In a year with a record-breaking number of applications, the Cornell acceptance rate dropped from 26.1 percent to 24.7 percent.
Cornell received 2,849 early decision applicants and admitted 1,110 of them, making the early acceptance rate 38.7 percent. The regular decision acceptance rate was 23 percent; Cornell received 25,248 applications and admitted 5,817. Overall Cornell received 28,097 applications for the Class of ’10 and accepted 6,927.
On March 13, The Sun reported that the acceptance rate for the Class of ’10 had sunk to 21 percent. This information, reported by Interim President Hunter R. Rawlings III at the Board of Trustees meeting the previous weekend, was based on preliminary data and did not accurately reflect admissions decisions.
“It is Cornell’s lowest admission rate in the University’s history,” said Simeon Moss ’73, director of press relations.
More information about the accepted students has also been made available by the Undergraduate Admissions Office.
The number of minority students accepted, including Pacific Islanders, Native Americans, Asian-Americans, African-Americans, Latinos and other underrepresented minorities rose to 35.9 percent for the Class of ’10.
Additionally, of the candidates accepted to Cornell, 25 percent come from New York state, 21.4 percent from the Mid-Atlantic states, 10.3 percent from the New England region, 6 percent from the Southeast, 9.4 percent from the Midwest, 5.4 percent from the southwestern and Mountain states and 13.1 percent from far western states. Another 1.1 percent of the accepted students come from U.S. territories and protectorates, and the remaining 8.3 percent are international students, up from last year’s 7.9 percent.
The number of applicants also broke a Cornell records.
“This represents a 15 percent increase over last year and a 35 percent increase over the past two years,” said Doris Davis, associate provost for admission and enrollment, in a press release. “The decision process was extraordinarily selective this year, which continues a trend for the University.”
The high number of applicants partly reflects that a higher number of high school students applying to colleges as well as that individual students are applying to more schools. According to a University of California-Los Angeles research institute, about 26 percent of students applied to six or more colleges, up from 18 percent a decade earlier.
Archived article by Sun Staff