LazyKid

Thank you. I also do really wish that someone with enough of a sense and intellect such as norcalguy would run the admissions at Cornell. The current system is a mess and it has negatively impacted the image, reputation, and caliber of student body at Cornell.

There is no question that the rankings are important. For some people such as oldfort, maybe since she is like 60 years old, (my guess since she has two children at Cornell) she doesn't give a crap about college rankings. Yet, the truth remains many of young alums do. So do the prospective students. And, so do the majority of current Cornell students. It would be dumb to deny that rankings don't matter at all and just tell people who are concerned about the issue: "Grow up".

Also, to say the least, the current admissions system at Cornell is NOT meritocratic. It rejects many of those hard workers with high qualifications and top scores in freshmen admissions, only to later accept tons of sub-par community college transfers that don't even submit SAT scores. This is really screwed up, and there is no excuse.

Colm

After pondering some ways in which this thread has developed, and veered off topic, I’ve come to the conclusion that while certain vitriolic commentators may be well intentioned, they never the less give a distorted view of Cornell – one that exaggerates what they perceive to be negative aspects of the school. They distort the truth to try to blunt-handedly force action on their desire to make Cornell yet more elite. They do not seem to accept the wisdom of the old saying at Cornell that Cornellians are: “Elite, but not Elitist.” Moreover, they also don’t seem to realize that their apparent insecurities don’t reflect very well on the school they claim to love. I am not saying that they shouldn’t work to improve their venerable school’s standing, but implying that entire groups are unqualified (and sometimes saying this explicitly) is mean-spirited as well as being false to facts.

Yes, Cornell may miss on a tiny minority of admits, but so does every other top tier school. Cornell’s policy of admitting a small portion of transfers from cc’s is not as negative as some have claimed in this thread. Why? Because a large section of these matriculates are incoming GTs who went through the rigorous up-front admissions process. Furthermore, the idea that the process has no teeth for non-GT transfers is not quite right. I’ve skimmed through some incredibly long Cornell transfer threads, and I was always saddened by the many well-spoken applicants who were rejected with stats far above the mean. Again, this is not to say that there haven’t been mistakes made in transfer admissions, or that standards shouldn’t be modified to require 4-year colleges. Should Cornell administrators work to maintain and enhance Cornell’s public image? Of course, but as norcalguy said, Cornell should not “sell their soul,” like certain schools, to do so. The reason that I largely agree with norcalguy’s 5 suggestions, while bristling at other posters’ comments that may on the surface seem similar, is because though norcalguy states his opinions with strength, he never-the-less is careful to include qualifications from time to time. Others in this thread have railed against the entire transfer population, making no provisions for the fact that the majority of transfers are great, smart, hard working people who well deserve their place at the school – and I say this having no “horse in the game” since the transfer students that I personally know are not family or the closest of friends.

Back to the topic of the original post:
Thanks behappy7, and I completely agree:
Good luck to all RD applicants!

oldfort

LazyKid - let me ask you, when you were at Cornell did you try to do anything to change its admission policy? Did you speak with any administrator, volunteer at the admission office, be part of the student government? I think the answer would probably be no.

There are doers and there are talkers in this world. My kid gave much back to Cornell while she was at Cornell. She ran many events for the students. She didn't like few parties given by some fraternities because they discriminated against certain race group. Even though she was in the Greek life (a very popular sorority), she protested against those fraternities. She wasn't a popular person for a while, but she did something about what she believed in, and she did bring some awareness to the campus. What she doesn't do is to come on this board to bad mouth her alma mater.

Talking about prestige, what LazyKid is doing on this board is bringing down Cornell's branding by sounding like an uneducated person, and by being a bigot by saying URMs are unqualified (not just some).

LazyKid

I may not be the most intelligent person out there, but at least I had 2200+ on SAT and got into Cornell via 'fair' standard process.

Also, regarding your daughter - congrats and all on having the most amazing child. I noticed how you brag about your daughter all the time around this forum. Just remember that your daughter's success story has no relevance to this topic whatsoever and you should learn to argue better.

Regarding URM - although it is politically incorrect to say, many of URM students get into elite colleges despite horrible scores. I actually know a black guy with 165 LSAT score who got into Harvard Law School. If a white guy has that score, that guy would be shut out of top 20 law school. I think it is unfair that just because someone has darker skin color s/he is given automatic huge boost in the admissions game.

However, I am aware that this problem isn't just existent at Cornell so I won't go much into it. You need to be also aware that affirmative action is a very controversial policy and there are many who don't support it.

Lastly, while I didn't volunteer at admissions office, I did talk to some lower-profile admissions people at Cornell. Some of them seemed to acknowledge that the current system had major flaws, but seemed too afraid to speak out against their bosses. Also, they were trained and conditioned to run admissions the way it is now by senior leadership for some years now, so some of them were doing their job without really 'questioning' or 'thinking' about the legitimacy of the process. I am afraid their bosses (heads of admissions at Cornell) are people who think just like you. LOL!

norcalguy

Provost Fuchs gets it.

I think Cornell administrators understand that some of their admissions policies are, um, unique. But, I suspect Cornell receives more money from NY state than we realize and that's what's driving some of these ridiculous admissions.

As I said before, Colm, even though CC transfers make up a relatively small percentage of the total student body, they nevertheless matter disproportionately in the perception of Cornell. Look at affirmative action for instance. Even though URM's make up a tiny percentage of the study body, it still creates a ton of controversy. Everyone who gets rejected from a university thinks its the underqualified URM who took their spot instead of the 10 more qualified ORM's who were admitted. Similarly, dumb Cornellians (transfers or not) stand out a lot more than the successful, normal Cornellians.

For the sake of fairness, I did a search for transfer threads related to Cornell in the transfer forum. It is certainly well known in the transfer community that Cornell is lenient when it comes to transfer admissions. In fact, I saw multiple references that corroborate what majoreco was saying: that some CC transfers literally do regard Cornell to be a safety school. I'll put up with Cornell's image as the "safety Ivy" because that's still at least a backhanded compliment. But, it is absolutely ridiculous for community college transfers to be regarding Cornell as a safety.

Colm

@norcalguy, post #80
It's my contention that CC applicants who regard Cornell as a safety are either 1) trolling, or 2) so stupid that that wont get in anyway, or 3) GTs who see it as a safety because for them it is -- literally (assuming they've fulfilled the grade and course requirements). And, for the record, I've already agreed that Cornell should change their policy to require 4-year colleges (but that doesn't mean that all current-day CC admits are unqualified).

cortana431

Well do you think in the long run, Cornell admissions will naturally get much more selective as the number of applications go up and up each year?

norcalguy

Applications are going up for virtually every college in the country. Selectivity is relative to what's happening with your peers' admissions. If your applications are only going up 5% while your peers are experiencing a 15% increase in applications, then you are actually becoming relatively less selective. Unless changes are made, I actually see Cornell becoming less selective as time goes on. It's acceptance rate and average SAT scores are already near the bottom of top 20 colleges.

At a time when it seems college admissions is becoming more competitive, Cornell is actually making things less competitive. I don't know why it's choosing not to require transfers to send in SAT scores. I don't know why it's decreasing the percentage of students it's enrolling via ED. I don't know why it's choosing to overenroll via RD rather than play it conservative and just go to the waitlist to fill any gaps. I just don't get it.

Colm

Who knows just how long the trend of increased applications will continue(?), not me, but the upward trend that results in lower selectivity doesn't seem to be over quite yet. Also, let's hope that norcalguy's pessimistic forecast above is off-the-mark. I think it is, just like the many shortsighted pundits who wrote off Cornell in the NYC Tech campus competition vs Stanford -- Cornell can surprise you every now and then.

LazyKid

I am convinced that senior leadership is what controls the admissions policies at Cornell. Most of admissions officers at Cornell just work for their bosses and whether they agree with this kind of f-ed up policy or not, they are trained and conditioned to practice admissions as senior leadership in admissions committee pleases.

Hence, I don't think anything will EVER change at Cornell's admissions UNLESS we replace the senior leadership in Cornell admissions committee. When UPenn and Duke replaced their senior admissions leadership in early 2000s, they dramatically changed up their admissions policy and became much more selective. Look at UPenn: they rose from like #11 rank to #4 rank. Same as Duke.

GorgesIthaca

In 2005, UChicago and Cornell were both #14. In 2006, UChicago was #15 and Cornell was #13. Look where they are today..

In terms of the application growth, Cornell has shown the lowest growth of application volume in the Ivy League + Stanford, MIT; Cornell usually has shown single digit growth while other institutions have shown explosive double digit growth. Please refer to the fourth chart on Ivy League Admission Statistics for Class of 2015 Hernandez College Consulting, Inc. and Ivy League Admission Help
(I haven't verified the numbers so not 100% sure if the numbers are accurate). Compared to its peers, Cornell's growth seems almost static.

Hopefully Tech campus will attract more applications but it's a thirty year project. In the meantime, Cornell should market little better so they can increase the yield % as well as the growth of applications.

behappy7

You haters [trolls?] are just tooo much. For what its worth, in the 2012 USNWR rankings, Cornell's academic reputation index ranked #6 in the country [higher than Chicago, Penn, and Duke]. Cornell was also ranked #9 by academic guidance counselors. It still receives more applications than any Ivy. It's 2016 ED application growth was 2nd best in the Ivies.

mathstarftw

That's true, but you've also have to look at the other side. If, for the Class of 2015, Cornell had admitted as high of a percentage of the total class side for the early decision round as Penn did (around 48%), then Cornell would have had less than a 15% acceptance rate as compared to its 18% rate last year. Penn caters to the rankings, why not Cornell? That's how Penn shot up through the rankings.

Just that simply change makes a huge difference. And that's even including the fact that Cornell greatly overenrolled last year, by nearly 200 students. They could have easily admitted less RD students and ACTUALLY use the waitlist for once.

Drummerdawg

Okay, I'm starting to agree with LazyKid and norcalguy here, but I have a couple questions:

-Hasn't Cornell's acceptance rate been constantly decreasing over the years? Or are you guys just talking about acceptance rate relative to other top schools?

-Brown is tied with Cornell right now at #15, but its admissions rate is like half of Cornell's. Is this because Brown doesn't have some of the excellent programs that Cornell offers, or is it more a lack of graduate school prestige?

-Don't you feel like admitting even more kids through ED rounds is a bit unfair for the kids who can't afford to go without knowing their aid?

mathstarftw

I'm not sure about why Brown is ranked #15, but I will tell you that #15 is the lowest rank Cornell has had since 1995.