I know that the acceptance rate is lower than most schools, and that is is a challenge to get in. I was just wondering overall if it is insanely tough to get into that school.
Also, I have another question. If I took easier classes in 9th and 10th grade, and took intenser courses in 11th and 12th grade, will that be alright when applying to schools? Do colleges look more into what you did closer to the time you were applying, or do they look at every year equally? I plan on taking about 9 AP classes in 11th and 12th grade, and I also took one in 10th grade. I didn’t take any honors in 9th grade, and only took 2 in 10th grade. Will that be a big problem? Or will it be fine as long as I increase the intense course amount for the next two years? Thanks in advance for any advice!
Cornell is very hard to get into. It’s a very competitive school and would be a reach for anybody. Certain colleges and majors within Cornell are very specified, in which case your experience and passions play a huge role in admission.
As far as course rigor goes, as long as your guidance counselor can check the box saying you took the “most rigorous” course load, you’re fine. But that’s something you’ll have to talk to your guidance counselor about.
Google “Cornell admission stats”, compare them to your own, this will tell you if you are even in the “ballpark” for admissions. Cornell only admits 15% of all applicants, but for some programs / colleges within Cornell, the admit rate is significantly higher, while others it is lower. I would also suggest that you don’t use the word “intenser” in your college essays:)
Some people call Cornell “the easiest Ivy League” because it has an admissions rate that hovers around 12%-16% while other Ivies hover around 6-8%. However, what these people don’t understand is that Cornell receives a HUGE amount of applicants. Take Yale or MIT for example: Yale receives around 30k applications (https://colleges.niche.com/yale-university/admissions/), MIT receives around 19k applications (http://mitadmissions.org/apply/process/stats), Cornell receives around 40k applications (https://colleges.niche.com/cornell-university/statistics/).
Not only are huge amounts of freshman applying (with around 6k getting in, 3k attending), but it’s actually getting harder to get in. Last year the admissions rate was around 18.4%, but now its 14% (you can double check by googling Cornell admissions stats 2014 and comparing).
That being said, I think Cornell gives more merit to grades and GPA/SAT than other Ivies, MIT, Stanford, etc. does. If you have a solid 2100+ SAT, 3.8+ GPA, and good extracurriculars and AMAZING essays, you have a good shot. Not a guarantee, but a great shot.