornell as a safety.</p>
Probably why you weren’t more incensed with lazykid and I’s comments. I actually think the people in that thread were too hard on you. </p>
Can you guys seriously contact the admissions administrators and share your thoughts? I totally agree with the importance of “branding.” Yes, it would be a wonderful world if everyone doesn’t care about the ranking but the diversity. However, it’s a sad reality that the majority of top qualified students DO consider the USNEWS ranking seriously and its difficult to deny many public and private sectors DO care about the quality of student body.</p>