At a Glance
Cornell admits 8.4% of applicants.
What You'll Actually Pay
See what families at different income levels actually pay after aid.
What families actually pay, by income level
After grants and scholarships. Before loans. Public school prices shown at in-state rates.
Source: College Scorecard / IPEDS, 2024-25
Where the Sticker Price Goes
Based on average need-based grant. Actual cost varies by family income — see chart above.
Debt at Graduation
Not reported by this school
receive need-based grant aid
$25,655
average debt at graduation
Cornell graduates carry an average of $25,655 in debt.
Merit Aid
Not reported by this school — some schools award aid based on need alone, without merit scholarships.
Getting In
Cornell admits 8.4% of applicants.
Cornell University's Early Decision applicants are admitted at nearly 3x the rate of Regular Decision applicants — 18.8% vs 6.7%. Note: ED is binding — you commit to attending if admitted.
SAT — Middle 50% of those who submitted · 43% of the class submitted
ACT — Middle 50% of those who submitted · 13% of the class submitted
84% were in the top 10% of their high school class.
What They Value
Academic
Nonacademic
Cornell University rates your personal essay as Very Important — equal weight to your GPA. Don't underestimate it. Demonstrated interest is Not Considered here — campus visits and emails to admissions won't affect your odds.
Student Life
52.9% of Cornell classes have fewer than 20 students.
Share of undergraduate class sections at each size, from CDS Section I-3. More red = more large lectures.
At Cornell, 52.9% of your classes will have fewer than 20 students.
Class size data reflects all undergraduate sections including labs, seminars, and lectures. Large research universities often have smaller upper-division and graduate-level sections that improve the overall distribution. First and second-year students typically experience larger classes than these averages suggest.
Source: Common Data Set 2025–26, Section I-3 (class sizes)
12:1
student:faculty ratio
Campus Life
From out of state (freshman class)
58.7%
Live on campus
55.4%
Men in fraternities
22.8%
Women in sororities
19.4%
Who Attends
Racial and ethnic breakdown of enrolled undergraduates, as reported in each school's Common Data Set. "Unknown / Other" includes students who did not report or selected "other."
Cornell's student body is 30.3% white.
Popular Majors
Will They Graduate?
Cornell graduates 85.8% of students in 4 years.
Graduating late means paying for extra semesters. The 6-year rate tells you who eventually finishes — the 4-year rate tells you what it actually costs.
Cornell graduates 85.8% of students in 4 years.
What finishing late actually costs
Based on each school's published cost of attendance. Public school costs shown at in-state rates.
Cornell
85.8%
4-yr grad rate
Most finish on time
Graduation rate data from Common Data Set 2025–26, Fall 2018 cohort (most recent available). 4-year rate = students completing in 4 years or less. 6-year rate = students completing within 6 years.
95%
Overall 6-yr rate
88.5%
Pell recipient rate
There's a 6.5 point gap between overall and Pell Grant graduation rates. Worth asking the school about support resources.
Freshman Retention
97.8%
97.8% of first-year students return for sophomore year.
City & Culture
Beyond the data — what it's actually like to spend four years in Ithaca.
Cornell sits on East Hill above Ithaca, a small Finger Lakes city, with two gorges cutting straight through the middle of campus and Cayuga Lake below. Downtown and its pedestrian street are a short bus ride down the hill, and nearly everything else students need is on campus. The nearest big city is a four-hour drive, and the winters are long.
Notable Alumni
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, sworn in in 1993 as the second woman to serve on the court. She took her undergraduate degree here in government in 1954.
Class of 1954
Toni Morrison
Won the 1993 Nobel Prize in Literature, the first Black woman to do so. She earned her master's degree here in 1955, and a Cornell residence hall is named for her.
Class of 1955
Bill Nye
Created and hosted Bill Nye the Science Guy, which ran 100 episodes over five seasons. He graduated here in 1977 and has returned as a Convocation speaker.
Class of 1977
Willis Carrier
Invented the first electrical air conditioning unit in 1902, a year after graduating here, and founded the Carrier Corporation.
Class of 1901
Alumni selected for name recognition and range of fields. Not from the Common Data Set.
The City
College town
Ithaca, NY
Best For
Traditions
Dragon Day
First-year architecture students spend months building an enormous dragon and parade it across campus each spring, in costume, to do battle on the Engineering Quad with a phoenix built by engineering students. The first one was held in 1901.
Slope Day
The last day of classes is spent on Libe Slope with live music and entertainment — the descendant of 'Spring Day', first held in April 1901 to mark the end of winter.
The chimes in McGraw Tower
The bells first rang at the university's opening in 1868 and have been recast and expanded to 21. Three concerts are played every day that classes are in session.
Weekend Escapes
Within driving distance from Ithaca
Taughannock Falls State Park
About 20 minutesA 215-foot waterfall dropping past cliffs that rise nearly 400 feet above the gorge, with rim and gorge trails and a beach on Cayuga Lake.
Watkins Glen and the Seneca Lake wineries
About 45 minutesThe gorge trail at Watkins Glen and the wineries strung along Seneca Lake — the standard warm-weather day out from Ithaca.
New York City
About 4 hoursCornell runs its own Campus-to-Campus coach between Ithaca and its Manhattan campuses seven days a week, so the trip does not need a car.
Getting There & Game Days
Nearest airport
Ithaca Tompkins International Airport (ITH)
About 10 minutes from campus
For international flights: John F. Kennedy International (JFK) — about 4 hours 15 minutes by road, or a connecting flight from ithaca.
Pro sports nearby
- Syracuse Mets MiLBAbout 1 hour 10 minutes away
- Syracuse Crunch AHLAbout 1 hour 10 minutes away
- Buffalo Bills NFLAbout 3 hours away
Career Proximity
Ithaca has no corporate cluster of its own — Cornell's pipeline runs to New York City, four hours south, where the university keeps its own campuses and runs its own bus.
Top Industries Nearby
Major Employers
- Epic Systems
- Amazon Web Services
- JPMorgan Chase
- Deloitte
- Goldman Sachs
New York City, about 4 hours south, reachable on Cornell's own Campus-to-Campus coach
Who Thrives Here
Cornell admits 8.4% of applicants overall and 18.8% through early decision, and it requires the SAT or ACT — a score is part of the application here, not an option. Once in, it is a big place: 12 students per faculty member, but only 52.9% of classes under 20, and 55.4% of undergraduates in university housing, with the rest in Collegetown apartments down the hill. Greek life is a real presence without being the whole social map — 22.8% of men and 19.4% of women join. The money is unusually straightforward for a private at $74,970: Cornell meets 100% of demonstrated need, and its graduates leave with $25,655 in average debt. The trade-off is Ithaca. The campus sits on a hill above a small Finger Lakes city, four hours from New York City, with gorges cutting through it and long winters. 95.0% of students finish within six years, but anyone who needs a city at the door should weigh the location before applying.