I have a hard time imagining that a freshman in HS(in the US) was taking Calc BC, that would imply that your middle school taught Trig/precalc? and when did you learn Algebra and Geometry
@DadTwoGirls @Mickey2Dad Thank you to both of you! I will let you know how things go.
@Aristides Yes, I am being truthful. In fact, you could probably figure out who I am with a few quick Google searches (if you do, however, please don’t post it on here). Unfortunately, I did not have time for social media during high school because I was almost always focused on academics. In my free time, I am usually on College Confidential or Reddit, but I did not have an account on either (until this post, obviously).
@classclown22 My school sent one student to an Ivy ten years ago. That’s it. It’s about 80% minority, and more than half of our school receive free and reduced lunch because of low income. The majority of students end up at a local community college. All of the “post-AP” courses I listed were through a dual-enrollment program, mostly at the aforementioned community college. I ran out of math classes there too, though, so I recently started taking math classes at another (non-community) college.
@grotonMAdad I took Algebra in 6th, Geometry in 7th, Algebra II in 8th. Over the summer (after 8th), I took a pre-calculus course offered by The Art of Problem Solving, which allowed me to take an exam and enter BC Calculus in 9th grade. My counselor was initially against it because it would be difficult to find my next math classes, but I persisted.
On a side-note, although it is definitely not the norm, I have multiple friends from math competitions (all around the country) who took calculus as freshmen, which is partly the reason why I decided to do so.
@CU123 My school is mostly African American and Hispanic. Asian Americans and Caucasians are a minority. I remember reading somewhere on CC that I thought that I would be at an advantage because I am a “minority” in the context of my school?
@whatisyourquest I visited Cornell in my sophomore year of high school. Due to finances, I was not able to visit again; however, I have seen the campus several times using Google Maps.
Here’s what I have noticed:
You have everything amazing listed on your vitae and it sounds like you are an amazing student.
Your list of EC’s are incredible! There’s your research, there are your clubs, work experience and 1000 hours of volunteering.
My question, as an adcom might ask, would be: When did this kid sleep/eat/socialize with peers? So, if I’m wondering how the time management issues worked for you, and being a kid; I’m sure the adcoms might wonder the same thing.
You appeared to have great relationships with adults, but where was your “just being a kid and having fun in high school?”
When my three attended alumni-sponsored admissions events for Stanford, they were consistently told that the universities wanted students who weren’t “books” because they “had plenty of those on shelves”. They said they received “built for admissions” resumes all of the time, and would pick the kids that stepped outside of the box (all things being equal). I could fill out a checklist for you, and it fits a HS experience built to get into an elite college.
Maybe that is what was lacking? I don’t know. This is just my observation.
Ask your GC what she can find out.
There have been some good replies on here already, but I want to jump in to echo that you sound like an amazing student and you’ll do well no matter where you end up.
None of the “weaknesses” you listed are reasons to reject anyone; you’ll probably never know why you were rejected, which sucks. The only bit of insight I may offer (please take with a grain of salt because this is secondhand and a few years old now): I similarly went to a low-performing school that didn’t send students to top schools. My school offered two APs, both of which I took, but the other “challenging” classes I took were online or through the local community college (as it sounds like yours were too). My friend in high school also applied to Cornell engineering ED and was rejected; he was definitely much smarter than me in physics and calculus (which we both took through the community college). He told me at the time that he was able to talk with an admissions person from Cornell (to this day I have no idea how he did this; we do live right near Cornell though and his parents may have somehow been affiliated with the university or maybe he was lying idk) and they told him the main reason he was rejected was because even though he took calculus and physics and got good grades, they were taken through the local community college which Cornell was familiar with (since, again, we live near the university) and knew to be less rigorous, and therefore they didn’t trust his capabilities. I had taken the same classes and got accepted, but I applied to arts and sciences, which may have cared less about physics and calculus than engineering did.
Anyway, anecdotes aside, your drive and ambition are clear. You’re going to get into a great school, and I’m confident you’ll thrive in any academic environment. Keep your head up and don’t let the anxiety get to you; you’ll know soon where you’re going to spend the next four years learning and growing as a student.
I agree with @“aunt bea” .
Also I agree with @Mickey2Dad . I think his theory is bearing itself out. You have failed for the first time and are not showing resiliency.
Resiliency is an important trait. Cornell has a lot of suicides. If you’ve never learned the skill of dealing with disappointment or failure, they didn’t want your first time to happen at Cornell.
But you know what? You. Will. Be. Fine. Make new friends. Do something frivolous. Be proud of your accomplishments. Read a fantasy novel. And just wait for the rest of the decisions to roll in.
I would have thought you would get in. Good luck with the rest of the application cycle, I’m sure you will get in one of the others.
Also, do you mean Lynn University in Boca Raton Fl? Do they have an engineering department now?
I always get nervous when people talk about Cornell as the “easy Ivy to get into.” It is like asking which NFL football team is the easiest to get into. I am sure that some NFL teams are slightly easier to make than others, but the difficulty level is so high for even the worst team in the league, that the word easy really isn’t appropriate at all.
The same is true for Cornell in the Ivy League. Cornell students are the real deal. Maybe it is a bit less selective and larger than the other Ivies, but they have about 50,000 applicants for about 3,500 seats. It is very competitive, and if you don’t have a hard hook and a likely letter, you just can’t count on getting in no matter what your stats are.
Exactly, @Much2learn. This is one reason I find “chance” threads on CC almost educational malpractice—telling someone (as has happened on this thread, in the discussion of the OP’s stats) that they are or should have been some sort of “lock” for a school that admits less than one of every seven applicants is silliness of the highest degree.
So much misinfo on this thread, speculation, distrust.
It’s not all about stats (lesson #1 in holistic.) Nor is it about a list of ECs. Those are just the bones. You fill out an entire app/supp, not just two sections. These tippy tops aren’t automatic prizes you win for just presenting high school glory. It’s about what they want, what more comes across. And it’s a ridiculous competition, owing to the number of apps and so many top kids. You can look at Stanford, Brown and a few others that show the detail of how they reject a vast majority of top performers.
Nor is it all about yield, a “convenient” gripe. The school knew OP was ED , which binds, except if aid falls short. Nor about one visit not being enough. (Interest is in what comes across in the app, your sense of match, how you show that.)
OP, I’m sorry you’ve been disappointed. You worked hard. But my guess is the institutional needs played here. There may have been scores of kids from your area, with your interests, and the U has an institutional goal of geo diversity, balance in majors, and more. You may have made it well into the final rounds, where class-shaping takes place. You tried. But that final decision was in their hands.
Best wishes with the rest. Let us know.
@dfbdfb …and chancing by kids whose own decisions are pending. Or who have yet to apply. Crazy.
OP, re-read your essay or look for red flags in the application. Those or your LoR could be weakpoints.
I pray you get some good news soon on your RD applications. Keep us posted on how your other decisions come out. Last year some of my daughter’s friends were very disappointed when they were deferred or rejected by their ED schools, but they all went on to get in other schools that ended up being great fits for them. When one door closes another one opens. Schools like Cornell want a class filled with students from all over the country and from foreign countries. You are being compared with other applicants from your school, city, state, etc. Maybe you got caught in a numbers game.
Maybe its the Tufts effect. With your stats, Cornell may have thought you’d get into another ivy, so they are protecting their yield.
@preppedparent, OP applied ED- yield =/= an issue.
Okay, well then the cutting room floor is full of candidates with perfect stats. Elite colleges love to turn down kids who think they are a shoe in. Instead, they look for the underdog, the one with a compelling essay or application. My heart feels for you OP, because you did everything right. As a Cornell alumna myself, I’d be pleased to have the likes of you sitting next to me in class. I guess if its not yield and RD admissions, it’s because you didn’t have a hook–another pet peeve of mine. These days it’s all about elite colleges giving the opportunity to someone they want to–not the best and brightest candidates.
I am sure the OP will get in to some of the schools he applied. According to his posting, I see only top level schools and then some schools ranked in 95th or less in regional ranking. The schools are probably great in their own ways but the choice of schools for the OP seems rather odd. I wish OP all the best.
Maybe OP or somebody else will correct my math, but from
http://cornellsun.com/2017/12/20/cornell-early-decision-admissions-rate-drops-for-3rd-year-in-a-row/
it looks like there were 1533 students admitted ED. 47% male = 721. Now subtract the legacies (22%), the athletes (11.5%), and the international students (14.3%). Since those categories overlap, let’s say you’re looking at roughly 450 spots. 19.1% of the class is Asian American. Now you’re looking at 90 -100 spots in your general category, but of course Cornell is not looking to fill all those spots with STEM/ Engineering applicants…
I think there just weren’t that many spots in your category compared to a huge number of qualified applicants (obviously including you.) Your statistics are absolutely amazing, but you just happened to be competing in a very competitive marketplace.
@armian Please don’t beat yourself up about this. There is nothing obvious about the stats that you have presented that suggest glaring weaknesses. Your academic record is superb. Unfortunately, there are more qualified applicants than there are spots at top schools.
Please let us know where you land - I’m sure it will be someplace great where your talent and hard work will be recognized.