@MrElonMusk @chb088 @monydad Your responses are so inspiring. I hope Op reads your comments and gets some relief.
“Success is the ability to go from a failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm” -Winston Churchill.
Hope you will soon be able to laugh off today’s frustration. You define Yourself.
Sorry that is shaking your confidence. Lots of kids with your stats get rejected tho. Chin up and keep looking forward!
What a great achievement ! I believe you will hear great news in 2~3 weeks !
Yes, racism is just wrong.
@armian I went to Cornell. You are too perfect in a purely academic way to get into Cornell. Strange but it could be true. With perfect stats like that, you need to write real emotional essays showing vulnerability to increase your chances because schools will think you seek perfection too hard.
Go to Honors College for free, kick bu**s there because you have what it takes to do that easily and go to a top graduate school.
Do not ever let rejections from colleges shake your confidence. Your stats are better than 90% of kids at top schools. IMO.
If you get into Stanford — I think they should accept you — let me know so I can introduce my son to you (he will be a freshman there next year) so you can help him in his CS class. Lol. He’s a non-STEM kid who might take CS Intro class to broaden his horizon.
Heck, set your sight higher than Cornell. Think good riddance. I would be insulted and not even go there if I am accepted during RD. Lol. My kid didn’t even want to apply to Cornell even with the legacy advantage. Lol
With all due respect to Cornell, you need more challenge than what you will get at Cornell. You should apply to CalTech for sure, MIT, Harvey Mudd, Stanford, Georgia Tech, University of Illinois etc. and then two or three safeties that will offer you full rides.
What made you apply to Cornell? It’s cold there, very cold. You remind me of my friend who went to MIT and got nearly all As.
One of my good traits was that when I got mad, I worked harder instead of drinking, getting depressed or worried. You should be absolutely proud of your achievements and have a great deal of confidence that no matter where you go, you will shine in your field.
FWIW, re #84-85, while I can agree that it is cold there ( during a good chunk of the school year, anyway), I do not agree that OP is “too perfect” to be admitted, or OP would “need more challenge” if OP attended there.
I have, however, seen other cases right here on CC where the university rejected in ED a seemingly very highly qualified candidate. In all likelihood, IMO, because, after reviewing the whole application, the applicant did not really fit that well with what they were applying for. They thought the applicant would find schools that fit better in RD. Seems surprising that they would behave in such an altruistic manner, but I could think of no other explanation. Though of course they do care about fit and don’t want unhappy students or people transferring out.
But none of us have read OP’s whole application, or compared it with the applications of other candidates. So who really knows.
All is not fair in love, war and college admissions. I tell my kids “Bloom where your’re planted.” That’s all any of us can do. Shake off disappointment and look for your next opportunity. Life is all about making good on opportunities that come your way. You can’t do anything about the ones that overlook you.
Just think adcoms make mistakes all the time. One girl not going out on a date does not mean other girls won’t go out on dates with you. Maybe you will be thankful later on that this girl said no. Life is not an algebraic equation I am afraid.
Actually, you don’t strike me as a good fit for Cornell. I went there and can say you will thrive at some other top schools.
Don’t get me wrong. I think Cornell is wonderful college which is strong in many diverse areas from architecture program, hotel management, agriculture, Humanities to tough engineering schools. In fact, if it wasn’t for the remote location (and summer is wonderful), Cornell would be ranked a lot higher. All I am saying is OP has exceptional hard stats above and beyond even accepted students at top colleges. But really, OP would do well at any good engineering school, so he should really go after merit money or grants, given his family’s financial situation. Good luck OP. Tell us where you end up.
Great feedback for OP on many counts. I am a little troubled by some of the focus on how his “perfect stats” “should have” gotten him in to his school of choice. First, life is by definition imperfect and even unfair. That would be the first lesson I would hope he can learn here. If OP has not had time to listen to music in his spare time, he should check out Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones “You Can’t Always Get What You Want”. This might be therapeutic.
Second, OP has already stated that he has not been sleeping and has anxiety. It’s no wonder when students feel they must do everything right and get “perfect” scores in order to be validated by XYZ school who admits them. It is unhealthy to allow a school admission decision to define you. Over analyzing every which way what he “could have done” with his essays or should have included about his Physics Club is not helpful now. The lesson here is NOT that he did something wrong.The lesson is that life is not going to always turn out all roses and the best thing to do is to accept that fact. Psychologists write about attribution theory which tells us that the most successful people learn that when they face a challenge such as a “rejection”, the best thing is to not internalize or self blame. If one cannot initially accept the reality, it is better to attribute external factors such as “the reader had a lapse in judgement that day” or “the school already accepted too many Asian males in engineering” “oh well, it’s their loss”. Check out Martin Seligman’s “Learned Optimism” and many books on positive psychology.
Third, while I believe @armian did nothing wrong, there is always some room to evaluate what might be learned from an experience in a broad sense and be done a little better in the future (without beating oneself up!) For example, is it possible that the emphasis in essays was a little too much on accomplishments and perhaps not as much about what he wants to do for the community and others? I believe that point was made earlier by another poster. I realize that may seem like a criticism and antithetical to my earlier point about NOT over analyzing what went “wrong”, assuming anything did, but if approached in a constructive way, it may help change the mindset for future interviews or applications.
I read an article once about college essays and how readers do not necessarily like to see a neat progression of one success after the next, but rather, more of a story that includes initial setbacks, then progress, followed by another success, then another setback, and finally a resolution. In that vein, it is possible that the “perfect” applicant may actually be somebody who has dealt with adversity and imperfection. It may do the OP some good to talk through some of these things with a counselor and/or pick up a book at the library on perfectionism.
The bottom line is that one “rejection” does not a man make. Life is a series of ups and downs and as others have posted, it may be a blessing to learn that lesson now rather than later when getting that first B or C in college. Another lesson is to not put all one’s eggs in one basket. It’s ok to have some top choices but insisting on one can often lead to disappointment. I agree with others that this is an opportunity to learn resiliency.
Finally, although there are many who would disagree, Ithaca can be a pretty miserable place to be in the winter! I am biased, living in the South, but I think if OP gets into GA Tech, there is a lot of opportunity here that can be achieved without freezing your buns off :-). Good luck. You just might find you will get what you need!
@Nomorelurker is correct.
I’ve worked at the admissions offices of various universities ranging from fairy selective to most selective, and I volunteer as an admissions interviewer at my alma mater. Sometimes, it’s the less-perfect candidates that are easier to understand (and therefore, accept). When pretty much everyone who applied to the school was perfect to begin with, we really looked at the personal qualities and extracurricular activities.
One thing I have definitely noticed as a trend over the years is that being “well-rounded” is less likely to be seen as a plus these days (this was definitely NOT the case when I started back in the early 2000s, when being an all-around leader, doer, and joiner was a good thing). At every “highly selective” admissions office I’ve worked for since 2010+, they’ve carefully crafted their class to find people who are exceptional at 1-2 things (even if it’s something totally random and seemingly trivial). Most admissions committees actually meet several times over the course of the admissions season to see what kind of class they’ve put together so far, what the yield is likely to be, and what kinds of people they would like to add throughout the season.
Being good at like 5 activities, volunteering, speaking a second language, and having great stats is standard at these universities. You have no idea how many applications adcoms read that are literally perfect, essays that are flawless, etc. and yet they can’t get a sense of the person underneath at all. If they were to describe the applicant, he/she would be… perfect? This applicant’s favorite subject was… everything? This applicant did… all the usual stuff? This applicant likes… who knows? (You get the idea.)
I’ve actually seen significantly less “perfect” candidates admitted because they had a real strength in something, expressed real weaknesses, and people found them super-interesting. (And no, they weren’t always URMs or from remote areas of the country.)
That said, there are PLENTY of wonderful schools that will accept the OP, and his/her life is not over because one school says no. One school saying no means very little in the bigger scheme of things. As all the other posters say, every successful person in the world has endured a rejection of some sort!
Thank you for your replies, everyone. Just wanted to post an update.
So I spoke to my counselor, and neither of us could figure out what went wrong. However, I received a likely letter from Columbia earlier today, so I think I will do well in the RD round.
Thanks again!!! I’ll be sure to post all of my final results.
Congrats! That’s great and should hopefully provide some temporary relief as you go thru this process!
Cornell rejection was a fluke imo. Not many kids get a likely letter from Columbia, a school that emphasizes academics a little bit more. At least one school views your accomplishments the same way I view yours. I bet you will get into UChicago if you applied there. Probably MIT.
The Columbia likely letter confirms that IMO your application is top 90% of admitted students at top schools. I believe the RD results will reflect that. Let us know as the results come in. The thing that stands out for me is you
I also felt for some reason Cornell was not a good fit for you. Your academic accomplishments plus being a Senior Class President as well as leading several clubs stands out for me.
Cornell’s loss is Columbia’s gain. I would rather go to school in NYC than in Ithaca any day.
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THIS. Nobody ever wants to believe that the AdComms have any idea of what they are doing. The AdComms at super-selective schools know who they have accepted before, who is in the mix this round, and what they are trying to build.
If Columbia loves the OP enough to send a likely letter (and they don’t send many), it means that Columbia sees @armian not just as a qualified candidate, but as a good fit.
@armian, I’m glad that you came looking for support, and I hope that the many kind and helpful posts here helped you through what was obviously a painful jolt. If Cornell was the first time you have ‘failed’ or been rejected, I hope you remember a little of that feeling going forward. It will help you be a kinder person when others around you stumble. It should also be a reminder that you are more than the sum of your resume!
The process is extremely competitive and there are “no guarantees” anywhere even for amazing applicants like yourself. You will shine wherever you go!
SO SO glad you got into Columbia OP! Coming from a disadvantaged background and growing up with two deaf parents, you’ve come a long long way and will go even further, with or without Cornell, Columbia, etc. You must always remember that your accomplishments are never “for nothing” even if they are not immediately recognized by the people you want to impress. Congratulations!
I always thought of likely letters in the context of athletics, but a search turned up this, which confirms that non-athletes get them too:
https://www.collegeconfidential.com/dean/what-are-likely-letters-like/