waffle

Question is the title. I know it's usually the SAT for most colleges, but I see some people here saying that Cornell is different. Just a question out of curiosity - so is Cornell more GPA oriented or SAT (I'd hope GPA - that's not to say my SAT's are bad, but even though I did well I still hate them and wish they'd all be burned)?

bearcats

SATs i think ...but they also care a lot about eECs and legacies

counters

My understanding is that they're biased towards neither. They consider the applicant as a whole. Granted, you can't have terrible test scores or a terrible GPA, but you can offset your hard academic performance in some ways such as extracurriculars.

LurkNessMonster

High GPA, definitely. At least judging from my daughter's high school results last year and the year before that.

journey495

for transfers it is definately high college GPA.

bearcats

for my school we had them all over the map..but there's a similarity...all high SATS...probably becoz we dont rank...and even when we put grade distributions ..they are unweighted so you cant just compare GPA...and they accept kids from 2.8-4.0 from hotchkiss anyway

waffle

Yeah, I tend to think that Cornell takes a more holistic approach overall, which can be good, but it also makes me nervous since Cornell seems less predictable in this way. I looked back at the ED acceptance/rejection/deferral thread from last year and looking through all of the CAS people, I could not find any true pattern of acceptance. I saw people rejected with ridiculously good test scores and EC's yet others with only moderately high scores get accepted. Some decisions just seemed totally random, but the one slight trend I think I could pull was the high GPA.

Man, I'm so nervous. I keep scrutinizing every part of my application that showed off my personality now, particularly the essays. Before I submitted the essays I thought they were amazing, and now I'm at the point where I'm fluctuating between amazing and crap constantly. Anyone else feel this way?

r1400sch

Ooooh yea. I never thought my supp essay was fantastic but now I think its crap. and the 2 essays I thought were amazeringer the time I sent them I now think are average. At least I still like my resumé and stats...well...I've been criticizing parts of my transcript/grades too.

meestasi

everything is important, just don't have any glaring weaknesses and write killer essays