<p>SO I was waitlisted at CALS, my first choice school,
and i used the primary/alternate thing so CAS was my second-choice school.</p>
<p>How come my application wasn't sent to CAS if CALS wasn't going to accept me during RD? Isn't it if you don't pass the first choice college but may seem a good candidate, your app goes to your second choice college?</p>
<p>Chances are that even if they did send your application to CAS, you would be waitlisted, or rejected, considering that CAS has a much lower acceptance rate then CALS does.</p>
<p>stilll, i find it weird how it seems as if my app didnt go to my alternate school if my first school didnt couldnt have me...</p>
<p>oh and it reads that only exceptional students were to be considered by alternate schools, so maybe i wasnt exceptional?</p>
<p>The alternate school was never meant to be a second crack at acceptance. Your app is to be forwarded only if your application is a good fit for the alternate school</p>
<p>The CALS adcoms decide if they wanna give your application to CAS or not. Its not really about the acceptance rate; its more about which school suits you more. My friend applied for a bio major for human ec as prim and the same major in CAS as secondary and they admitted him for CAS but not for Human Ec...</p>
<p>oooh i see.
(haha, wow my previous post didn't make sense at all with the silly errors)
okay, good, then. I'll just try super hard to get off the waitlist!</p>
<p>They probably did forward your app to CAS, but they did not accept you then. Basically, CALS waitlisted you, your app would have gone to your secondary, if they had accepted you, you would have been removed from CALS waitlist, and would never have known you were on the waitlist for CALS. </p>
<p>Hope that helps</p>
<p>The same thing happened to me except my primary was CALS and seconday was HumEc. I spoke to Darryl Scott (the director of admissions at HumEc) he said that he only reviewed a handful of secondary applications. I think it has more to do with yield protection.</p>
<p>I spoke with one of the CALS adcom members and he told me that they viewed a low percentage of the applications that were forwarded to them from an applicant's 1st choice college.</p>
<p>Actually, I think your application was probably not forwarded to CAS. I believe, correct me if I'm wrong, that putting you on the waitlist at CALS meant that your application was not forwarded to CAS at all. Waitlist means that you might still be accepted to CALS. I think only an outright rejection would have given your application a possible second read at CAS.</p>
<p>i heard that only 'very qualified' students are given second read at other colleges. so, it isn't an option where it automatically guarantees that you will be considered by 2 colleges. you have to be an outstanding candidate.</p>
<p>I don't think they have any strict rules for this thing. For instance, if you were a nobel prize winning valedictorian with an awesome personality applying to CALS with CAS as ur alternate they might have admitted u for CAS if CALS was completely full
On the other hand if u applied with a 1000 SAT score with no ECs they would have just rejected and not even send ur application to CAS.
Right now, ur obviously in the middle so they decided to put u on the waitlist.
I don't think cornell adcoms really knew what they were getting into when they started this prim/alternate option. I was really confused about it myself when I applied ED.
anyways, I hope u get accepted...goodluck!</p>