Cornell University: acceptance rate by major

Cornell University admits about 8% of applicants overall. That number is the one everybody quotes, and for most applicants it is the wrong one — you are not admitted by the university, you are admitted by a college or programme inside it, and those rates differ sharply.

The short version: Business is the hardest route in at 5%, roughly 1.6× harder than the headline rate. Environmental Science admits 16.7%.

Published admit rates by major

Major	Admit rate	GPA (mid 50%)	SAT (mid 50%)
Business	5%	3.90–4.00	1480–1560
Engineering	5.2%	3.90–4.00	1490–1570
Biology	16.7%	3.80–4.00	1430–1540
Environmental Science	16.7%	3.78–4.00	1420–1530
Whole university	8%	3.85–4.00	1480–1570

What this means if you are applying from outside the US

Two things follow from the table above.

Your odds depend on what you write in the major box. At Cornell University the gap between the hardest and most accessible programme is 5% against 16.7% — a bigger difference than almost anything you can change about your profile this year.
International admit rates run below the published figure at most US universities. Cornell University charges international students about $69,314 in tuition, and its aid policy for them is: Need-aware for international students, meets full demonstrated need.

Switching major purely for the admit rate is usually a mistake — a "why this major" essay written about a subject chosen for its odds reads exactly like one, and internal transfer after enrolment is capped and competitive at most schools. But if you were genuinely choosing between two subjects, the difference above is real and worth knowing.

Calculate your own odds at Cornell University →

Other schools that publish by-major data

By-major rates University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Purdue University University of Washington Carnegie Mellon University Georgia Tech

Source: Cornell admit rates by undergraduate college.

These are published institutional figures, not predictions. Admission decisions also rest on essays, recommendations and institutional priorities, which no calculator can see. Not affiliated with any university.