High school seniors, parents and college counselors grapple with applying to Cornell

By Leah Asmelash, CNN

(CNN) — In the past few weeks, five high school seniors have told college application consultant Robert Schwartz that they’re changing their plans, he said. The students, all girls, told him they were no longer going to apply to Cornell University.

Schwartz, the founder of YourBestCollegeEssay, has been helping students prepare for the college admissions process for 15 years. “I’ve never seen anything like this,” he said.

Jane Doe, the former Cornell student who filed a lawsuit alleging that she was the victim of a 2024 gang rape at the university’s Chi Phi fraternity house, said she once thought of it as her dream school, according to her attorney. As students lead protests on campus and the faculty consider a vote of no confidence in the administration, the next class of potential Cornell students is entering the height of the college application season with uncertainty.

It’s still early to judge what the lawsuit will mean for the university and its admissions. But with less than three weeks remaining until the school’s November 1 early decision deadline — when seniors who want Cornell above any other school would submit a binding application — would-be applicants, their parents and their counselors are rethinking the college process on the fly.

In parent groups, on college admissions forums, and across social media, many people are wondering whether students should still apply to Cornell early — which strategists encourage because it tends to increase the chance of acceptance — wait till the January 2 regular-decision deadline, or drop the university, even if that means starting from scratch.

Roland, a high school senior in Minnesota, had been planning on applying to Cornell early through the QuestBridge scholarship program. He had already begun writing his supplemental essays, he said, and he called the university “a dream.” But the details of the alleged rape “really grossed me out,” he said, and he removed the university from his list. (CNN allowed parents and students concerned about hurting their college admission chances to use pseudonyms.)

“I don’t know that I would feel safe in an environment that handles drugging situations like that as poorly as Cornell did,” he said.

While Roland said he doesn’t know other students who are nixing Cornell, everybody at his high school is talking about the case, he said. At a college fair featuring hundreds of schools, Roland, who lingered for about three hours, didn’t see anyone approach the Cornell booth.

“Everyone’s Snapchat stories, everyone’s Instagram notes, for the past week or so have been about this topic,” Roland said. “Everyone’s outraged about it.”

“We recognize that this case has likely raised questions for you, your students, and their families about how Cornell responds to sexual misconduct on campus,” Cornell’s undergraduate admissions office wrote in a letter to high school guidance counselors this week. The letter described the allegations as “deeply disturbing” and listed campus resources and organizations dedicated to preventing or responding to sexual violence.

“We know that some of you may have mixed feelings about recommending Cornell to students now or in the future,” the letter said.

When asked for comment, a spokesperson for Cornell pointed to a public letter published Tuesday by university President Michael Kotlikoff, in which he apologized to Jane Doe and outlined changes to improve campus safety and sexual assault reporting. Among those changes, Kotlikoff announced Cornell was suspending parties and social events at on-campus fraternity houses for the rest of the year.

Looking for safety

Michele, the parent of a high school senior, said her son — attracted to Cornell’s prestige — was planning on applying regular decision to the university. After news of the investigation, her son was “disheartened,” she said, and her family decided to look elsewhere.

“A university’s reputation and academic prestige are important,” she said, “but they are not more important than character, personal responsibility, and feeling confident in the environment where your child will spend four years.”

Rachel Rubin, the founder and CEO of Spark Admissions, said her firm has had more than a dozen calls with families who raised concerns about campus safety and culture at Cornell. Two families, she said, specifically chose to apply somewhere other than Cornell for early decision.

Elizabeth Stone, the CEO of the college application counseling firm Top Tier Admissions, said a “handful” of her clients reached out to discuss the investigation, while a few students planning to apply early decision to Cornell have redirected to other schools — in the “single digits,” she said.

Schwartz said he asked the students who were dropping Cornell if they were doing it for safety reasons. “They started saying, ‘Yeah, it’s safety, but then enough is enough.’” he said. “That’s how you make change, is when a group en masse says ‘No, I’m not going to go there.’”

Samrawet, the mother of a New Jersey high school senior, said Cornell would have been a convenient location, but her son is “disgusted with all this craziness.” Three other kids she knows are refusing to apply, too, she said.

“I honestly don’t understand why a family would choose to apply to Cornell after learning about such a serious situation involving students,” she said.

Even among students not applying to Cornell, Stone, of Top Tier Admissions, noted that students who were previously only researching the academic side of colleges now might look a little more deeply at campus safety, to see how their top picks might handle a similar situation.

“Families are looking more holistically at the history of the institution and what goes on other college campuses,” Stone said. “Cornell is not the only place where terrible things happen.”

Will applicant numbers actually go down?

The decision to drop a college at this stage in the admissions process can be a loaded one, and it’s not always clear cut. Cornell is among the less difficult Ivy League schools to get into, and it is known for its top engineering program, while also being one of the few Ivies with a business school open to undergraduates. It’s an enticing option for students looking for a pre-professional major, Rubin said.

It’s also the biggest Ivy League school by undergraduate population, with over 16,000 enrolled, which can be appealing for those looking for the experience of a larger school without sacrificing top academics. But its location in relatively isolated Ithaca, New York, also means that social activities tend to be centered around parties and Greek life, Rubin said.

Charis Ralko, an admissions consultant at Ivy Coach, hasn’t had any students drop Cornell. Only one parent called to vent about the university’s response to the lawsuit, but her son was still planning on applying early decision.

“Students’ applications are just about complete. We’re just proofing, putting the final touches on them,” Ralko said. “It’s a little late to just pick up and totally abandon their original plan.”

Miles, a high school senior in Utah, has been wanting to attend Cornell “my entire life,” he said. The small college town appealed to him, as well as the larger student body and the School of Industrial and Labor Relations. News of the lawsuit and the details of Cornell’s handling of the initial investigation turned his dream “on its head.”

“I do not want to be in a place that the administration is supporting rapists instead of victims,” he said.

Miles said he agonized over the choice for three days, before ultimately deciding to still apply early decision. Seeing faculty and students protest and rally behind Jane Doe showed him Cornell was actually “a place that I want to be,” he said. He was especially encouraged by conversations with current Cornell students, who said the campus needs more people who are appalled by the current news.

“We shouldn’t be deterring people that are against sexual assault from going to Cornell, or the school is going to become a terrible school,” Miles recalled them saying. “It still needs to have the people that will participate in seven-hour sit-ins and leave their classes to fight for student rights.”

Not every student is citing principles in their choice. Miles said one of his friends made the decision to drop his early decision application to Cornell, not because of the incident itself, but for fear the school’s reputation would be damaged.

Ralko, of Ivy Coach, recalled a parent asking if it might be easier to get into Cornell this year because of the news, an inquiry so routine following college scandals that Ralko even had a name for them: “Squeakers,” because they think they can squeak in during what they perceive as a less competitive year.

And, in an increasingly competitive undergraduate admissions landscape, the top schools remain somewhat scandal-proof. In 2006, Duke University’s administration attributed a slight decline in student admission acceptances — an estimated three percentage points, still within the university’s usual range of acceptances — to the school’s lacrosse rape scandal, later revealed to be a hoax. In 2014, Emma Sulkowicz publicly criticized Columbia University’s handling of her sexual assault case, which became widely publicized when Sulkowicz silently protested by carrying a mattress throughout campus, attracting support from figures like Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand. Applications still increased in 2015; this year, Columbia received the most applications in school history.

Linda Kern, a Cornell alum who has been a college admissions counselor for eight years, hasn’t had any students bring up the Cornell case, nor have any decided to toss their applications. She said she doubts the case will dissuade students or parents — most people recognize this can happen on any campus, she said, and many kids applying might not be thinking that what happened to Jane Doe could also happen to them.

“It’s kind of like when you see a natural disaster on the news: ‘Well, that happened in that community, but it’s not going to affect me,’” she said.

And Cornell is still an Ivy League school. For many families and their kids, “the overriding consideration is prestige.”

“They believe that these schools will set them up for life,” Kern said. “And to a degree, there’s some truth to that.”

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CNN’s Taylor Galgano contributed to this report.