<p>I have been told I have fantastic scores and GPA to get into Cornell and was almost a “shoo-in” for getting in. I know this is just my guidance counciler being overly optimitistic as most admissions at these caliber schools are iffy at best but how would you rate my chances:</p>
<p>ACT: (35M,35Eng,35Sci,33Reading,30Writing(messed up the essay))
SAT- 750Math, 710CR,660Writing and 700Math 760Cr and 640Writing
GPA weighted will is around a 4.75 (highest possible)
and unweighted is 4.00</p>
<p>Course load: all honors and AP Chem in my junior year (now)-note we do not have as many AP’s possible for our school as they start this year</p>
<p>Senor Class load is all AP’s </p>
<p>EC’s: Soccer Jv fresh and sophmore (captian) and Varsity letter Junior
Track Starting this year
Student Council: senator sophmore year and secratary this year
Several Engineering Comps- JETS 2nd place last year in section and 28 in state and NEDC semifinalists(top 25/hundreds)
Engineering apprenticeship at CMU
Youth Group and Week long Mission trip/ all year fundraiser
tutor and library volunteer
Club soccer all year round Freshman and Sophomore Year- state champs and various tourneys won
A couple Math competitions but no awards from them
Westinghouse Science Honors Institute
several other volunteering things</p>
<p>Thanks in Advance, I know there are people like me posting all the time and I do appreciate giving me some feedback</p>
<p>Thank you and I heard that they do not consider the writing but did not know if it was true.
I would be applying to their college of engineering maybe chemical or materials? Also by June I will have taken Math level 2 and Chemistry subject tests.</p>
<p>very good chance,
but remember that at the ivys, without a strong hook such as big time athletics or very connected legacy, admissions are a crap shoot. you never can be sure.
Cornell is a great place.
Is it your first choice?
remember that CAS and Engineering at cornell are significantly more difficult for admission at cornell than the state contracted schools.
I see you are going for engineering, which if you get in is a first rate school</p>
<p>Remember affirmative action. If you are a minority (one of the aforementioned hooks) you have an extremely good chance. Also remember that ED at Cornell is a huge boost if you use that option (you need to be 100% sure it’s your 1st choice though)</p>
<p>Jalmoreno makes a good point about minority. it is a hook, but not nearly as strong as being an athlete that is recruited in a major sport or a very connected legacy.
as for ed - be very very careful read the posts here at cc about the cornell ed myth.
possibly as much as 75% - 80% of the cornell ed admits (using their own numbers) are recruited athletes and legacy. that makes ed very very hard for an unhooked applicant and as several have stated here, it you are unhooked, you may be better off going rd.
you can find cornell’s number of admitted legacy and athletic recruits somewhere on their web site. it is an amazingly high number. and don’t forget that cornell has a ton of recruited athletes - probably second only to Stanford, and most recruited athletes go ed.
Ed is great, but at Cornell it could work against you.</p>
<p>No, I applied ED. Admit.
I could be incorrect, and I admit that, but from the numbers cornell itself releases, I don’t see how going ed for an unhooked can help.
I went ED.
If I could do it again, I’m not sure I would have.
this is just my opinion, not looking to argue with anyone here
I only suggest that for anyone thinking ed at cornell without a hook, they look at cornell stats on how many recruited athletes and legacy they take, which is a huge number.<br>
too busy</p>
<p>Well, you’re already in at Cornell, so congrats. Did you have any of the ‘hook’ that you speak of? (like athletic recruit, etc) Because, that could influence your belief on this matter.</p>
<p>good point. I was not a recruited athlete, but do play a varsity sport and talked to the coach at cornell who said he would put in a favorable word for me. whether that helped, I do not know. anyway, anything about ed v rd is just an opinion, everyone needs to do what is best for them</p>
<p>@ engladern.
I do not diagree. The traditional college hooks are athletics (must be recruited though), legacy, under-represented minority, and even if you are the first one in family to attend college. From my experience athletics is a big thing as I have an acquaitance who is being recruited for football by Princeton and Harvard and even though I have stronger academics and am hispanic, he has a stronger chance of getting in because of his sport.</p>
<p>I’d argue that even if legacies and athletes make up the bulk of the ED pool, it is still a boost. One of the main reasons is yield. Colleges love to maintain a high yield of accepted applicants choosing their school and the thing about Cornell is a lot of people use it as their ivy back-up. For example, one of my friends last year got accepted by Yale and rejected by Cornell and another got accepted by Columbia but rejected by Cornell. My belief is that Cornell rejected them because they were overqualified; the admissions committee thought they would get in somewhere “better” and not pick Cornell, reducing the yield. However, if they had done ED, they would’ve gotten in a heartbeat, because they were fully commited to the school.</p>
<p>ED is a bit of a trade-off for applicants. Applicants give up choice, potentially, but they gain a better chance of being admitted (without this incentive, there would be no reason for ED other than to find out earlier and not having to wait until, in Cornell’s case, 3/30). Colleges also make a corresponding trade-off; they are willing to accept weaker applicants in order to ensure greater yield. I have a friend this year who got accepted ED and even though he is strong academically, I’m not sure if he would’ve been accepted RD (it was kind of a reach even in ED).</p>
<p>So yes, ED is a boost to all applicants, even if it is an over-inflated perception at Cornell.</p>
<p>very good points, I was just using the numbers from cornell. given how many total recruits and legacy got in last year, if 75% of them got in ed, then do the math, and compare the ratio of spots left to the # admitted ed and compare that to the rd admit % and you will see that unhooked rd is slightly easier.
this is just my opinion.
you could be right that it is a boost, but not that significant</p>
<p>Interesting, well I am hispanic though I have heard varying accounts on how helpful that actually is. Cornell is one of my top schools along with Northwestern, UMich, Duke…as of right now so I do not think I will go ED unless I fall even more in love with it when I visit in the spring</p>
<p>ariel, good luck to you! real nice school selection. Duke is getting extremely difficult to get into and very , very prestigious, on par and in some respects better than an ivy school also Duke sports, esp. basketball is huge and a big part of the school, and their grads do real well in the business world and law school, etc. I don’t know if Duke has an ED option.</p>
<p>I’m pretty sure you’re getting in anyways if you are hispanic. I think Harvard may very well take you in too.
In the end, go where you want to go. Every school has its pros and cons. Nobody cares which top school you go into if it’s already top, unless it’s say Harvard. If you seek to make that distinction when you get a job with another applicant from a top school with better stats, it will only reflect poorly on you – because really, employers are glad to have kids from top schools but not arrogant sons of a ***ches that use the abstract “prestige difference” argument between top schools to make up for a blemish in credentials. Your argument that “this school was ranked higher in ____ year” will turn over the next year, and every year after that. It has been like that and employers know it so they no longer distinguish applicants like that, but they know that top students are abundant in every top school. In the end, self presentation is the most important thing. You have much more important factors (financial aid, location, “fit”, etc) to consider. You have to know where you will do well in and the type of atmosphere that will aid your learning.</p>
<p>@jal, if you are one of those solid 2200-2300 applicants that think of cornell cas/engineering as a “safety school”, i got bad news for you…</p>
<p>About ED, everything is in another thread. Interpret it as you like, but pretty much everyone agrees that ED can only help an applicant solidify his or her chances (Even the admissions people themselves. Good enough?).</p>
<p>and @england, cornell is just as prestigious as duke. I don’t know if you are self pitying or something or if you want to make others feel bad about cornell somehow, but as a student accepted through ED to engineering have more respect and love for your school and our school. Cornell is one of the strongest ivies in terms of hard science, mathematics, and engineering, and home to some of the world’s most renown schools (Hotel). Cornell academics is among the best in the world, and in my opinion, kids who fail after they get in deserve to fail. If you think that Cornell isn’t good enough for you or it doesn’t fit you, don’t ED and don’t regret later. That simple.</p>
<p>antiflamer is right, except that I say if it is Harvard, yale or Princeton, Stanford Mit, that is a league unto itself, but yes all the top schools are very prestigious. it really depends on what you want to do in terms of picking a college,
hispanic will help, but remember it is much more than just numbers, no matter what you read here on cc.
Harvard probably gets many, many 2400 4.0 apps from minorities every year. minority helps, but it is always a crapshoot at the ivys.
cornell is one of the best for engineering and science and some other subjects
Duke is also great.
and the top LACs are amazing but very difficult, probably more so than some ivys, to gain admission, as they have amazing grad school placement - nearly almost all of their pre med pre law kids get into top schools and many go right to work making big salaries as their alumni are super loyal, something cornell is not as good at. but you need to like a small school environment to go there.
my sister got into Amherst off the wait list class of 2012 and went there over Princeton, Columbia and Cornell and she is going premed.
whatever you pick will work out just great</p>
<p>Sorry you interpreted my post like that, not my intent. That is why I put the word “better” in quotes before, I meant it to be sarcastic. Yeah, Cornell is definitely not an easy school and should never be anyonebody’s overall back-up. I just meant that, regardless of reality, many people percieve Cornell as weaker than say, Yale or Columbia. I disagree, especially since in some fields Cornell kick’s ass across the ivy-league (engineering!) and it has some majors that are hard to find elsewhere (hotel, ILR, etc.). However, many people will stick to those perceptions, based on crap like US News, and will not pick Cornell. For example, I read a post on this site that had someone with difficulty picking Cornell over Princeton for engineering, even though Cornell is obviously better, based on the general reputation of Pton. </p>
<p>The one thing that is true is that Cornell is easier to get into then Yale. Because of this, I would think that someone that gets into Yale should get into Cornell; however, I believe the college does make a deliberate effort to improve yield and prevent this, so they may reject the people that they believe will get in elsewhere and pick elsewhere (obviously, someone who really wants to go to Cornell will be able to communicate this in the essay. Someone who views it less proudly will probably not be able to muster this enthusiasm and thus be seen as trouble with regard to yield).</p>
<p>How is cornell’s job placement or preparation for graduate programs. Specifically the engineering school as compared to other schools(duke northwestern ect)</p>
<p>"I believe the college does make a deliberate effort to improve yield and prevent this, so they may reject the people that they believe will get in elsewhere and pick elsewhere "
So if someone like jesus applied to all the ivies he would be rejected because each college thinks another one would take him in. No that’s not how it usually works. It happens, but not often. The reality is that there’s a lot of luck involved in RD especially. I am not being bitter towards you, I’m just telling you that you reap what you sow. Although the chances can be very good, even a super amazing applicant is not even close to being guaranteed admission RD. The thing about cornell is though that they do get a lot of unqualified students (in my eyes) admitted, but the toughness of the academics will definitely differentiate the less qualified from the brighter, truly qualified individuals, and this will show on the grads’ GPA. Employers know this as well, and a high GPA from cornell is no less respected from one from HYPSM, if not even more (because of how hard it is to get near a 4.0 in cornell).</p>
<p>^ saying the job placement for cornell grads (at least in privates, don’t know about land grant but i think they do very well too) who have good credentials is amazing wouldn’t cut it. Defs as good or even better</p>