What is the reason for the split decisions?

<p>For anyone who either is at Cornell or understands the decision process, why send out some last week and no more until march 31? i would understand if they were the ll type applicants or if there was some order but cornell says there is no reason some were decided now and some later? anyone have a reason that makes sense?</p>

<p>No, but it seems to be a common occurence in alot of top schools this year.....</p>

<p>it's a good question, mom, since official acceptance letters now definitely violate the Ivy "Common Notfication Date."</p>

<p><a href="http://admissions.cornell.edu/apply/firstyear/ivyadmissionsprocedures.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://admissions.cornell.edu/apply/firstyear/ivyadmissionsprocedures.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>i think the fact that they do rolling in those 3 schools protect them from any violation.</p>

<p>i guess i could understand the rolling excuse if it was decisions actually coming on a regular basis over the month of march. but i don't understand a few here and the rest there. it is odd to let what i think seems a few know last week and the rest not know for 3 weeks. did not know if anyone connected to cornell knew why the delay in letting anyone else know.</p>

<p>I think a few people called in and got the answer that it was a mistake.</p>

<p>They sent it out on March 3 instead of 31... maybe it was just a mistake?</p>

<p>Perhaps even there's a stupid reason... i.e. the local post office can't handle so much volume on 1 day so they had to send out a few early. Hey, it's possible.</p>

<p>did cornell really say it was a mistake? when i called they only said that there was a particular reason one got the notification and the other did not. but that seems odd, too. so like send the top 100 envelopes on the stack and wait for the rest?</p>

<p>I don't think that it's a mistake since they have done the same in previous years (perhaps every year). I also don't think that the Ivy would allow those same violations to occur every year. Even though, their party line on this is that there is no particular reason that a small number got acceptances early, but they may want to achieve a goal that the likely letters are for. Who knows? We'll never know.</p>

<p>i didn't read all the accepted stats but the few i know of were really strong candidates. they should do away with rolling because this is worse than waiting until the 31st. i applied for engineering so i know i won't hear anything but it makes no sense to elevate the anziety level of the rest of the rolling school applicants by doing this to them.</p>

<p>So you're saying applicants who were already admitted were the exceptionally strong ones, that is if the early notification was to act as a pseudo-likely letter?</p>

<p>5757 what were their stats? there does not seem to be much posted on the class of 2012 so</p>

<p>At which colleges did the accepted people apply? Has any applicant at the College of Arts and Sciences been admitted? </p>

<p>It seems that all Ivies are breaking their own rules:
"Ivy institutions mail admission letters twice annually, in mid-December and early April." The 31st of March doesn't seem to fall into any of these two categories :P</p>

<p>CALS, ILR and Hotel are rolling</p>

<p>AAP, CAS, Engineering and HumEC are not rolling and no RD applicants have been notified of their decision yet</p>

<p>I think Cornell's ILR and Hotel Schools, in addition to CALS are able to admit before the March 1st deadline for the following:</p>

<p>The common admit date was established in order to make the process more fair; it was thought that if colleges were able to offer admissions decisions whenever they wanted to, then potentially the "more attractive" colleges would be able to snap up and sign the "best" students before the other schools. The common admit date thus, at least theoretically, gives each of the Ivies a fair shot at obtaining the same students. </p>

<p>ILR, CALS, and Hotel, however, offer programs that are unique to Cornell, among the Ivies anyways. So by admitting students early to one of these programs, Cornell really does not have an advantage over students, since the thinking goes that applicants to these schools are interested in these specific fields. (i.e. a student pursuing ILR or Hotel should not been seen as competition to pre-med students applying to CAS at the other schools). Of course things are not this simple, but I think this could be the reason why these schools/college are allowed to admit at an earlier date. And, correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe Penn's nursing school admits before the common admit day as well...for this very same reason.</p>

<p>Of course, if my understanding of the process is correct, it still doesn't explain why the schools admit earlier, only why they can admit students earlier :)</p>

<p>mrsopresident- that makes a lot of sense...even though they have the "Ivy league notification date" on March 31st, other Ivies don't have programs like Hotel, ILR, or a lot of majors in CALS.</p>

<p>mrsopresident, I second yousonofatree. Your explanation makes a lot of sense. Do you have any idea on whom they usually accept early? By reading this board threads, it seems that it's a small number they accept early. Is it just random or is there an attempt to attract highly qualified students (similar to likely letters)?</p>

<p>I think its random. The selection committees of these schools meet a number of times during the admissions cycle. Committee members probably just send off the decisions they've reached during the first few meetings, and then get to work on the other applications to be decided in the next three or so weeks. But I definitely don't think early admittance is any indication of a strong candidate, as one of my classmates from high school was admitted to CALS for bio before the common admit date. Let's just say that he was definitely not among the strongest group (at least academically/SAT) of accepted students. </p>

<p>Hope this helps.</p>

<p>Thanks, mrsopresident. It is very helpful.</p>

<p>I agree because others i know that are stronger or as strong as the admitted ones did not get notification. still think it is odd to sent some letters esp if there is no reason to do so? my family is very tired of this whole process. one school deferred, waitlisted, etc. wait wait wait. sometimes you feel like saying who do you think you are to string me along like this. then you get in and you forget all about it!</p>

<p>I knowthereason: They want to stress us....even more</p>