<p>Cornell does deserve a better reputation!
As a high school junior a long time ago, the only thing I knew about Cornell was that it was the “worst Ivy” and had the “highest suicide rate”.
And neither is true! </p>
<p>Obviously as a high school senior that will be going to Cornell in the fall, I have done some research and found out how special the University really is. </p>
<p>I think that Cornell’s relatively high acceptance rate is a matter of having so many niche programs for which the applicant pool is self-selecting. I do not recall anyone ridiculing UChicago’s acceptance rate of 27% because it is generally understood that Chicago’s applicant pool is very self selecting.</p>
<p>I remember a thread on CC that said the acceptance rate for CAS (the most “mainstream” college) in 2008 was 12.5%. Perhaps that would be a better figure for anyone who actually thinks that acceptance rates are a good measure of a university’s quality. </p>
<p>The US News Rankings, although probably complete garbage, does have a large effect on the perception of the university as a whole to the extent that many schools coughpenncough have had extensive efforts geared towards raising their rankings in that publication. Perhaps Cornell should bite the bullet and do the same. </p>
<p>Even though it is much better to let the University speak for itself, the pervasive effect of the rankings in the perception of a university amongst high school students mean that the rankings must be considered.</p>
<p>In the meanwhile, Cornell really has to do something about the suicide rate myth because I am tired of having people tell me not to kill myself in Ithaca when I tell them that I am going to Cornell.</p>
<p>BTW I turned down UC Berkeley, NYU Stern, and UC San Diego</p>