Let’s talk about Cornell University! We’ll start with the obvious, which many of you future applicants probably already know: Cornell is an Ivy League college located in Ithaca, New York. Of the Ivies, in terms of campus size (745 acres) and undergraduate enrollment (about 16,000 students) and has the highest acceptance rate (~8%).
These factors have given some prospective students the idea that Cornell is less competitive or desirable than other comparable elite schools, and that’s simply not the case. To put it bluntly: Cornell is hard to get into. It’s got a sub-10% acceptance rate, , and the test score range for accepted students is high (1500-1570 for the SAT and 33-35 for the ACT).
Beyond the numbers, Cornell has some pretty exceptional academic offerings that make it stand out from its fellow Ivies. It’s not just a liberal arts school — it offers all the humanities courses you can dream of, of course, but it also boasts impressive research resources ( invested in Cornell research in the 2024 fiscal year) and you won’t find at its peer institutions, such as the Fiber Science major within the School of Human Ecology or the Viticulture & Enology and Landscape Architecture tracks within the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.
That’s why the Cornell supplement is such an important part of your application; we get students into Cornell every year, and we’ve seen that intentional, unique essays make all the difference when it comes to gaining admission. We’ll be breaking down the Cornell supplement prompt by prompt in this post, so you’ll want to stick around if you dream of cheering on the Big Red next year.
Writing Strategy
When you’ve been working in college admissions for as long as we have, you start to see overarching trends as changes happen in real-time and not just in hindsight. This year, we’ve seen that a lot of schools — including the most competitive — have shortened their supplemental requirements in some capacity. Why are they doing this? It’s hard to say for sure in the absence of an official statement, but we’re speculating that many universities are looking to increase the number of applications they’re seeing by decreasing the “deterrent” of an overly intensive supplement.
This year, Cornell that all students had to answer in addition to their school-specific essay. Some students might celebrate this, and it’s not inherently bad! But it does mean that there is additional pressure on the school-specific writing you turn in. This is your only place to distinguish yourself as a prospective student and show that you’re passionate about attending Cornell and that you’d be a uniquely good fit. In other words, don’t treat this like a lay-up and rush through it; you should think of the prompt you need to answer for the “College- and School-Specific Essay Questions” as your opportunity to answer the question of “Why Cornell” as well as “why this program.”
Cornell’s instructions are “to respond to the essay prompt that corresponds to the undergraduate college or school to which you are applying.” We’ll go through essay strategies for each, so once you have identified which school your desired major is housed within you can skip to the section that applies to you. However, it’s worth reading through them all — there’s some overlap between these prompts. In our opinion, the guidance here is helpful in a general sense, and you can apply it to other supplements you encounter beyond Cornell’s.
COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURE AND LIFE SCIENCES
By applying to Cornell’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS), you are also applying for direct entry into one of our 20 majors. From here, you would be part of a community dedicated to purpose-driven science; working within your major and across disciplines to tackle the complex challenges of our time.
Why are you drawn to studying the major you have selected and specifically, why do you want to pursue this major at Cornell CALS? You should share how your current interests, related experiences, and/or goals influenced your choice. (500 word limit)
As the prompt states, you’ve got 20 majors to choose from here, and if you are applying to you’ve either already selected one or should do so now. Research the program and identify why you’re drawn to the academic field you’ve chosen to pursue within this college; honestly, if you’ve got your heart set on Agriculture and Life Sciences over Arts & Sciences, you’ve probably already got a strong idea of what your academic interests are and why they speak to you.
All you have to do here is tell a story — an origin story, so to speak, that led you to discover your interest in this field and drove you to pursue it. While an anecdote should ground your response, it should allow you to transition to addressing your academic and professional goals.
The two most important elements of your response to this prompt are addressing “purpose-driven science” and why you want to pursue this major at Cornell CALS and not another agricultural and life sciences program at another school. What exactly is “purpose-driven science?” Well, Cornell doesn’t provide a precise definition of the term, but it translates to a socially conscious practice of scientific discovery and implementation — in short, work that addresses pressing societal problems and makes the world better. : “The questions we probe and the answers we seek focus on three overlapping concerns: natural and human systems; food, energy, and environmental resources; and social, physical, and economic well-being.” (And previous years’ CALS supplements have explicitly referenced “serving the public good,” just FYI.)
In our experience, the applicants who gain admission to Cornell are those that have taken our advice to tailor their essays to CALS’ ethos and Cornell’s broader mission statement of “... any person ... any study” (a rallying cry that indicates an openness to academic individuality under the unifying principle of achieving greatness and having a real impact). The story you choose to tell about yourself and your background, and how it connects to the subjects you want to study as an undergraduate and the work you’d like to do after graduation, should be strongly rooted in the social values Cornell is expressing here and specific details about their academic offerings and program structure. You could study veterinary science, for example, in a ton of places — why should Cornell let you do it here?
COLLEGE OF ARCHITECTURE, ART, AND PLANNING
How do your interests directly connect with your intended major at the College of Architecture, Art, and Planning (AAP)? Why architecture (B.Arch), art (BFA), or urban and regional studies (URS)? B. Arch applicants, please provide an example of how a creative project or passion sparks your motivation to pursue a 5-year professional degree program. BFA applicants, you may want to consider how you could integrate a range of interests and available resources at Cornell into a coherent art practice. URS students you may want to emphasize your enthusiasm and depth of interest in the study of urban and regional issues. (650 word limit)
While there are three distinct segments of this prompt — directed at architecture, art, or urban and regional studies applicants, respectively— they all ask more or less the same thing. Why do you want to study your intended major, and more importantly, why do you want to do so at Cornell’s College of Architecture, Art, and Planning?
We’ve got pretty comprehensive blogs on both the “Why This College” prompt and the “Why This Major” prompt, because both show up a lot across supplements!, but we can summarize the most important parts for you right here. We tell our clients to remember not only their own goals in applying to college, but to think of the colleges’ goals as well. That helps you tailor your application to meet their needs and leave a compelling impression of the kind of student you plan to be. When selecting students for admissions, colleges ultimately are hoping to acquire students who will: 1) definitely attend, protecting their yield numbers; 2) contribute to campus academically and socially as a cooperative, kind, and dynamic member of the community; and 3) hopefully go on to succeed professionally, giving the school a good name (and maybe even some donations) as an alum.
That’s why when you answer this question you want to do so in a way that convinces them you’re genuinely excited about Cornell, know the details of its programs, and could productively leverage its resources to perform well academically and successfully. That means showing you’ve put thought into your major, have prepared in all of the ways you could in high school, know how you plan to pursue it further at the collegiate level, and can articulate why Cornell is the best place for you to carry out your plans — both for you and for them.
While 650 words is as long as the Common App personal statement, it’s actually not that many words when you come down to it, so your essay should be focused. That being said, the formula is pretty simple once you’ve done your research and know what points you want to make. Start with a captivating anecdote to illustrate your passion and tell “your origin story” (i.e. how you fell in love with this discipline) in the first paragraph; use the body to zoom out and provide context (i.e. how you pursued this passion and what your particular interest or subfield within it is); and, with your last 200 words or so, narrow back in on Cornell. We recommend you reference one to two professors within this program whose scholastic work interests you, one to two upper-level courses you hope to take at Cornell, any offerings unique to Cornell and this academic track (like a study abroad program, an internship matching office, or a research incubator), and one personal or social draw (a club or tradition you look forward to participating in).
COLLEGE OF ARTS & SCIENCES
At the College of Arts and Sciences, curiosity will be your guide. Discuss how your passion for learning is shaping your academic journey, and what areas of study or majors excite you and why. Your response should convey how your interests align with the College, and how you would take advantage of the opportunities and curriculum in Arts and Sciences. (650 word limit)
Ok, let’s get into it. Of Cornell’s 8 individual undergraduate colleges, the College of Arts & Sciences (CAS) is the liberal arts school option, and it houses the highest number of enrolled undergraduates — in the fall 2025 semester, CAS students accounted for . The nod to curiosity here reflects of “any person… any study.” That doesn’t mean your response should make your academic path sound aimless or otherwise suggest that you’ve spent your time willy-nilly; it means that this school is open to minds of all kinds as long as they are driven to acquire knowledge in the field that interests them and apply it for a purpose. So, yes, your essay needs to show intentionality and proof of that “passion for learning.”
Beyond the sprinkling of values-based language in the first sentences, this is another fairly straightforward “why this major” and “why us” question. No matter how you structure your essay, it needs to convey your reasons for studying the subject you’ve listed as your anticipated major and for studying it at Cornell specifically. The CAS prompt is very general in its wording of “areas of study or majors,” and that might make it sound like you can or should touch on a whole group of topics. But listen up: you should not.
The phrasing here is open-ended, probably to encourage students to apply even if they’re not 100% sure what they’ll study or what their future looks like. Here’s a cynical truth: colleges benefit from increasing the number of applications they receive each year. They can quote those numbers to their board of trustees to show that the organization is growing and evolving, but more importantly, a higher volume of applications means a lot more money coming in. Even after waiving fees for about one in four applications in 2018, from application fees. Consider, too, that the number of accepted students stays pretty much the same year to year, so an increase in applicants means a lower acceptance rate and, usually, higher yield — two statistics that contribute a lot to a school’s prestige.
Yes, this seems like a major digression and a little bit of a rant about the college application process (and it is those things a little bit!), but it’s mostly to demonstrate why you shouldn’t take this entire prompt at face value. It does not benefit you to turn in an essay that touches on a dozen possible academic passions with very little evidence of demonstrated interest or experience in those areas. At best, you look untested; at worst, you look unfocused, unambitious, or disingenuous.
The best way to show a passion for learning is to show how curiosity has already guided you: in other words, show that your academic interests are strong enough that you have already done something about them and that you have follow-through. When we have worked with applicants who got into Cornell, they took our advice to focus on two academic majors at most: your proposed major and your second choice, which you can discuss as either a double major or prospective minor. (And don’t worry — while you do have to enroll in the college within Cornell you’ve been accepted to if you’re admitted, you are NOT held to the anticipated major you indicate on your Common Application. Colleges know that many students are likely to discover new subjects in undergrad and choose a different major or even transfer to a different undergraduate college entirely; this is not set in stone. Your goal here is to show thoughtfulness, demonstrate a good track record, and express interest in Cornell, so go with the major that helps you put your best foot forward. You can figure out the rest next year!)
From there, you’ll just want to follow the story, context, and school-specific details format we discussed directly above in the COLLEGE OF ARCHITECTURE, ART, AND PLANNING
section.
CORNELL JEB E. BROOKS SCHOOL OF PUBLIC POLICY
Why are you interested in studying policy, and why do you want to pursue this major at Cornell’s Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy? You should share how your current interests, related experiences, and/or goals have influenced your choice of policy major (650 word limit)
As much as we hate to sound like a broken record… we’ve essentially around given you the key to knocking this one out of the park. Go back and read through our advice for the COLLEGE OF ARCHITECTURE, ART, AND PLANNING and COLLEGE OF ARTS & SCIENCES prompts, because those sections go through the finer points of putting together a stellar “why this major” and “why this school” essay.
We’ll go through the highlights again here, though. You’ve got 650 words, which means you’ve got space to start with an anecdote that captures readers’ attention and gives a narrative arc and human interest to your relationship with public policy. Once you’ve set the scene and explained how you discovered this field, you can articulate why you think it’s important, what you have done to pursue it since, what your goals for the future are, and how you plan to set them in motion at Cornell. The last two items are where you’ll really dive into the specific major within the broader school of public policy you’ve chosen and the specifics of the Jeb E. Brooks school that make it the best place for your higher education within this academic discipline.
CORNELL SC JOHNSON COLLEGE OF BUSINESS
What kind of a business student are you? Using your personal, academic, or volunteer/work experiences, describe the topics or issues that you care about and why they are important to you. Your response should convey how your interests align with the school to which you are applying within the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business (Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management or the Cornell Peter and Stephanie Nolan School of Hotel Administration). (650 word limit)
If you’ve been reading through each section in order, you’ve probably noticed a pattern by now. Other than the multi-part engineering supplement, these prompts are slight variations of the same question: why do you care about the academic field you want to study, and why do you care about doing it at Cornell? You’ll notice that for the business school those baseline queries are definitely still present in how you’re asked to relate your experiences to your interests and specify how they fit with the offerings of the school within the business college that you’re applying it, but that first interrogative — “what kind of business student are you?” — is very intentional, and you need to answer it. It’s not asking what your “vibe” is; it’s asking you to articulate what you think “business” really is and what you plan to do with a business degree.
Why does this matter so much? Well, to put it frankly, because business major applicants have a lot of competition. Historically, business is the most popular course of study in U.S. higher education. , American colleges conferred more bachelor’s degrees in business than in any other field, and business accounted for 19% of all bachelor’s degrees granted in 2022. Those numbers only account for undergraduates who completed their degree; they don’t represent the much larger pool of students who applied as business majors and got admitted to other programs or changed majors.
As we tell our clients, it’s completely understandable to feel unsure about what you want to study in college or what you want to do with the rest of your life at 17, but it’s not enough to apply as a business major because it sounds “practical” or appeases your parents. Colleges won’t be impressed by the sensible choice you’re making if you can’t back up your selection of prospective major with knowledge of the field and the specializations within it, proof of genuine interest, and a transcript and activities list that show you’ve gotten relevant experience where you could.
The good news about this first question — “what kind of business student are you?” — is that it invites you to tell a story, which is the approach we recommend for any “why this major” supplement. Saying you want to study hospitality because you like hotels and think they’re a stable career path? Vague and boring. Explaining that you’ve wanted to work in hotel administration since your parents took you to Disney World when you were 8 years old — not just because you like theme parks and took a picture a Mickey Mouse but because your child brain was torn between wonder and analysis, curious about how magic is made, managed, and sustained at such a high level? That’s unexpected, charming, and specific. It speaks to why you’d want to attend Cornell and also the root of your interest in hospitality — the kind of experience you can make possible for other people by combining an understanding of the real estate, financial services, staffing, and much more. That’s a gold mine!
CORNELL DAVID A. DUFFIELD COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING
Instructions: All engineering applicants are required to write two long essays and four short essays.
This description sounds intimating, but these six questions actually amount to a similar amount of writing as the other college-specific supplements. They’ve just broken your response up into a handful of short answer questions (we’re not trying to contradict the powers that be at the Cornell College of Engineering… but since when is 200 words a “long essay” length response? The answer is never).
Long Essay Responses (200 word limit)
Question 1: Fundamentally, engineering is the application of math, science, and technology to solve complex problems. Why do you want to study engineering?
Yes, you guessed it — another “why this major” question! Woohoo! You’ve got 200 words, which means you’ve got to be fairly succinct in sharing the basis of your passion for engineering.
In our experience with successful applicants, the best way to go about this is to share an anecdote that represents your love for this field. You don’t have the space to go through your life story and touch on all of your experiences with engineering or all of the ways you see engineering operating in the world; hopefully, your past work in this field and relevant studies are reflected in the academics and activities sections of the Common App. This is just for you to explain why you care about engineering and what you want to do with an engineering degree.
The crux of this prompt is the phrase “to solve complex problems.” You don’t need to get into the nitty gritty of math, science, and technology as fields — which encompasses a huge swath of knowledge — but you do need to indicate that you want to study engineering because it pulls from various disciplines to create objects or methods that improve the world or make new things possible. It’s not enough to say you liked making a bridge out of toothpicks; you’ve got to articulate the “so what.” What did that toothpick bridge teach you, and what do you want to do once you’ve deepened your knowledge of mechanics? Improve public infrastructure? Invent stronger, more eco-friendly materials that can support the weight of bridge traffic while producing less waste? It doesn’t matter what your goal is, but you do need to state one!
Question 2: Why do you think you would love to study at Cornell Engineering?
Like any good 1-2 punch, the “long essay responses” section follows “why this major” with “why this school.” And that’s perfect — it’s straightforward and easy to answer when you’ve done your research, so you can knock it out of the park!
Remember that you’re making a case for yourself — you’re trying to tell a story that instills confidence in admissions that you would take full advantage of the resources and curriculum at Cornell, and that you would be an asset to the school as part of its student body and a future alum and member of the workforce. To do that, you need to convey that Cornell is the only place (or at least the best one) where you could achieve your dream because of its unique offerings.
Our successful applicants do this by referencing courses, labs, professors, and programs specific to Cornell Engineering and connecting them to their individual goals to keep it personal. And, speaking of personal, you don’t want this to read as a fact sheet or a list of checked boxes that proves you did your homework; it should have a human touch that gives your response emotional depth. Maybe that touch is the story of visiting campus and falling in love with a facility, how you imagined yourself beside the other undergraduate research assistants or envisioned yourself becoming a regular at Goldie’s Cafe, where you’ll get your sugar-free vanilla lattes when pulling late nights at the engineering quad. Whatever you choose, it should give a slight embellishment of personality and sincerity to the more clinical “stats” that appear in this response.
Short Answer Responses (100 word limit)
These short answer questions are designed to elicit brief responses that help admissions get to know you as a real person beyond the facts and figures that mark you as a promising applicant. Be yourself here — your distinct voice and authentic emotions are selling points here!
Question 1: What brings you joy?
You can talk about anything here, but it shouldn’t be academic! You’ve already covered the intellectual side of things in the long answer, and talking about your studies here is at best redundant (wasting the limited space you’ve been given to share something that doesn’t appear elsewhere in your materials) and at worst try-hard (giving the impression that you’re sucking up or that you really don’t have more to you than school). To make this answer as captivating as possible, write it as a scene rather than a list. Don’t say “What brings me joy is cooking.” Show us what that joy looks like when you’re in the kitchen and working on your next great culinary experiment — ground readers with sensory details so they can feel what you’re feeling, and your joy is both believable and memorable.
Question 2: What do you believe you will contribute to the Cornell Engineering community beyond what you've already detailed in your application? What unique voice will you bring?
This short answer takes us back to our earlier point that you’re making a case for the kind of community member you’ll be. The language of this prompt makes it clear they’re talking about soft skills and interpersonal dynamics — the last thing any school wants is to accept a bunch of bossy straight-A students who are incapable of collaborating or considering the feelings of others. Your instinct might be to talk about your leadership skills or achievements you aspire to, but we need you to hear us on this point: this is not about showboating. It’s about what a team can accomplish because you are a part of it (“part,” and not “dictator,” is the key word here).
So how can you respond? By drawing on your lived experiences and the qualities you actually value and admire yourself. That could be as simple as saying you bring the voice of a middle child who has learned how to mediate the visions of multiple strong-willed people at once, synthesizing others’ ideas and making sure everyone feels represented. Or it could be about how when you were on the robotics team you memorized everyone’s drink order so you could bring coffee or tea on the days you knew a teammate had a big test or had lost a grandparent or just needed a pick-me-up. The world is your oyster here — but be authentic and keep your focus on the idea of “contribution.” Think about the characteristics that you’ve appreciated in others when sharing spaces in the past; don’t just use this opportunity to brag.
Question 3: What is one activity, club, team, organization, work/volunteer experience or family responsibility that is especially meaningful to you? Please briefly tell us about its significance for you.
This is a fairly direct question, but we’ve got a few notes you should keep in mind. Ordinarily, we say that supplements shouldn't repeat information you’ve included elsewhere, and this short answer question is something of an exception. Because it wants you to discuss something that is important to you, that activity or community will likely be represented in your activities section already. That’s completely okay! If it’s not in your top 10 involvements, it can’t be that important to you, so it makes sense — and is in your best interest — to talk about a responsibility that’s listed in your activities section.
You’re still presenting something new here, and that’s the “significance” piece. You only had 150 characters to describe each activity, which is pretty bare bones. This is a space where you can elaborate on and give depth to that activity or responsibility. We love this question, because it allows you to show another facet of yourself and to share more about the things and people you care about. Pick something that is truly meaningful to you — something you are still actively involved in — and you’re golden!
Question 4: What is one award you have received or achievement you have attained that has meant the most to you? Please briefly describe its importance to you.
If you’ve received awards, you can approach this literally and write about the one you value most and why it had such an impact on you. However, not everyone has received an academic award from school or received the MVP trophy from their sports team, and that can feel limiting. If that’s you, don’t worry!
Don’t forget that the prompt also references “achievement you have attained” as a possible subject for your response, and that is a broad category open to your interpretation. These questions are designed to learn more about how you think and what you value, and your aim in answering them is to show that you have strong character and good values.
It doesn’t tell admissions much about you, your work ethic, or the kind of world you’d like to live in to spend 100 words waxing on the plaque you got for being the best at everything ever. It says a lot more about your perspective, and how you direct your energy, to talk about how much it meant to you when you were recognized as most improved player, singled out for a citizenship award, or referenced as an example in your most difficult class for getting an A on the final exam after spending all year coming to every single extra-help session your teacher offered.
COLLEGE OF HUMAN ECOLOGY
Identify a challenge in your greater community or in the career/industry in which you are interested. Share how the CHE education, your CHE major of choice, as well as the breadth of CHE majors, will help you address that challenge. (Refer to our essay application tips before you begin.) (600 word limit)
Surprise, surprise… another “why this major” and “why us” essay! You know how to approach this kind of question by now (and if you don’t, read back through the guides for each college above), but the most important piece of this CHE prompt is choosing a challenge that you’re motivated to address and identifying how studying within the CHE will allow you to do that.
While the parameters they’ve set (“in your greater community or in the career/industry in which you are interested”) are broad, we’ve found that the most compelling and most specific responses to this prompt are born out of personal experience. You should choose an issue that’s close to home — it will help you establish an emotional connection to the material and the discipline of human ecology as a whole, and it will also make it easier to define the problem and its possible solutions in concrete terms as well as find clear tethers to CHE curricula and programming you could productively leverage.
Let’s say you grew up in New York City, and you’ve always been disturbed by the number of people experiencing homelessness in the exact same neighborhood where you have a safe, warm apartment. This concern has come more clearly into focus as you’ve gotten older and seen different mayoral administrations’ approaches to alleviating homelessness or, in some cases, displacing the homeless themselves. Maybe in high school you began volunteering in soup kitchens and shelters and, through conversations with those directly affected, learned more about the needs of this population and began to see how existing social programs fell short or couldn’t adequately address the many factors contributing to homelessness.
This is a well-defined subject for the CHE essay; you can discuss your backstory, the urgency of this challenge, and the experiences that led you to which Cornell defines as the “[examination of] the human experience within the interconnected web of systems that impacts our health and well-being.” From there, you can delineate how a major in Global + Public Health would assist you in studying how public policy affects metrics such as poverty and wealth disparity, while a minor in Psychology would allow you to learn about empathy and decision making on the individual and societal level.
SCHOOL OF INDUSTRIAL AND LABOR RELATIONS
Using your personal, academic, or volunteer/work experiences, describe the topics or issues that you care about and why they are important to you. Your response should show us that your interests align with the ILR School. (650 word limit)
At long last — and by that we mean thousands of words later — we’ve made it to the supplement for the School of Industrial and Labor Relations! The same principles of any “why this academic subject” and “why at this college” essay apply to this prompt, but you might need to get a bit creative when you write this essay. There aren’t necessarily a lot of “labor relations” clubs you can join in high school, and you’ll want your genuine interest in this major to come through.
As always, we recommend that you start with a story to get readers’ attention and explain how you become passionate about this field. Was it a single unit in AP US History that turned into an internet deep dive on the failures of labor policy and triumphs of organizing from the colonization of North America through the present? Was it hearing about your mom’s union and wondering how autoworkers and teachers ended up uniting? Was it watching presidential election coverage and getting curious about the power of political endorsements and the follow through on campaign promises? Whatever your story is, make sure you make connections to your high school activities and experiences, outlining the actions you took to learn more or get involved to the best of your ability given circumstances.
No, you can’t become a bonafide Teamster yourself at 16, and no one on the admissions committee is expecting you to be one; they are, however, expecting that you’ve done what you could. So tell us about reaching out to shadow a union rep for a day, volunteering for labor rights organizations, checking out library books, or even just cooking meals to feed the picket line when the nurses at your local hospital went on strike.
Can you believe it? We got to the end! And if you read this guide, we know you’re more than capable of planning, writing, and executing a stand-out Cornell supplement. Good luck!
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