I understand that Cornell ILR looks for genuine interest in industrial and labor relations for admissions. How is one to express such interest, though? Essays? Internships?
I was recently admitted into the ILR school and to show fit I think the essays and extracurriculars are your best bet. Personally, I did a business operation research project for DECA whose prompt was basically just an HR consulting project and I won 3rd place for it at a state competition , so I wrote about that for my ILR essay and tied it into what I wanted to learn at the school which included mentioning specific classes. However, even if you do not have a similar experience from an extracurricular you should focus on talking about the certain subjects that ILR focuses on (organizational behavior, labor history, etc) and why you would like to learn about them and how you would use your knowledge in your future career. They also like students who get good grades in humanities subjects such as government, U.S. History, etc (I just heard this from one of those ILR webcast).