<p>Ya sat scores, gpa are all important but i see that ppl who have high high scores and gpa not always get in...</p>
<p>So, what are the adcom really looking for??</p>
<p>personal essay? a strong extracurricular passion for something in say music? </p>
<p>What actually happens behind the doors of the admission committe? lol</p>
<p>i'd like to hear about wats up behind those doors too!. like how do they decide who's in and out. Harvard has a bunch of levels of adcoms and a series of thresholds people must pass before apps get to the final stage where they're debated over...or something like that. how's it done at cornell?</p>
<p>From looking at the Naviance profile of applicants from my daughter's high school, which shows the GPAs and SAT scores of accepted, waitlisted, and rejected students from the past several years, it looks to me as though GPA is the most important factor. The GPAs of the accepted students were consistently high; the SAT scores were all over the place.</p>
<p>A Cornell admissions officer who conducted an information session in our area also said that the rigor of the curriculum is important, but that wouldn't be evident at my daughter's school, where essentially all of the applicants come from an IB diploma program and therefore have more-or-less the same curricula.</p>
<p>a hook (legacy, developmental or athletes),(USAMO, Intel, Siemons)</p>
<p>Cornell loves hardworking students. The rigor of the curriculum and GPA are the most important factors. But of course they need to be supported by the other factors.</p>
<p>I go to an all IB school as well, so in order to differenriate between the more and less rigorous cirriculums, I believe that they rate the traditional academic subjects higher. </p>
<p>So a student that is taking </p>
<p>HL Math Chem Physics
SL Economics English and French </p>
<p>for example, would be looked at favourably compared to an</p>
<p>HL Business Studies Theatre Arts English
SL Math Studies Enviornmental Systems French </p>
<p>student from the same place.</p>
<p>I would think so...</p>
<p>I never even KNEW there was a math studies option...</p>
<p>Connections/athletics are most important (If you are a 10th generation legacy who is NHL calibur in hockey, you are in)</p>
<p>Then GPA with tough classes</p>
<p>Then SAT</p>
<p>Then ECs (very few people have ECs that will outweigh poor grades in easy classes and poor SATs)</p>
<p>Then essays and recs</p>