Cornell is the technical Ivy. Yes, you can study literature at Cornell, but what draws people to the university is more often how they can combine a liberal arts-y education with the best education in the business in fields like mechanical engineering, hard sciences, and arenas no other Ivy League schools touch, like hospitality, labor organizing, and agriculture. The research opportunities at Cornell are exceptional, and the acceptance rate is tiny. Overall, the Cornell acceptance rate is just over 5%. This is skewed, though, as some programs are more competitive to get into and others give preference to New York State applicants, pulling the acceptance rate upwards.

Even with the selectivity at Cornell, many waitlisted students decide to hold out to see if they can get a spot. The good news is that it is possible to get in after a waitlist decision. The not-so-good news is that it isn’t easy. For the Fall of 2024, Cornell offered 8,103 applicants a spot on the waitlist. Only 4.8% eventually got in. That number holds pretty firm with the year earlier, when 4.4% of waitlisted applicants were accepted. However, if we adjust for the number of students who actually claimed their spot on the waitlist the odds do go up. For the fall of 2024, only 4.8% of students offered a spot on the waitlist got in, but 6.3% of students who joined the waitlist were accepted.

This underlines the way that a waitlist is not a spectator sport. You can’t just sit back and hope. Cornell routinely has a waitlist with over 5,500 students on it, and they do use it — but the odds aren’t great. To get into Cornell off of a waitlist you need to opt-in, listen for opportunities, and take decisive action to strengthen your candidacy.

Every year, we guide waitlisted students towards Ivy acceptances. In this post, we’re going to break down the steps you need to be taking if you received a waitlist offer from Cornell to improve your chances of acceptance.

If you are set on a Cornell acceptance, contact us. We can help you get there.

Cornell provides waitlist information on their website, but the best place to look for details is in the email or message they sent you when you received your waitlist decision. That is where the information will be the most up-to-date, and the possible next steps will be most clear. The first step, always, is to opt-in.

Step One: Join the Waitlist

This is the obvious one that isn’t always obvious. Joining the waitlist isn’t a race. There isn’t an actual list that you need to rush to get on before anyone else, but that doesn’t mean that you should delay. If you want to stay in consideration for Cornell, join promptly.

Step Two: Confirm Your Spot…Somewhere.

Next, you need to commit to a school. Hopefully, you have an option that you’d be thrilled to attend if Cornell doesn’t work out. Even if you don’t, you need to say yes to somewhere. “I’ll reapply next year,” is not a plan. Transferring can be. Set yourself up so you have somewhere excited to welcome you in the fall, and then you can get back to work pushing towards Cornell.

Step Three: Write the Cornell LOCI

Cornell invites waitlisted students to submit updates through the “Upload Materials section of the Applicant Portal using the “Waitlist Correspondence” materials type. The thing they want from you in that spot a classic Letter of Continued Interest (LOCI), with some specific requests that are unique to Cornell. You also need to ask your school to send an updated Official Grade Report to applicant@cornell.edu. Cornell absolutely does not want additional recommendations or piles of additional information. This means that the LOCI needs to do a lot for you, so let’s break it down.

The idea of a LOCI is a classic in the waitlist sphere, but what it actually is and what goes in it is less clear. Opinions are also divided on how long it should be. However, we know what works. A compact and precisely worded one-page LOCI is the best way to press Cornell towards offering you a spot in the first-year class.

Cornell wants you to hit on a few key things:

Reinforce your interest in a specific program at Cornell
Update them on what you’d been up to since applying (academics and community)
Share relevant summer plans and big events coming up
Say clearly that you will attend if accepted.

The university doesn’t say outright that they want that last one, but we’ve found that LOCI’s that work all include one thing: a clear intention to enroll if accepted.

After you’ve gathered your updates for Cornell into a list, let’s start writing.

The Opening

This is a letter, so start it like one. To be more specific, this is a letter to someone you really want to impress with your professionalism and focus. We like “Dear Cornell Admissions,” as a start.

Then write 3-4 sentences that introduce yourself, share your intended major, minor, and/or program, and set out the intention for this letter. You are writing to reinforce your interest, to update them on what has happened since you applied, and to confirm that you will enroll immediately if accepted.

The Update

Next is the update. While Cornell invites you to write about what you would do on campus, we see the best outcomes when you invest most of this one-page that you have to work with in updates. These should include 2-3 things, and at least one should be academic and one should be community/team-oriented, spotlighting how you work with others towards significant goals. If you haven’t won any awards or earned any recognitions since you submitted your application, that is completely fine. Having an award to flash here doesn’t necessarily increase your chances of admissions. Rather, it’s how you write about what you have done. Maybe you had a big project in a class relevant to your academic area of interest that you can share a bit about, or you have continued working towards a big goal that won’t pay off until closer to graduation. Either way, it’s how you tell the story of your passion and hard work that matters most.

The Closing

In the final paragraph, we recommend writing in a little more detail about what it is at Cornell that you are most drawn to, with a particular focus on unique academic opportunities (such as a specific research lab). Then thank them for taking the time to reconsider your application should space open up and say, again, that you will enroll if accepted.

All of this needs to fit on one page — seriously — with normal margins and 12-pt font.

Step Four: Wait

You will not hear from Cornell with a final decision until after the May response deadline for accepted students. You still need to keep your eye on your email, though. Cornell may ask you to reaffirm interest again, and might even get in touch over phone to check in. Make sure your voicemail message isn’t embarrassing, and don’t let emails pile up.

This doesn’t mean that you will hear from Cornell in May though. The waitlist process can extend well into summer. Having to wait longer does not mean your chances are gone. It’s just the way that this process works.

Waiting on a waitlist is frustrating, but we help students pull off an acceptance. If you respond strategically and listen to instructions carefully, you can get in off the Cornell waitlist.

We help driven students beat the waitlist odds. Email us to learn more.