<p>[Applications</a> to C.U. Stagnate as Growth Continues at Other Ivy Schools | The Cornell Daily Sun](<a href=“http://cornellsun.com/section/news/content/2011/01/28/applications-cu-stagnate-growth-continues-other-ivy-schools]Applications”>http://cornellsun.com/section/news/content/2011/01/28/applications-cu-stagnate-growth-continues-other-ivy-schools)</p>
<p>Only question is, why?</p>
<p>Location location location
<p>The locations and stereotypes associated with most of these schools have not changed from the prior year.</p>
<p>Maybe because their ranking dropped from 14 to 15.</p>
<p>^ it was actually 12 last year … and it was 12 when i applied
it may be correct since many ppl only look at USNews ranking and think that it is representative of everything</p>
<p>IIRC the number of applicants nationally has not changed, and the # of applications to Cornell has not much changed. And the reputations and locations of the various schools has also not much changed. </p>
<p>Under such circumstances, where you see a lot more people applying someplace, it is reasonable to speculate that this may be in response to some initiative to prompt more people to apply.</p>
<p>This application cycle, my son received a dozen mailings from U Chicago, and a dozen emails from Emory. He asked me about Wash U because he found out he can apply there without doing any supplemental essays. On one of the boards someone said their school had made a concerted effort to do admissions tours in areas where they had not done so in the past, to expand the applicant pool. This is the kind of stuff institutions that are very concerned with expanding applicant numbers must do when the actual number of individuals applying to college nationwide is static.</p>
<p>Maybe Cornell didn’t happen to do so much of that stuff this year, comparatively speaking.</p>
<p>But also, it is receiving a lot of applicants, at some point with a finite # of seniors there are only so many that will apply.</p>
<p>I wonder whether the proportion of applicants to each college changed…</p>
<p>I mean even if the overall pool stagnates CAS could be receiving a lot more applicants than last year.</p>
<p>I think CAS and Engineering are taking most of the apps right now</p>
<p>Well that’s certainly not a good sign…</p>
<p>They had increased quite a significant amount in past years though.</p>
<p>As parent to senior who expressed interest in Cornell early Jr. yr and has stats to be a viable candidate, Cornell did NOTHING to market to him. When you come for a tour, they don’t get your name and address, interests to make that possible. If you put yourself on their mailing list you get one, maybe two mailings - in a complete year whereas other schools, I have files that are 4 inches thick (maybe a bit too much)! I don’t think Cornell can just sit back and think they can continue to just sit back on Ivy status and people will come to them. I have also asked on this forum, why Cornell vs. others (for my own understanding, not to bash it, but to make a good judgement come April) and got crickets. On other websites (c-*******), you hear repeatedly “uncaring profs” “large cutthroat classes” “weed out students”. If you don’t create positive vibes through marketing, the only noise you hear is the negative.</p>
<p>As parent to senior who expressed interest in Cornell early Jr. yr and has stats to be a viable candidate, Cornell did NOTHING to market to him. When you come for a tour, they don’t get your name and address, interests to make that possible. If you put yourself on their mailing list you get one, maybe two mailings - in a complete year whereas other schools, I have files that are 4 inches thick (maybe a bit too much)! I don’t think Cornell can just sit back and think they can continue to just sit back on Ivy status and people will come to them. I have also asked on this forum, why Cornell vs. others (for my own understanding, not to bash it, but to make a good judgement come April) and got crickets. On other websites (c-*****), you hear repeatedly “uncaring profs” “large cutthroat classes” “weed out students”. If you don’t create positive vibes through marketing, the only noise you hear is the negative.</p>
<p>Why do you care about speculation? Cornell is a top school for a reason, and since I’ve been here, I haven’t had an issue with large classes, weed outs, or callous professors. A lot of people who attend the school like it very much and attempt to utilize the various resources available.</p>
<p>Plus none of that changed this year, vs. the previous years over which applications rose a large amount.</p>
<p>I do agree though that some other universities are doing more now to drum up their numbers, and, given this result, Cornell may have to play ball more. I hope they don’t go the way of the U Chicago mega-spam mailings. Increased outreach initiatives seemed to be effective for Penn, that would be better, to me. </p>
<p>But whatever, I imagine they’ll do what they can. But the numbers probably cannot go up forever when applicants overall are not increasing.</p>
<p>Is there anyone who can tell us if you applied ED to the ILR school at cornell and if you have any suggestions?</p>
<p>I definitely only got two or three mailings from them, and no emails that I can remember (you’d think I would have because I’m a triple legacy…) They did send me their 2009-2010 course catalogue on a disk for some reason…it was about 700 pages of pdf and I didn’t even really look at it. I actually like the fact that they didn’t send me much because getting mail from colleges is annoying, but I guess it doesn’t help their advertising.</p>
<p>When I took a tour I asked the tour guide whether they take my name and info and she said no, because Cornell receives over a million visitors each year and there’s no way they could keep track of everyone.</p>
<p>When we toured Brown I’m pretty sure they didn’t take names either. That was several years ago though, and I could be wrong. I agree about the mailings, you’d think more than a couple would actually be counter-productive, annoying actually. And definitely does not enhance the image. Evidently it works though. But this would not be my preferred approach.</p>
<p>My son got roughly the same amount of mailings from the other “top” schools as we did from Cornell, no more no less, roughly. So I wouldn’t say Cornell was an outlier in this regard. The exceptions, hugely, were U Chicago and Emory, it is they who were the outliers.</p>
<p>To put things in better perspective it might be more useful to look at the change in applications at all schools over the last five years, rather than just looking at one year in isolation. There may be some overreaction here.</p>
<p>Islander - I am glad you haven’t had any issues. In deciding where to apply and where to go, we look at concrete and subjective information. We form opinions based on how the tour went, how our interactions with admissions were, opinions from students both neighbors and from online sites, whether kids look happy around campus, what the student newspaper is talking about, how successful recruiting is, the prestige and competitiveness of admissions, the strength of the alumni network. </p>
<p>What was different? Cornell had bad national press last year. You can argue that the incidents weren’t related, that Cornell responded, formed committees or whatever…but the soundbite on CNN was the sensational headline and not the response. Brown didn’t need to look warm and fuzzy this year, but maybe Cornell did. That is all I am saying. Or, like Monydad said, need to look at overall trending, not just one year. I’m sure someone will be looking at it, maybe a PR firm will be hired. Hopefully they won’t go the route of UChicago and clog everyone’s inboxes.</p>
<p>Agree that last year’s headlines fed into negative Cornell stereotypes. I’m actually surprised their numbers didn’t go down. Also their marketing is not up to par. I think their adcoms need to get out of Ithaca and go visit some other colleges info sessions, tours, etc. to see that they could be trying harder. OTOH, Cornell is a great place (I’m an alum) with tons of energy and diversity second to none in the Ivies (diversity in all its guises), but it is not a place where anyone holds your hand. The university expects you to be an adult capable of navigating a big place, finding housing, seeking out help, etc. This goes against the grain of current college admissions messages which sometimes seem more like an extension of summer camp.</p>
<p>I thought those headlines would have affected the prior year, when it was happening, But #s went up that year. By this cycle that was history, compared to being actually going on for the prior cycle. So I would have thought the effect would be much lower this time.</p>
<p>But yes it could have had an effect, both years, good point. And there’s nothing much to be done about that, that they haven’t done. That I can think of.</p>
<p>I think the two suicides that got all the attention were in the spring semester when apps were already in. Might have affected the yield, but not the apps.</p>