Cornell University
Ithaca, New York | Admissions Phone: 607-255-5241
E-mail: admissions@cornell.edu | Website: www.cornell.edu
ADMISSION
Admission Rate: 11%
Admission Rate - Men: 9%
Admission Rate - Women: 12%
EA Admission Rate: Not Offered
ED Admission Rate: 24%
Admission Rate (5-Year Trend): -5%
ED Admission Rate (5-Year Trend): -5%
% of Admits Attending (Yield): 60%
Transfer Admission Rate: 17%
# Offered Wait List: 6,683
# Accepted Wait List: 4,546
# Admitted Wait List: 164
SAT Reading/Writing (Middle 50%): 680-750
SAT Math (Middle 50%): 710-790
ACT Composite (Middle 50%): 32-34
Testing Policy: ACT/SAT Required
SAT Superscore: Yes
ACT Superscore: No
% Graduated in Top 10% of HS Class: 83%
% Graduated in Top 25% of HS Class: 97%
% Graduated in Top 50% of HS Class: 100%
ENROLLMENT
Total Undergraduate Enrollment: 15,182
% Part-Time: 0%
% Male: 47%
% Female: 53%
% Out-of-State: 59%
% Fraternity: 26%
% Sorority: 24%
% On-Campus (Freshman): 100%
% On-Campus (All Undergraduate): 52%
% African-American: 7%
% Asian: 19%
% Hispanic: 13%
% White: 36%
% Other: 5%
% Race or Ethnicity Unknown: 8%
% International: 11%
% Low-Income: 15%
ACADEMICS
Student-to-Faculty Ratio: 9:1
% of Classes Under 20: 57%
% of Classes Under 40: 78%
% Full-Time Faculty: 83%
% Full-Time Faculty w/ Terminal Degree: 93%
Top Programs
Applied Economics and Management
Architecture
Chemistry
Computer Science
Engineering
English
Hotel Administration
Industrial and Labor Relations
Retention Rate: 97%
4-Year Graduation Rate: 88%
6-Year Graduation Rate: 95%
Curricular Flexibility: Somewhat Flexible
Academic Rating: 
FINANCIAL
Institutional Type: Private
In-State Tuition: $56,550
Out-of-State Tuition: $56,550
Room & Board: $15,201
Required Fees: $672
Books & Supplies: $970
Avg. Need-Based Aid: $42,946
Avg. % of Need Met: 100%
Avg. Merit-Based Aid: $0
% Receiving Merit-Based Aid: 0%
Avg. Cumulative Debt: $29,762
% of Students Borrowing: 41%
CAREER
Who Recruits
1. Four Seasons Hotel and Resorts
2. WeWork
3. Uber
4. Accor
5. Hilton
Notable Internships
1. American Express
2. Lyft
3. PayPal
Top Industries
1. Business
2. Education
3. Operations
4. Research
5. Engineering
Top Employers
1. Google
2. Amazon
3. Microsoft
4. IBM
5. Facebook
Where Alumni Work
1. New York City
2. San Francisco
3. Boston
4. Washington, DC
5. Los Angeles
Median Earnings
College Scorecard (Early Career): $77,200
EOP (Early Career): $79,800
PayScale (Mid-Career): $128,200
RANKINGS
Forbes: 11
Money: 91
U.S. News: 17, National Universities
Wall Street Journal/THE: 9
Washington Monthly: 25, National Universities
Inside the Classroom
By a wide margin, Cornell boasts the largest undergraduate enrollment of any school in the Ivy League at almost 15,000 students, roughly 5,000 more than the next largest school, the University of Pennsylvania. Located in Ithaca, a certifiable college town in the Finger Lakes region of Upstate New York, Cornell’s campus is a seemingly endless 745 acres, and that is not including the adjacent Botanic Gardens owned by the university. A diverse array of academic programs includes ninety majors and 125 minors spread across the university’s seven schools/colleges: the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences; College of Architecture, Art and Planning; College of Arts and Sciences; SC Johnson College of Business; College of Engineering; College of Human Ecology; and School of Industrial and Labor Relations.
Most degrees conferred in 2018 were in engineering (17 percent), business (14 percent), agriculture (12 percent), computer science (11 percent), and the social sciences (9 percent). Beginning with the Class of 2023, required courses within the College of Arts & Sciences will include two first-year writing seminars, mastery of a foreign language, and ten distributional requirements. While that sounds like a substantial number of mandated classes, the school does allow certain courses to simultaneously fill more than one distributional requirement.
Classes are a bit larger at Cornell than at many other elite institutions. Still, 57 percent of sections have fewer than twenty students. Introductory courses sometimes take place in larger lecture halls, so 18 percent of courses have an enrollment of more than forty students. Undergraduates do give their professors generally high marks: 93 percent report being satisfied with the instruction they have received, 71 percent report participating in class discussions, 48 percent report completing a thesis/research project, and 62 percent plan on or already have conducted research with a faculty member. Members of Big Red can choose from study abroad opportunities in more than forty countries, and roughly one-third participate.
The SC Johnson College of Business houses two undergraduate schools, both of which have phenomenal reputations. The Cornell School of Hotel Administration is one of the finest such programs in the world, and the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management cracks most lists of the top 10 business programs in the United States. The School of Engineering offers fourteen areas of specialization and is held in high regard by employers and prestigious graduate schools. Highly-desired postgraduate scholarships are procured by Cornell grads at a steady rate. The university has twenty-nine Rhodes Scholars to its credit as well as a regular flow of Fulbright, Schwarzman, Goldwater, and Truman Scholarship award winners.
Outside the Classroom
Ithaca has as much Upstate New York natural splendor as you can handle, from Lake Cayuga to parks to the many breathtaking ravines and gorges. (You’ve likely seen the “Ithaca is Gorges” T-shirt.) Yet, thanks to frigid weather and the absence of a major metropolis nearby, campus itself and the nearby neighborhoods are where the action is. With a roughly 25 percent participation rate across the fifty-five fraternity and sorority chapters on campus, Greek life dominates much of the social scene. Freshmen are required to live in university housing, although a substantial 48 percent of undergrads live off campus. Student-run organizations can be found for almost anything your mind can fathom. Over 1,000 clubs are active. The Cornell Concert works to bring major acts to campus that suit a variety of tastes from Bob Dylan to Ke$ha. The university also succeeds in luring a fair share of impressive guest speakers to campus each year. The Cornell Daily Sun, founded in 1880, is one of the finest student papers in the country, and the dining hall cuisine and libraries (Hogwarts-esque Uris in particular) receive high marks. Athletics feature eighteen men’s and nineteen women’s teams competing against NCAA Division I competition as well countless club and intramural opportunities.
Career Services
The Career Services Department has fifty-two full-time staff members, excluding office assistants, who are spread across the various colleges within the university. Those individuals serve as career counselors, internship co-op coordinators, recruiting coordinators, and graduate school advisors in specified disciplines. The 280:1 student-to-advisor ratio is better than average compared to other schools featured in this guide. Among large universities, Cornell’s level of support is unparalleled.
Career fairs at Cornell are two-day affairs involving hundreds of Fortune 500, government, and nonprofit employers. In recent years the fall University Career Fair Days have drawn over 6,000 students and 260 employers. Of the Class of 2018, 16 percent found their jobs through on-campus recruiting, 5 percent through career fairs, and 17 percent through an internship or volunteer experience. In an average year, students make over 16,000 advising appointments, and more than 15,000 students attend programs and presentations. Over 500 students take advantage of job-shadowing opportunities offered during winter and spring breaks. Most importantly, 90 percent of students have completed, or plan to complete, an internship/practicum.
Professional Outcomes
Breaking down the graduates of the College of Arts and Sciences, the largest school at Cornell, 63 percent entered the workforce, 27 percent entered graduate school, 6 percent pursued other endeavors such as travel or volunteer work, and the remaining 4 percent were still seeking employment six months after receiving their diplomas. The top sectors attracting campus-wide graduates in 2018 were financial services (21 percent), consulting (15 percent), technology (14 percent), and health care services (5 percent). Starting salary data varies greatly across schools as well as by major. For example, the average Dyson graduate earns $74,000 while the average College of Agriculture and Life Sciences graduate starts at $60k. College of Engineering students enjoy an average starting salary of $82,000 with a heavy representation at Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Goldman Sachs. Across all schools the median starting salary was a healthy $66,000.
Of the students from A&S going on to graduate school, 22 percent were pursuing advanced engineering degrees, 9 percent JDs, and 9 percent MDs. Popular destinations included staying at Cornell (especially computer science majors), other Ivies, Stanford, MIT, universities in the UC system, or abroad at Oxford, Cambridge, University of Toronto, or University of St. Andrews. Harvard was the No. 1 destination for biology majors, and Stanford attracted the highest number of chemistry graduates. The ten most frequently attended law schools by Big Red alumni include Columbia, UCLA, Penn, Harvard, and Yale. Those entering medical school typically stay nearby as every one of the ten most popular medical schools was located within the states of New York, New Jersey, or Pennsylvania.
Admission
The deluge of over 51,000 applications for the Class of 2022 was a record setter for Cornell. The acceptance rate of 10.3 percent was an all-time low and has been trending down in recent years. For comparison, Class of 2016 applicants gained acceptance at a 16 percent rate. At Cornell, applicants must apply to one of the eight colleges or schools (counting Dyson and the Hotel School separately), and acceptance rates vary among schools. For example, in the 2017-18 admissions cycle only 3 percent of applicants were accepted into the Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management while the College of Human Ecology admitted 19 percent. Most (83 percent) Cornell freshmen in 2018-19 placed in the top 10 percent of their high school class. The Class of 2022 entered with median SAT/ACT scores of 1480/33; the mid-50 percent ranges were 1390-1540 on the SAT and 32-34 on the ACT. Children of alumni comprised 16.5 percent of the class, and legacy students are believed to have a significant edge, although the school has not been willing to release any statistics in that area. The eight criteria deemed most important by the admissions office are rigor of coursework, grades, test scores, recommendations, essays, extracurriculars, talent/ability, and character/personal qualities. While technically the “easiest” Ivy to get into, that qualifier doesn’t mean much these days. Only a fraction away from joining the other seven Ivy League institutions with single-digit acceptance rates, becoming part of Big Red is only a possibility for the crème de la crème of college applicants.
Worth Your Money?
Graduates emerge from their four years of study with an average debt load of just under $30,000, right around the national average. Like many other elite universities, Cornell does not award any merit aid, instead focusing its generosity on students who could not otherwise afford the school. As a result, the $75,000+ list price annual cost of attendance is greatly reduced for students who demonstrate financial need. These students have 100 percent of their need met to the tune of a $43,000 grant. Alumni enjoy starting salaries far superior to those from your average college, making Cornell a phenomenal investment, even if you need to take out sizable loans to attend.