<p>I know! That was me last year, and I have a few friends who are waiting for 5pm. I wish we didn’t have another 3? 4? weeks to go…</p>
<p>According to this page: <a href=“http://dpb.cornell.edu/documents/1000156.pdf#zoom=100[/url]”>http://dpb.cornell.edu/documents/1000156.pdf#zoom=100</a></p>
<p>Us male CAS people are looking at an 8% acceptance rate.</p>
<p>That really destroyed my hope.</p>
<p>I applied to the mathematics major with a 4.0 in math and a tutoring job. But now I know there’s no way I’m going to basically be one of the 64 out of 758 men to be admitted. No way.</p>
<p>Bummer. CAS is really selective.</p>
<p>@wronskian That’s a pretty small number. Do you think that the major chosen has something to do with their decisions? What if there are only 4 people in a major that usually has 16, you think their decision would be affected by that?</p>
<p>Well maybe that’s the only thing I can take solace in. </p>
<p>CAS has 39 major programs. Assuming there were an equal amount of applicants per major (obviously not true) then there are about 33-34 people per major that apply to the university. If the overall acceptance rate is the same across the board (13%) then in your specific major, about 4 people are admitted.</p>
<p>Obviously, not as many people apply for mathematics compared to an extremely popular major like economics, so perhaps my chances are a little higher than others. That’s assuming they even consider majors in their process, though.</p>
<p>I feel you, I’m going for linguistics, and their class of 2014 only has about 4 students. We could only hope that they take majors into consideration because then they would be aware of the spaces that they need to fill.</p>
<p>One word - archeology</p>
<p>I vaguely remember reading somewhere (meaning no one should ever quote me on this) that your major within CAS isn’t evaluated except in the sense that it coincides with academic interests/fits with your essay. That being said, I applied as undeclared so God knows where I fall.</p>
<p>I sure hope that’s true AnotherShot11, I applied to eocn!! Eeeeek.
I feel like it doesn’t make sense to have quotas for majors. Even if all 70 kids chose one major, that’s not that many considering the class size. It’s not like they limit the number of kids who can declare any given major.</p>
<p>According to wronskians’ post, they didn’t accept any of the 142 applicants who didn’t specify a college</p>
<p>It makes sense to have quotas and your chances are affected by it. If there were no quotas on bio then accepting those kids above a certain number would take away from the other departments, because the number of acceptances cornell gives is ultimately limited. And yes that means if you apply for bio in cas (where they have the most quotas to fill given the number of departments it has) your chances are slightly hurt.</p>
<p>Colene - your logic only makes sense to an extent. When dealing with transfer students, the students added to any department is a pretty small number. Furthermore, it seems like it’d hurt the school overall to take less qualified students in one major than more qualified ones in another simply to meet quotas. (I’m talking about majors within the same school, not majors</p>
<p>…in different schools).</p>
<p>Posted that too early by mistake</p>
<p>Your reasoning might be true for transfers. However, it still holds for regular applicants.
Who are the professors in archeology going to teach? what will happen to the department? It is pretty clear that archeology enthusiasts on average would not be as “qualified” as bio majors, but they still have to accept some for there to be a department named archeology. And since acceptances are limited at some point, the acceptances in these departments would take away from those that are already full or even more than full (bio). It always has to do with overrepresentation/underrepresentation- some majors are overrepresented and others are underrepresented.</p>
<p>In fact, I would argue that Cornell’s range of departments allow there to be a huge discrepancy between quality of students accepted even in the same college beyond the effect of some people having conventional hooks (URM, legacy, recruit, etc.)</p>
<p>From what I understood during freshman admissions (I applied, was admitted, and attended many an information session for CAS), the major you choose as a freshman applicant within CAS doesn’t affect your chances of being accepted, seeing as you’re accepted to the College not necessarily the major, and they evaluate you within the whole pool of CAS applicants, not just the other Gov. or Econ applicants. Otherwise, all Bio majors would just apply as undeclared or as another major, seeing as you can change majors once you’re at Cornell (within CAS). It’s hard to imagine quotas when so many kids apply as undecided. That isn’t to say that if, in your essay, you have unique interests in an unusual or less common major, it doesn’t make you stand out…especially if you have ECs and grades to match it probably does help! </p>
<p>I would venture a guess that it’s similar in CAS transfer admissions, as Something said, there are so few spots in the whole of CAS that the distribution of transfers among majors is a negligible percentage of the entire class. At the same time, I feel as though having a unique major or academic interests would make you stand out but not necessarily get admitted over someone applying for a more common major with similar or better stats.</p>
<p>Again, all speculation! I could be totally off on all of this :)</p>
<p>Oops, just read your post, Colene. I think the overrepresented/underrepresented makes sense but more so in the sense that they’re looking for unique applicants to fill their class. They don’t want a class full of Biology fanatics and no one who enjoys Literature (or Archaeology 
). I guess it come down to making yourself stand out as an applicant in both cases, transfer and regular! Haha who knows :p</p>
<p>Hahah I’m just speculating too, but you’re both saying makes sense. Hopefully we all stand out haha.</p>
<p>The site posted on the previous page just made me want to cry… 6% acceptance rate for female transfer applicants to CAS… Not too far off from Harvard’s and Yale’s 1-2%…</p>
<p>Hey Cornell’s acceptance rate is way higher than Princeton’s!! (they accept none 
but yeah…no idea how to sugarcoat a 6-10% acceptance rate. for a while i considered applying to ag or humec or any school with higher acceptance rates than CAS but in the end, I’m applying to CAS because my courses and my interests and my essays are aligned with it. Cornell is very experienced in admissions, so i highly doubt they would fall for someone clearly fitting into CAS applying to an unconventional major just to get in.</p>
<p>The things that you do have align with your major choice/ you should demonstrate why you want that unique major if you pick an unconventional major, for it to positively affect your chances.
Otherwise yes they can tell that you are just choosing that major to get in.</p>
<p>I don’t know about you guys, but this almost feels like an online diary. Even though my first semester gpa was a 4.0 and so was my midterm, i felt like the econ exam that i didn’t do too well on tonight was foreshadowing the decision :/</p>
<p>Don’t worry, Chris! Can’t beat a 4.0. Waiting has made me super superstitious too, but in reality that test won’t hurt you at all</p>