I am surprised you were rejected too. When something like this happens, I like to think of it as God or Fate or the Universe saying “that’s not where you are meant to be.” Hope that helps and I think you will flourish at whichever college you do end up in.
***I couldn’t disagree more, @rebmob .While it is slightly surprising that a legacy applicant with the OP’s GPA and SAT scores wouldn’t be at least deferred, any school with at 14% acceptance rate is very likely rejecting a high percentage of the qualified applicants. No one has suggested that students acceptance or rejection was based on a whim. Anyone who isn’t on this year’s admissions team at Cornell will just be guessing at the reasons for rejection and it’s ridiculous to be dismissive of the OP’s very solid ec’s. There is no need to make him/her feel worse when you really don’t know why this decision was made.
This comment is really out of line and leads me to believe that you are in high school yourself and have very little idea of how college admissions work.
Indeed, @rebmob, unless you are on the admissions committee, you’re, to put it bluntly, talking out of your behind.
Adcoms do not admit or reject on a whim, but the criteria they use may be pretty incomprehensible to those on the outside.
As I said before, Cornell ED decisions do seem pretty idiosyncratic. Evidently, profs do get involved in admissions decisions there. If that’s the case, it may be more similar to Oxbridge admissions, where they care mostly about your tests and ECs in your subject of interest and discount other ECs heavily.
@rebmob, believe what do like, but I can see some ECs being worth more than others (and those being different depending on the school).
I’m surprised that the OP was rejected. I would think deferred at worst. I have seen many students with those stats and activities get in ED. But how come the OP is posting now - this happened months ago! In any case, the OP should have guidance call or even the legacy parent? (nothing to lose at this point - already rejected)
Just to clarify - I’m surprised due to the fact that is was an early decision legacy with a decent profile. In regular decision, anything could have happened!
"Can someone please tell me some of the potential reasons I was rejected? "
These are some “potential” reasons; just my wild speculation, applicability unknown
- Judged not hardest course of studies
When I visited Wesleyan with D1, we met with a student guide who was on, or sitting in on, their admissions committee. He told the group that he had just witnessed the committee reject an applicant with high test scores and high grades, because they felt she had not taken a sufficiently challenging program of studies at her school.
In your case, your relatively less spectacular achievement test scores, together with no hard AP courses up till now, may have caused them to question whether your level of academic achievement really matched your aptitude test scores.
The coursework is tough at Cornell. You have to demonstrate you can hack it. Maybe you didn’t, sufficiently, for those reasons.
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flunked “Why Cornell?”
The benefit of legacy is you are supposed to have additional insight into the university and your fit with same, Maybe whatever you wrote didn’t reflect that additional insight? Maybe you didn’t prove there was really a good match? Maybe they decided, based on what you wrote, that you’d really be happier someplace else? -
Recommendations and/or Essays
Maybe not as great as you thought? Maybe something written there suggested to them that you’d fit better elsewhere? -
Did you ask for a ton of financial aid?
I know these places are supposed to be “need blind” but personally I don’t really believe it. Just my own paranoia, possibly. My own theory is they are more eager to direct aid towards institutional priorities.
“…at least thought I would get deferred”
When I attended a CAS information session a few years ago, the speaker said they (CAS, at least) doesn’t really like to defer applicants. They feel that usually if an applicant can’t make it in ED they are unlikely to make it in RD. As for “legacy courtesy”, by not deferring you it clears your mind better to focus on other options. So in a way it is actually more truly courteous to reject you, rather than keep stringing you along, if they know already that in the end you will not be admitted.
“Evidently, profs do get involved in admissions decisions there. If that’s the case,…”
That is indeed most certainly the case.
http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/2014/12/arts-and-sciences-reading-every-admission-application
As for the second choice, College of Human Ecology, maybe you didn’t write anything to really indicate why you want it as a second choice, or fit with its programs better than anyplace else in America you could attend, after Cornell CAS ?
BTW there is no actual Biology major in CHE. There are some other programs there that are close, but you’d probably have needed to connect why you prefer them to all others (after CAS Biology).
That’s the kind of information a legacy should know about, and have addressed, for the legacy status to have real meaning. But again, it’s just a “potential” reason. Maybe you did appropriately address this.
At the end of the day, I agree with the others here. Maybe they misinterpreted some information, but then again maybe they decided you’d be better off someplace else. And maybe they were right.
So shrug it off and move on.
I really like this story about former treasury Secretary Robert Rubin.
After he graduated from Harvard, he wrote to the Dean of Admissions at Princeton, who had rejected him, as follows:
“I thought you might be interested to know what happened to one of the people you rejected. I just wanted to tell you that I graduated from Harvard Summa Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa.”
“The Dean wrote me back, ‘Thank you for your note. Every year, we at Princeton feel it is our duty to reject a certain number of highly qualified people so that Harvard can have some good students too!’”