Cornell Undergraduate HELP
Hello people,
I have been heavily considering Cornell University to pursue a degree in economics and hopefully place in a bank or other financial firm, I don't care about the type, but my one worry is whether or not there is good/plentiful OCR (On Campus Recruitment) at Cornell, and how hard I might need to network in order to win an internship and hopefully land a job after college. What do you guys think? Does Cornell place well and does its name factor work on the Street?
Hello, Ali,
Cornell is top 20 worldwide, and it is of course target school for many financial institutions. There'll be plenty of events and on-site recruitments. Just be active in the campus society and keep your GPA high, it will speak itself. You're in a really good position if you're admitted to Cornell,
en.mfi
Thanks en.mfi. I was really worried but you have quelled those worries, thanks again.
Cornell's definitely a target, but more of a 2nd tier target with schools like Uchicago/Northwestern/Brown and a tier below the HYPSM+Duke/Dartmouth/Columbia level. This is important because Cornell is significantly bigger than these top targets, while also having fewer spots for analysts than the "top" targets. Main point: Cornell is a target, and a decent amount of people get IBD, but be prepared to work your ass off and be one of the top students (GPA,networking, and EC wise) out of probably 500 of your peers who decide why not and throw an app to Goldman and JPM. Also, I read on another post that Cornell sent 50 people to JPM last year, with around 35/40 in BO positions, so make sure you dont get screwed over. I'd argue that you'd be better off attending a smaller school with less competition (maybe a NESCAC?) and putting in the same amount of effort that you would at Cornell (which also has grade deflation). You'd basically almost be guaranteed a BB spot.
Thanks for your advice, which schools would you recommend? I'm a competitive student and I think I have a chance at most colleges so throw me some curve balls.
You can honestly just google the US News top 20 for National Universities and National Liberal Arts schools. The NESCAC the poster is referring to would include Williams, Amherst, Middlebury, Bowdoin, Hamilton etc. Schools like Swathmore and Vassar are all great as well.
Look into Georgetown - just from reading this site, I'm pretty sure they have a strong alumni base to Wall Street. I would also suggest looking at UVA's McIntire school. They sent around 30% into IB last year. https://www.commerce.virginia.edu/sites/default/files/CCS-Documents/Des…
Cornell is an awesome school and the Dyson school is well respected from what I know. The school has a very strong alumni base in NYC as well. You will be more than fine if that is where you end up.
If you "have a chance at most colleges" as you say, you should be looking at the HYP Stanford/MIT/Duke/Dartmouth/Columbia as @goblue2019 noted. Cornell/Georgetown/UVA can be back up considerations with 3 or so from the schools just listed, and maybe 2 of the smaller liberal arts schools. Gives you 6/7 schools to apply to and hopefully plenty of choices that will provide a route to banking.
MIddlebury
out of curiosity what are your stats?
Well, I have a 3.8 GPA, 33 on the ACT, and I am going to intern with a venture capital firm this summer (before my senior year, I'll be sending apps this Nov.)
if your internship is the highlight of your app, you are very likely in for a reckoning. trust me when I say your grades and scores are highly unimpressive for those schools.
Mohrashid Careful now, if you're not a URM/Athlete/Have an extremely special admission hook/Attend a top feeder prep-school I wouldn't be so confident on your chances at Cornell. You definitely have a solid shot, but as a non-URM, I would definitely consider it a reach school. There are tons, and I mean TONS of 3.8 GPA/33 ACT guys out there who apply and get flat-out rejected every cycle. Maybe Cornell ED will leverage your chances substantially , but if you're applying RD I wouldn't count on Cornell being some sort of easy admit. There is simply a lot of luck in the process. Make sure to absolutely kill your essays and do everything to stand out from the typical privileged kid stereotypes. The high school internship really won't seem that impressive to most liberal-artsy Ivy League adcoms - more than anything it screams family connections and privilege. If you're perhaps able to show that the internship was accomplished through a hustle and working your way up through self-driven networking THEN it could look impressive on an application; but that probably isn't likely if you're a junior in High School.
I would wait to see which schools you get into first.
I am a URM (I'm black), I go to a prep school (in UT).
Oh okay, never mind haha. Congrats on getting into Cornell!
Well, I haven't gotten in yet, and I'm sure there are many black people who are denied aren't there?
As an URM applying Early Decision with a 33 ACT/3.8 GPA, your chances are very very good. You should be near the top stats-wise for a URM applicant for Cornell. Plus you're from Utah which isn't that heavily represented in the ivies compared to a lot other states. Obviously, there's no guarantees, but as long as you have strong EC's and write genuine/strong essays, you should have an extremely excellent shot of getting accepted. Make sure to visit the school to make sure it's for you though ( the demonstrated interest will help too ). Like you said, you definitely are competitive for stronger schools ( E.G Duke/Penn CAS/Wharton ), but if you like Cornell enough and want to hedge your chances to attend an Ivy-league target, don't hesitate to apply ED to Cornell. Just know that if you don't absolutely love Cornell and get admitted ED, you'll never know if you would have gotten accepted to "better" schools RD. If Cornell isn't your favorite school, consider applying to Wharton ED or some other good school instead - you weren't kidding when you said you had an excellent shot at almost every school. Even if your ED school doesn't work out, Cornell RD is still very promising for you.
By the way, great job on the internship man. With your URM status/ambitious drive I really do not think you'll have too much trouble making it to banking wherever you go.
And about the hustle, I literally had no connections to the people I interned with, I went out and found it myself by going door-to-door in downtown SLC.
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