upsetting and unexpected college decision

brantly
Fri, 03 Apr 2015 15:43:32 +0000

One more thought regarding your age. You will be 17 at the beginning of the fall term. In the “old days” that was VERY common because of the SP students in NYC (very common to skip either 2nd grade or 8th grade), and the NYC public school cut-off being 12/31 – it was not uncommon for NYC kids to start Cornell and other top colleges at age 16 and turn 17 in November or December.

Now, the tide has turned in many parts of the country. School-entry cut-offs are commonly 10/1 or even 9/1. In NYC private schools, they consider it “young” for an applicant who turns 5 in June or July to enter K in September and will often reject an applicant (particularly boys) on that basis.

In addition, in many affluent suburban communities it is fashionable for parents to hold their kids BACK a year to get a supposed advantage in sports and academics. This is particularly common with boys. The result is that students from high-achieving, affluent communities are graduating HS at the age of 19+. Not to mention a handful who take gap years and enter at age 19+.

So my hunch is, at age 17 you would be more than two years younger than a good number of freshmen at Cornell, which takes a lot of students from the east coast communities where these practices are common. You will not even turn 18 DURING your freshman year.