<p>Responding to jerzgrlmom, no, just an average Asian student, middle income with pretty average qualifications - ACT29, SAT2020, aside from a science award. Parents went to college later in life, but not immigrants. The Tanner scholarship is a nice addition to a resume, but I am sure someone else deserving will have my spot as I am going to MIT, unless Yale comes through.</p>
<p>I think what helped me was my science award and the good luck of not applying through early decision where several kids I know with nearly perfect grades and scores were either denied or deferred at cornell.
Also, likely major is Biology. My own humble opinion is that the applicants which were admitted early at Cornell CAS would have likely had a very good chance of admission at most any college, even the top ivy league institutions, but probably wanted cornell because of a special program or its rural location.</p>
<p>Looking at the posts of students receiving likely letters from Cornell CAS and other colleges at Cornell this year, the numbers make it seemingly much easier to get admitted regular as opposed to early, but that could just be for this year. For regular, Cornell is very holistic and seemingly takes many unhooked kids with just average test scores, …</p>
<p>In hindsight, I wish I had waited to apply to Yale as a regular decision applicant.</p>
<p>Responding to antiflamer, maybe that helped. but I was only one of many people involved in that project. Skimming through the results thread, it seems to me that so many average applicants are getting admitted to cornell’s college of arts and science and other colleges via the regular process, whereas so many highly qualified applicants unfortunately did not gain admission through early. I am no expert on college admission and just happy to have been deferred by Yale and accepted the Mass. Inst. of Technology, yet from the results so far at Stuyvesant (a NY magnet school) it does seem that the few kids that got in early to cornell had a very strong chance at a school as strong as Harvard or Princeton. We had 2 kids (asian) this year, get denied Cornell early only to be fortunate enough to get into Harvard (likely letter) and Caltech. That would seem to indicate to get into Cornell CAS early, you need to be super strong; the kind of applicant that could have a good chance at even Stanford or Yale or that level of institution.</p>