So I will be visiting Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute later this year. RPI is a 3ish hour drive away from Cornell.
I was figuring we could hit two birds with one stone and visit both but unfortunately I have just been told “We won’t be visiting Cornell because you won’t get in”.
The only college essay my mom had any interest in reading was my general common app essay (she was SUPER helpful) and my Cornell essay. I suppose Cornell was the only school she had heard about before so she was curious. I don’t really know but it is her right to read my essays so I let her.
Anyway long story short she did not like my essay at all. I tried modifying it but I could never get her to accept it. I wrote the essay in a way I am pretty sure is how you are supposed to write them from my research practice and examples I have seen. I have already been accepted to some (albeit less competitive) schools with similar strategy.
In order to “fix” my essay she basically wanted me to repeat a bunch of activities, accomplishments, etc that were elsewhere in my application in order to prove my intellectual interest. She also wanted to explain (I kid you not) the way I designed the graphics engine for an app I made. I explained it to her on a car ride once and she thought it should go in a college essay.
Unfortunately, although I would have loved to shove those details in there I could not fit that in my essay that focused on sending a clear message to Cornell about who I am, what I am about, and why I like Cornell. There was simply not enough word count for me to add any of this stuff even after significant trimming of other content. And explaining my graphics engine is not even possible to do in under 650 words without just having sentences with a bunch of terms adcoms would probably have to look up. I could probably write a research paper on my graphics engine, it does not belong in a college essay.
TL;DR: I will not be able to visit Cornell. Do I have any hope? Any way I can show them how much I love the school?
I mean I suppose it doesn’t really matter since even without visiting I have a less than 10% chance of getting in, but it is still a bit of a bummer.
@ucbalumnus I could be wrong here but I doubt that that is true.
You could find out who your admissions officer is and send them a brief e-mail notifying them of any significant updates to your application (what have you done?) and continued interests.
If they admit people based on visits to their college, then they basically denied all the less privileged kids who live far away from their school, there is absolutely no way that visiting campus has any impact with the admission process.
Are you running the NPCs before planning college visits? If you won’t qualify for need based aid and your parents will only pay $15-20k/year, I wouldn’t visit schools unless the NPC indicates they’re affordable.
Some schools track whether you visited or not. Others quite frankly do not. I took a tour at Yale and some other schools a couple of years back and they did not bother having us sign in or even bother asking our names because they d not keep track of that information. For others like Fordham or Brandeis, they do and they send out application waivers to those who visit.
If they say it is not strongly considered I’d take them for their word. Cornell is generally well known but also pretty remote. They recognize that not everyone can physically come to visit
@Cubby208 The only reason visiting might have been beneficial is if you cited tangible experiences you had while on campus - connecting the dots in your essay for why it’s the right school for you. But like others have said, it’s not a deal killer. I also applaud you for sticking to your original essay. By what you described your mom was dead wrong to advise you to repeat your ECs and accomplishments. Big mistake and any admissions counselor will tell you that. It’s all about FIT. If your essay demonstrated how your skills, experience and passion could be an asset to Cornell, they will appreciate that more than regurgitating what the already read in the activities section of the common app. Did your mom say “you won’t get in?” Why not? What are your grades and test scores? If they are in the ballpark of the middle 50% of accepted students you might have a good shot.
PS: I had the same dilemma of visiting both RPI and Cornell. Thankfully we were able to squeeze both in last spring, but there’s no comparison. I absolutely hated RPI. Their academics may be good, but the overall campus experience was literally the worst I had seen on 14 college visits - especially if you are a girl.
Would you mind elaborating? I have never been there, but from photos and a quick Google Maps look, the campus looks pretty nice. I’m not looking to challenge you, I’m just very curious why your experience was so bad.
@STEM2017 I’m just one opinion so take it with a grain of salt. Here it is in bullet list form:
First impression, admission office directly across the street from a frat house, where they had music blasting and where hitting golf balls into laundry basket - literally the first thing you see pulling into the campus. I’m not against music and fun, but it seems like an odd place for a frat house.
No parking for the admission office other than a smallish area with a time limit. Police were there ticketing visitors who parking along the curb. Nice way to welcome a group of 30 or 40 people.
That day 90% of the student body were blocking the roads and sidewalks, marching in a protest for something about the student union. We could hear the chants everywhere we went.
Auditorium where they had us visitors was fine, but the info session was led by an assistant basketball coach and he ran through a PowerPoint word by word (zzzzzzz) and couldn’t answer specific questions. Note this is in April during high school spring breaks when prospective campus visits are at their highest levels. Why didn’t they have the director of admissions do it?
Tour guide (a girl) was lethargic and unenthusiastic (and said matriculate 25 times, I counted). My dad asked her off to the side if she would change anything if she had it to do over again and she whispered “I would have gone to Penn State.”
No landscaping to speak of. Don’t believe the pretty pictures online. It was April and nothing was blooming and no flower beds or greenspaces looked like they had been touched in years.
RPI was one of only two colleges that I visited that let us look at a dorm room. The freshman dorm we went in was 1970s, sparse, depressing, dirty and without power. When asked, the tour guide said “we’ve been having power issues lately.” Really? With hundreds of millions of dollars in endowment supposedly?
Went into a few buildings. They were fine, average classrooms and lecture style rooms, but the one cool, modern
building everyone wanted to see, the arts and humanities building where the playhouse is, we weren’t allowed to go in.
We didn’t see any labs or high-tech stuff that they were known for. Their brochure shows a whole room VR lab, but when asked, the tour guide didn’t think it existed but did confirm that RPI is known for a cool new video game design major.
Tour guide’s first stop was the security building where she repeated no less than 3 times that “you don’t want to wander around Troy at night by yourself.”
When our group wandered through their main library, one student mouthed “don’t go here” as we passed.
In that same library, no one sat in groups, a lot of loners and most looked miserable. No laughing or friendship was on display. It wasn’t finals week so why so serious?
Back to the student union/admissions building after 2 hours, yes, 2 hours of walking around and seeing every corner of this very small campus, Dad tripped on not one, but two broken sidewalks. Again, this is right at the beginning of the campus experience where most universities spend a lot of money to spruce up and make a good first impression. Yes, my dad is clumsy, but come on.
I’m a girl and felt uncomfortable with the number of guys staring at me throughout the tour. Other male dominated colleges I went to weren’t nearly as bad as RPI. I saw other girls, but it looked like a 10/1 ratio.
The City of Troy itself is depressing. We drove around for a little while to check it out and I didn’t see anything that made me feel like I would enjoy 4 or 5 years there.
I’m rambling but you did ask. Maybe I went on a bad day but there were about 20 negatives and only 1 or 2 positives on my list.
Take it from me, I’m went on 14 college visits in 18 months. I can’t make a choice from a brochure or website no matter how prestigious the university is. Maybe that’s just me, but I need to see it for myself and RPI finished dead last on my list, despite the fact I got the medalist scholarship for $100K over 4 years.
@cotopaxi , thanks for the RPI review. My daughter and I made a loop through Upstate NY last summer but couldn’t go everywhere so Cornell and Rochester won out over Rensselaer. She applied to all three, and has already gotten into Northeastern EA, so the “Is there any reason to consider RPI over Northeastern?” question is still on the table. Very interesting to hear your impressions.
And @Cubby208 - I agree with others that Cornell does not give much (if any) weight to whether you’ve visited campus. I think the question to ask yourself is what your decision tree would look like if you did get in. Are you sufficiently sold on Cornell to go there sight-unseen if you were accepted, or are there other schools on your list that would still be in contention? I take it your trip is planned between now and the notification date?
From what you’ve written here, I suspect that your Cornell essay was great and that your mom’s feedback was misguided. I have no basis on which to chance you, but it seems to me that the appropriate response to “We’re not visiting because you’re not going to get in” would be, “If you’re sure of that, then you won’t mind promising to send me for a visit if I do get in, right?” In the meantime, it’s abundantly clear that RPI is not a school to attend sight-unseen, so if you’re considering it at all, prioritize the visit and worry about Cornell after you are (fingers crossed) accepted. Not visiting shouldn’t hurt your chances in the meantime. Good luck, and do post your impressions of RPI after your trip!
The first time I visited Cornell was in May, almost two months after I got accepted.
I even lived in NY (about 5 hours away); I was just too lazy to visit
You can basically get a virtual tour of Cornell on Google Maps anyways. As long as you did your research on Cornell and explained why you want to go there, you’ll be fine.
It does not matter you visit the campus or not. Cornell does not track if you are on theie email list, show interest in their school, etc. how did I know? I talked to the admission. They have too many students interest in Cornell. They don’t track it.
What you should focus on is getting your grades up and write an essay that shows who you are what you want and why Cornell. I do not mean to be rude but how do your mother know what kind of essay Cornell would like to read?. You should not include all your accomplishment. Those are what resume, EC list are for. You should only highlight what will support your point. Be genuine, be creative, be focused and be yourself.
Also, if you could write a really good essay, it does not matter if it is 100 wods shorter than the maximum allowed. It
It is the content that the admission is looking for.
@aquapt I just noticed you actually had an additional question. Not sure if it was rhetorical about Northeastern vs. RPI? Coincidentally I also visited and applied EA to Northeastern and was accepted there as well. I loved Northeastern. It might have actually been my plan B if I hadn’t gotten into Cornell (Virginia Tech was also high on my list). I thought I had my mind set on an old gothic campus and Northeastern was the complete opposite (as you know). Very modern and I really liked it. My dad joked that day we visited that I could not go there because the traffic and parking in BOS were awful, but I don’t think he was serious. We just fed him lobster and he was fine. LOL. Anyway, it’s still no contest. Northeastern vs RPI, I’d pick Northeastern all day - and I didn’t even want a large university. Their co-op and job placement is great. I know RPIs academics have a good reputation, but for me personally, there’s way more to college than the classroom. RPI offered zero “college life” atmosphere and being a girl in a 18% ratio would have been uncomfortable for me. Oh, and while on our tour, I forgot to mention that the tour guide pointed out several times that no girls had dorms on the first floor - implying they didn’t want unwanted visitors to break into their windows. Yikes. That just sealed it for me. RPI needs to step up their game if they want to attract more girls. Anyway, I got into Cornell so it doesn’t matter. You’ll be interested to know that when comparing both financial aid packages offered by NE and Cornell, Cornell was $8K per year cheaper - even with the NE Honors Scholarship. That place is crazy expensive, but if y’all make good money then NE over RPI any day. IMO.
Thanks, @cotopaxi - I was more describing the question that you had already helped to answer, than demanding additional information, but the “We keep our womenfolk safely above ground level” story is… illuminating… as well. (!!)
It sounds like the issue with NU’s aid is that the merit aid does not “stack” on top of the need-based aid, so when they give merit money to a student who is getting a need-based aid package, it doesn’t change their bottom line unless it exceeds the total need-based aid they qualify for; it just replaces some of the financial aid, leaving the bottom line the same. (And thus they give a whole lot of “merit aid” than, in the final accounting, doesn’t cost them anything!) Cornell seems to be a bit more generous in the financial aid regard (Cornell’s endowment is, after all 8x Northeastern’s), so the differential doesn’t surprise me. In our particular case, merit aid is the only assistance my daughter will get, and there obviously won’t be any merit $ coming from Cornell (if she even gets in), so NU will be cheaper than Cornell for sure. But we’ll cross that bridge when/if she gets an offer from Cornell; it’s great to at least have the NU offer nailed down!
Anyway, congrats on Cornell, and thanks again for the evocative RPI travelogue…!
@Much2learn, you cannot request an interview. This is not a thing at Cornell. Cornell only requires interviews for AAP and Hotel School. No other colleges within Cornell give interviews.
