Don't Sweat Rejection: TRANSFER!!!

monydad
Thu, 02 Apr 2009 11:47:58 +0000

Again, I suspect that there may be some differences here based on college.
The one CAS transfer student I know best was fully qualified, moreover had a “hook”, and would have been a highly competitive candidate for admission out of high school. I’m not personally familiar with entrance stats, etc, of the couple others I’ve heard about, or met, but I do know some of them also had hooks, and/or very interesting/ unusual stories.Based on what I do know, I would not have presumed that the profiles of those individuals looked much different from those admitted out of high school. Indeed, there are undoubtedly many people rejected from CAS out of high school whose backgrounds don’t look much different than many who were accepted.

When you’re only accepting 18% initially, or 12-15% for transfer; and doing so in a way as to build a class, and have consequently somewhat squishy criteria; there will be some highly qualified applicants rejected, who are not “worse”, but rather didn’t happen to fit as well initially, or appeal to some reader’s somewhat arbitrary whim as well as some others did.

However, back in the day I did know some transfers to some of the colleges other than CAS who quite clearly would not have been likely to be admitted out of high school. I have no basis to know the extent to which this may be prevalent currently.

The one CAS applicant I know of submitted HS counselor LOR, so at least to the extent HS extracurriculars factored into the writer’s letter & opinion these could still be brought to Cornell’s attention. I would expect personal story, including extracurricular involvements, to continue to have some relevance for CAS admission, perhaps moreso than at some of the other colleges. But of course I’m not on these committees.