This comes off as a little judgemental. A 3.8 at my high school once when he had to convert from 100 scale to 4.0 was an A-, which means a student got an average of 90-92% in their classes. If OP is specifically skilled in, say, quantitative sciences and math, they may be getting high B’s in their history, foreign language, music, etc. classes, especially if their high school is truly competitive and they are taking the most rigorous courseload. I agree that more context about research would be preferable, but this student has as good of a chance at Cornell as most other unhooked applicants. Still a long shot, but not impossible, and definitely worth applying if this is OP’s top choice and it’s affordable.