<p>Is it detrimental to my ED app if I utilized the primary/alternate choice selection? I applied to ILR alt- CALS AEM. I was torn between both school, but ultimately chose ILR as my first choice. I believe that I wrote good essays for both schools, but I heard that doing that might hurt my application because Cornell is very fit-based. Anyone know more about this please? </p>
<p>@serzil I also applied to ILR. I chose not to utilize the primary/alternate choice selection in the end. At first, I had chosen ILR as my primary school and CAS Econ as the alternate. In the end, I chose not to apply to CAS as an alternate simply because ILR was a better fit and I didn’t really like CAS Econ. </p>
<p>@SweetIceTea I’m sooo nervous! How do you feel about your application? Have you heard about anything having to do w the App Portal that might foreshadow an acceptance or rejection?</p>
<p>Many of the schools are very fit-based, so if you apply to two very different programs it can look as though you aren’t a good fit for the particular school and are just trying to get into the university. Sometimes it makes sense if the programs you apply to are very similar. You’ve already submitted your application, so there’s no sense in worrying about it now!</p>
<p>Also, anything you may hear about possible “foreshadows” on the app portal is almost guaranteed to be false. People look into those things way too closely. I heard about twenty different foreshadows last year and none of them were true. The only thing Cornell does that is close to foreshadowing is sending out likely letters to certain people prior to decisions; usually the people who receive the letters are URM (and female engineers, which in itself is an URM). Most people don’t receive those letters so don’t let that worry you either. Basically, you’ve submitted your application, now try to just stay away from anything that will cause you to worry needlessly (including this site!)</p>
<p>What is the point of likely letters? Why do universities send them?</p>
<p>@brantly I don’t really understand them myself. Here’s a good Ask the Dean post about them:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.collegeconfidential.com/dean/what-are-likely-letters-like/”>http://www.collegeconfidential.com/dean/what-are-likely-letters-like/</a></p>