Did you know that among respondents to The Sun’s polling, the college with the greatest percentage of legacy students in the Class of 2026 was the School of Industrial Labor Relations? Or that the home region of respondents with the highest GPA was the South?
Perhaps even you’ve been trying to settle a bet about which library is the most popular among your class – it's Mann Library for those that are curious!
Ahead of commencement weekend, The Sun gathered information on these subjects and more, polling seniors on their undergraduate experience in the paper’s inaugural Senior Sunset Survey.
Opening on April 20th, the form collected a total of 103 responses before closing on May 5th. The survey covered four different sections of interest, getting a sense of seniors’ backgrounds, academics, Cornell experiences and post-graduate plans.
All responses were completely anonymous and all questions were optional to answer, meaning sample sizes vary by question.
Contextualizing Survey Respondents
Of respondents to the Senior Sunset Survey, 58.3% identified as female, 37.9% identified as male and 4.9% identified as non-binary.
Hispanic or Latino students made up 10% of survey respondents, while White students made up 60.1% of respondents and Asian students 24.2%. 2.9% identified as Black, one respondent identified as American Indian or Alaska Native and one as Middle Eastern. 6.7% identified with two or more races.
Due to sample size, demographics data does not represent the whole of the graduating class. The University’s complete demographic breakdown of the Class of 2026 is published online by Cornell Institutional Research & Planning.
The greatest number of respondents reported being from New York, with 34%, though 22 states were represented.
When broken down by college and school, most respondents in the College of Engineering, College of Agriculture and Life Science and the Dyson School of Applied Economics were from out of state or were international students.
8.7% of respondents are athletes while 18.2% are involved in Greek Life. Further, 8.9% reported previously being a member of Greek Life but disaffiliated.
Survey responses represent students from nearly every college or school within the University. The only school not represented is the School of Hotel Administration.
Legacy Students
Following the overturn of affirmative action by the Supreme Court in 2023 a national and campus wide conversation over the continuation of legacy college admissions was sparked.
In 2024, the Student Assembly unanimously approved a measure advocating for the end of legacy preferencing in Cornell’s admissions process on Thursday.
Of the survey respondents, 39.3% reported having at least one family member attend Cornell while 10.7% stated that they were first generation college students.
New York and New Jersey were the only two home states of respondents that had both legacy students and first generation students represented. Between the two states, New York had the greater difference, with 22% more legacy students than first generation students compared to New Jersey’s 20%.
Looking at the breakdown of legacy students by college or school ILRhad the highest percentage of respondents that were legacy students, with 30%. The Cornell Jeb. E Brooks School of Public Policy and the College of Human Ecology had no legacy student respondents, but also both had low sample sizes.
Academics
Computer science was the most popular major among respondents with 12% of the sample, followed closely by ILR with 10%. In total 40 different majors were represented by survey respondents, around half of Cornell’s nearly 80 fields of study.
The majority of seniors in The Sun’s poll stayed loyal to their major, with 75.5% never switching their majors during their undergraduate experience. Only 5.8% of respondents switched their majors two or more times.
The Senior Sunset Survey asked seniors to report their GPAs. GPAs at Cornell are on a 4.3 scale. Most respondent GPAs fell between the range of 3.5 to 4.0 with no respondents reporting a GPA less than a 2.5, with an overall average of 3.75. The Spring 2025 average cumulative GPA for all Cornell undergraduates was 3.44, according to data released by the Panhellenic Council.
When grouped by home state region, southern respondents had the highest average GPA of 3.89. Respondents from the western side of the US fell behind with the lowest average GPA of 3.71. International student respondents, making up 5.8% of respondents, boasted a 3.85 average GPA.
8.7% of respondents reported being an athlete. Athlete status did not appear to have much of an impact on GPAs. However, 25% of athletes reported having a GPA between 4.0 to 4.3. This figure is greater than non-athletes, with only 16% of non-athlete respondents reporting a GPA within 4.0 and 4.3.
Student Life
HADM 4300: Introduction to Wines was a clear favorite course, with eight respondents reporting it as their favorite course while all other reported courses receiving only one or two votes. Ranked #6 on The Sun’s “161 Things Every Cornellian Should Do” list, Introduction to Wines, it’s clear the Class of 2026 are no strangers to the tradition.
The Senior Sunset Survey also allows seniors to shoutout their favorite professors. Three different respondents reported Prof. Melissa Smith, a teaching professor in the Department of Statistics and Data Science. Prof. Smith is offering three courses for the Fall 2026 semester: STSC 2150/5150: Introductory Statistics for Biology, STSCI 4110/5160: Categorical Data and STSCI 4970: Undergraduate Supervised Teaching.
The survey additionally asked seniors what their favorite library on campus is. Cornell’s Ithaca main campus boasts 17 different libraries with a multitude of study spots suited for last minute prelim cramming. Senior respondents displayed varying tastes.
Overall, Mann Library was the favorite, with 34.9% of the total vote. However, by college or school, ILR respondents displayed the clearest preference for a library, with 70% of respondents choosing Catherwood Library as their favorite. Engineering respondents had the most varied taste with seven different libraries being represented.
Post-Graduate Preview
With the Class of 2026 closing the undergraduate chapters of their lives, planning for the immediate future is at the forefront of minds.
As of March 2026, the national unemployment rate of recent college graduates sat at 5.6%, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
48% of respondents reporting having a job lined up immediately post-graduation, with 30.4% attending grad school. The remaining 21.6% will either be continuing to apply to jobs or graduate school, will be taking a gap year, or have a summer internship lined up.
Among respondents attending graduate school, 32.2% will be staying at Cornell to continue their study. Other institutions with multiple respondents attending are Columbia University, Johns Hopkins University, and Stanford University.
Staying in New York is the most frequent post-grad destination for respondents, with 36.4%. Other frequent destinations are California, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Virginia. 7.1% of respondents will be living abroad.
To read the full report of the survey results, view The Sun’s Class of 2026 in Number website.
Amelia Garcia is a member of the class of 2027 in the College of Arts and Sciences. She is the Data Editor of the 144th Editorial Board can be reached at agarcia@cornellsun.com.
