@tigerbeach and @momof2blondes I am a parent of a daughter who is a freshman this year. She also applied ED and was accepted. I vividly remember last year, eagerly waiting and trying to not worry about it. Luckily she was super busy with senior year, but I could tell it was lingering in her mind. I made her (or should I say strongly suggested) she get all her other apps ready so if she were disappointed on Dec. 11 she would just have to hit submit and then her Christmas break would not be so stressful. Fortunately, she took my advice, so she was busy getting these done. It’s a real crap shoot it seems, and after putting in all that work it would have been a bummer if she were denied or deferred to the RD round. She had a great attitude throughout the process though.
The day the decisions were to come out, when she was leaving for school in the morning, I told her to not worry about it (or at least try to not worry about it!). She said “I’m neutral like Switzerland”. She had about 90 minutes or so when she got home to wait for the decision so she went up to her room and started on her homework. She didn’t outwardly seem that nervous, but I’m sure she was on the inside. I was trying to busy myself with dinner in the meantime. (read: stomach in knots). I was not present with her when she opened up her letter online, as I figured I would let her do this in the privacy of her room so she could let it sink in either way. The next thing I hear is a big thud from upstairs and she came running down the stairs with the laptop and I immediately knew by the sound of her voice that it was good news. Honestly after that, it’s a blur, but a flood of tears started coming from her. I think it was such a stress relief because she was trying to keep calm for so many months! Everything was pent up inside of her. We jumped up and down and called her dad at work (although he had been calling me all day–he was anxious too!) and her sister at college (who said, “I told you so!”) and then we scrapped the dinner and went out to celebrate.
I wish you the best of luck. My D loves it at Cornell. Loves all her class and profs. Workload is tough, but she’s doing great. She’s joined a few clubs and is trying to meet people who are like her. There are lots of parties at Cornell (as in any school) and she is not into that scene at all, but she says there is no pressure to partake.
Her “Why Cornell” essay was stand-out excellent and she received a note from adcoms after admissions came out that they loved her essay. So when they say admissions is holistic, they mean it.
@momof2blondes Good luck to you and your son! I am not sure if my son spent enough time on his essays. Graduating from a competitive private school proves to be a disadvantage to him with some classmates with higher GPAs. He is an athlete but one injury earlier this year ended his hope to be recruited to play for Cornell. So I am getting ready to accept a rejection. His credentials are all average. So keep our fingers crossed. Maybe a miracle can happen?
I really hope the best for all the kids and parents on this forum. As parents we want our kids to be happy, but along with way, disappointments can and will happen. We just always tried to impress on our daughters that this one decision (up or down) does not define you as a person and part of being successful in life is learning to live with good news and bad news, and making the most out of every opportunity that presents itself.
And for the students here, I’m sure you all have supportive parents and family systems. Good good luck! You’ve all worked hard and the best things in life are at your doorstep, whether it be Cornell or not.
@TiggyB62 thank you for sharing your moment with your daughter, how wonderful! I too hope to have a similar experience but I also know that if it doesn’t work out, my son will have many other opportunities and all will work out just fine.
Are there others here who are still waiting for the email to arrive with the applicant ID #? My son hasn’t received that email yet. He applied ten days ago.
@cyan24 Definitely email Cornell if you’re super sure you never got it…the middle of November will be here in about a week, having your appID will help if you need to verify that you sent something!
“Your materials have been received. Your application has been forwarded to the admissions staff for review.”
Woohoo!!! Dang I’m a bit relieved but now more anxious, knowing they’re considering me now or will do so on Monday…is there anyone else who’s applying that lives in South Carolina? I hope I’m the first SC kid…not sure how many apps they get from SC, but hopefully I’m the first kid from my state to have my application be reviewed by the admissions staff. Knowing Cornell, they probably are going down a list trying to find a kid for every demographic…if I’m the first SC kid they can check the “SC demographic” off their list, hence increasing my chances…? Maybe, or perhaps I’m just crazy…?
@kyvonnej I think the general consensus is that all of the schools are difficult to get into, regardless of disparities. From what I’ve heard, most of it depends on fit. Thus, if you haven’t taken appropriate classes engineering would be difficult to get into even if it did have a higher acceptance rate.
My ECs, recommendations, essays and SAT are within the range. It’s just that I’m not really sure about my ranking atm. If my class rank is lower than top 10%, will I get rejected? I am so worried
^um not true @ArthurDent42. My D is a Cornell Ambassador and she does all the info sessions with the adcoms for perspective students, and admission into Cornell is difficult among all the 7 colleges. Each college is looking for the right fit among all its competitive applicants. If you look at the common data set by school, you will see the acceptance rates for each school for Fall 2015: Engineering actually has the lowest admit rate. The “private endowed” schools are CAS, COE, AAP, Hotel. ILR, HE, and CALS are NY state land grant colleges.
16% AAP
14.7% CAS
14.7% CALS
13.5% COE
28.6% Hotel
25% Human Ecology
13.8% ILR
@NotAMathlete Yes they do, although they also take into account a bunch of other fields of demographics, race, religion, etc. You didn’t just submit your ED app today, did you?