Cornell admitted 1,395 out of 6,159, or 22.6 percent of the early decision applicants for the Class of 2023, down from the admission rates of 24.4 percent for the Class of 2022 and 25.8 percent for the Class of 2021, according to statistics provided by the University Friday morning.
Among the accepted students, 55.6 percent are women and 39.8 percent are students of color, which include African American, Asian American, Native American, Latinx and bi-multicultural students.
Legacy students — who the University said should apply early decision to show their commitment — constitute 22.1 percent of the admitted students pool, the same as last year, while the number of athletes rose two percentage points to this year’s 13.5 percent.
Despite the University’s concern that the current political climate will discourage international students from coming to the U.S., Cornell saw a total of 1,512 international early decision applicants this year, 1.5 percent more than the Class of 2022 and 21.3 percent more than the Class of 2021. With 171 applicants accepted, international students make up 12.3 percent of this year’s early decision admits pool.
Admission decisions for another 1,493, or 24.3 percent of the early decision applicants are postponed, which means these students will find out whether they get into Cornell on March 28, 2019, the same day for regular decision applicants.
The University said in a statement to The Sun that the decrease in the number of early decision admits is “planned in conjunction with” a decrease in Cornell’s target number of Fall freshman enrollment from 3,278 for the Class of 2022 to 3,175 for the Class of 2023, even though Jason C. Locke, interim vice provost for enrollment, said in an earlier interview that Cornell has been working to expand its class size.
Gillian Smith, a spokesperson for Cornell, declined to comment but said the University will provide explanations to this after the release of regular decision results.
Cornell currently has the highest early decision admission rates among the Ivy League. Harvard, Brown and the University of Pennsylvania all reached record-low acceptance rates at 13.4 percent, 18 percent and 18.5 percent, respectively. Princeton offered admissions to 13.9 percent of its applicants.