<p>My understanding from reading the CC posts on Transfer Options:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Guaranteed Transfer (Transfer Option) to contract colleges are mostly offered to NY community college students who received two years of good grades from their community colleges. These are students others may think of as going to Cornell through the back door even though they are high-achievers in their community colleges.</p></li>
<li><p>Other non-community college Transfer Options are offered to those who Cornell wants to accept for freshman year but don’t have enough space for them; Cornell asked them to choose a college/university to attend first and maintain a certain level of GPA then go to Cornell if they fulfilled the GPA requirement. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>I think there is no back door to Cornell, everyone needs to be a high-achiever in some way. The lower average test scores/GPAs may come from students in colleges like Hotel, Architecture… who demonstrated their outstanding non-academic special skills to get in.</p>
<p>All colleges in Cornell are strong. #1 Undergraduate Architecture, #1 Hotel School, best Engineering in Ivy (comparable to Stanford/MIT/Caltech) , top AEM program, strong Agriculture program, outstanding Ivy Arts and Science program. All Cornell students should be proud of their achievements, relax, make friends, and enjoy their years at Cornell. </p>
<p>Prospective students can try their best to see if they can become a member of this community. And I hope they won’t be overwhelmed when they get there!</p>