<p>I was recently at their guidance website and saw where the class of 2005 went to colleges. I was quite surprised to see so many were accepted to Cornell. The funny thing, however, is the fact that many had very low test scores. Though I do not know if they had other things going for them, I was nonetheless stunned. So....Why?</p>
<p>lot of colleges take unproportionally high number of kids from the immediate surroundings.. its normally not based on the quality of the students but the fact that the college wants to have a favorable, positive relationship with its surrounding commmunity.</p>
<p>I believe that there is special consideration given to children of Cornell's faculty and staff.</p>
<p>It's called maintaining Town & Gown Relations. Cornell has enough trouble maintaining them being on a hill above and removed from the city, and being an intellectual stronghold in the middle of argarian nowhere...so they accept a lot of kids. But this is not just cornell. over 20 students from my class of 268 were accepted to Princeton U. last fall. (Princeton High School)</p>
<p>Same thing at UPenn. Philly students have quite the advantage, even with quite a lot of high quality students.</p>
<p>But that not fair!! Should I move to Ithaca to improve my chances?</p>
<p>yes, you should. better yet, have your parents become cornell professors.</p>
<p>Ithaca high school is one of the top High Schools in upstate NY. (I don't go there but have friends that do.) Almost every year, Students from IHS get accepted to every Ivy league school. (Quite an accomplishent in a portion of the country were most high school send a only a single person to an Ivy every decade) IHS sudents do get an edge at Cornell, but many are very qualified.</p>
<p>But the stats don't lie. Many of these students ARE a little under par with other applicants that get accepted.</p>
<p>Most ppl have a lot easier time getting into a good school in their vicinity. For example Princeton accepted like 20 ppl from my school last year...which is pretty disportionate. Generally it is easier because the colleges know the curriculum very well and there are often options to take the college classes while still in high school.</p>
<p>"Generally it is easier because the colleges know the curriculum very well and there are often options to take the college classes while still in high school."</p>
<p>That's not the reason ppl in the 3rd and 4th decile are getting in. Also some ppl on that list had the term Guaranteed rather than accepted. thats kinda weird. its definately because of PR.. they want to have good relations with Ithaca..</p>
<p>wait, what website did you find that had this info about their test scores? that would be interesting to know how rigged i am for college :( "</p>
<p>oh, stop worrying about ithaca kids taking your spot in admission.</p>
<p>Look at it this way, say cornell accepted 100 kids from ithaca area schools last year. I know this number is way more than the real number, but lets just say it's 100.</p>
<p>These kids would still only represent 1.5% of total admits into Cornell for the class of 2009. </p>
<p>I'd be more worried about creating a crappy application than an ithaca kid stealing your spot in the class.</p>
<p>yea its only like 20.. its not really a big deal as its common for many colleges.. i think its wise for a college to do so anyways</p>
<p>Im a junior at Ithaca high school and the acceptance rate for cornell is quite high (50+%) but that could be partly due to the high number of student with parents who work at cornell. Almost all my friends have at least 1 parent working at cornell and they can pretty much slack off and get into cornell with a 3.5 GPA mainly because it's a feeder school for cornell. But just being in ithaca high school with no connections to cornell wont give you a huge advantage. If anyone wants to see the school profile of college acceptance rates of IHS students it's at <a href="http://www.icsd.k12.ny.us/highschool/studserv/CollegeProfile2004.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://www.icsd.k12.ny.us/highschool/studserv/CollegeProfile2004.pdf</a></p>
<p>So the only reason why they are being accepted is that they have connections within the school? That's not fair either! What is the curriculum at Ithaca like? Hard, easy, so-so?</p>
<p>"So the only reason why they are being accepted is that they have connections within the school? That's not fair either! What is the curriculum at Ithaca like? Hard, easy, so-so?"</p>
<p>It's true.. life isn't fair.. besides i think its a good community move on cornell's part.. it makes ithaca feel inclusive to the cornell community.</p>
<p>forget about curriculum.. sat average alone will tell you that many of the accepted are well under average.</p>
<p>wow...so many of these students got into Arts/sciences under 1300, that is unbelievable.</p>
<p>The ciriculum is kinda hard and there are a lot of courses you can take. IHS is ranked as one the top public HS in the US. It's also totally ridiculus how some kids get into cornell with less than a 3.0 GPA. In some years all the early decision apllicants (100% of them) at IHS get accepted into cornell.</p>
<p>I live in Baltimore and at my high school every year there's always about 5-10 kids that go to Johns Hopkins, and I'm sure more get accepted...I guess thats a pretty similar situation.</p>