<p>College acceptance is a subjective decision. For someone who gets accepted to Stanford and rejected from Cornell, it was harder for that person to get into Cornell than Stanford… When you are applying amongst 30000+ other kids that all have virtually the same stats as you, class-fit becomes more important than scores. It’s almost like a random draw, and while there are much more spots available at Cornell than any other school on this list, you are still being compared to thousands more students. </p>
<p>Also, specific colleges have different expectations and requirements as you indicated, so it is difficult to really gauge the acceptance rate (or difficulty of admission for that matter) at any given school within Cornell. For example, a brilliant engineer might have no problems getting into MIT or Stanford (or Cornell Engineering for that matter) but the same applicant may be rejected from Cornell’s Architecture school and AEM programs (true story). </p>
<p>The fact is (based on 2014 stats - flip your early projections), more students got rejected from Cornell than even applied to Columbia, Yale, Princeton, Dartmouth, or Penn. If you got accepted to Cornell this year, there are more angry rejects (most of which have elite SAT/GPA scores) than the ENTIRE BODY OF APPLICANTS at other schools.</p>
<p>Finally, admit rate does not indicate the intellectual capacity of a student population nor the value of a schools undergraduate education, which is what I’m arguing should be the basis for prestige and respect within Ivy League schools. Facts are facts, Cornell students have more to learn (both from each other and from their coursework) than any other students. Most of the coursework offered in other Ivy or semi-Ivy undergraduate institutions is thoroughly impractical, while Cornell offers a never-ending supply of genuinely useful knowledge.</p>
<p>Cornell undergrad offers countless one-of-a-kind top-notch programs. Every other school’s undergrad program is mundane and ordinary by comparison: essentially the same classes in the same subjects with the same majors. Cornell offers the only truly innovative and unique education, with the widest variety of talented and brilliant students. </p>
<p>That’s why Cornell is better than every other Ivy, because (not in spite) of having the largest accepted class, from the greatest applicant pool.</p>