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

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.”

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 .

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.’”

Annabelle Gordon/Reuters

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.”

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.”

罗伯特·施瓦茨表示，过去几周，有五名高中毕业生告诉他，她们要改变计划。这五名学生都是女生，她们告诉他，她们不再申请康奈尔大学了。

YourBestCollegeEssay 的创始人施瓦茨已经帮助学生准备大学申请流程 15 年了。“我从未见过这样的情况，”他说。

据简·多伊（Jane Doe）的律师称，这位前康奈尔大学学生曾提起诉讼，声称自己在2024年于该校的Chi Phi兄弟会会所遭到轮奸。简·多伊表示，她曾视康奈尔大学为梦想学府。如今，学生们在校园内举行抗议活动，教职工也在考虑对校方进行不信任投票，下一批康奈尔大学的潜在学生在大学申请季的高峰期，却面临着诸多不确定性。

现在判断这场诉讼会对康奈尔大学及其招生产生何种影响还为时尚早。但距离学校11月1日提前录取截止日期——届时那些一心想去康奈尔大学的应届毕业生将提交具有约束力的申请——仅剩不到三周时间，潜在的申请者、他们的家长和升学顾问都在紧急重新考虑大学申请流程。

在家长群、大学招生论坛和社交媒体上，许多人都在疑惑学生是否应该提前申请康奈尔大学（策略师鼓励这样做，因为这往往会增加录取机会），还是等到 1 月 2 日常规录取截止日期，或者干脆放弃这所大学，即使这意味着一切从头开始。

罗兰是明尼苏达州的一名高中生，原本计划通过QuestBridge奖学金项目提前申请康奈尔大学。他说，他已经开始撰写补充文书，并称这所大学是他的“梦想之地”。但他表示，那起强奸案的细节“真的让我感到恶心”，于是他把康奈尔大学从申请名单中剔除了。（CNN允许担心影响孩子大学录取机会的家长和学生使用化名。）

他说：“如果康奈尔大学对这类涉毒事件的处理如此糟糕，我不知道我是否会感到安全。”

罗兰说，他并不认识其他反对康奈尔大学的学生，但他所在的高中里每个人都在谈论这件事。在一个有数百所大学参展的大学博览会上，罗兰待了大约三个小时，却没看到有人去康奈尔大学的展位。

罗兰说：“过去一周左右，大家的Snapchat故事、Instagram动态都在讨论这个话题。每个人都对此感到愤怒。”

当被问及此事时，康奈尔大学发言人指出，校长迈克尔·科特利科夫周二发表了一封公开信，他在信中向简·多伊道歉，并概述了为改善校园安全和性侵犯举报流程而采取的措施。其中一项措施是，科特利科夫宣布康奈尔大学将暂停本年度剩余时间内在校内兄弟会会所举办的派对和社交活动。

米歇尔是一位高中毕业生的家长，她说她的儿子被康奈尔大学的声望所吸引，原本计划通过常规录取途径申请该校。但得知调查的消息后，她的儿子“非常沮丧”，她说，于是他们一家决定另寻他处。

“大学的声誉和学术声望固然重要，”她说，“但它们远不及品格、个人责任感以及对孩子将要度过四年的学习环境的信心重要。”

Spark Admissions的创始人兼首席执行官瑞秋·鲁宾表示，她的公司已经接到十几个家庭的电话，他们对康奈尔大学的校园安全和文化表示担忧。她说，其中有两个家庭特意选择申请康奈尔大学以外的其他院校的提前录取。

大学申请咨询公司 Top Tier Admissions 的首席执行官伊丽莎白·斯通表示，有“少数”客户联系她讨论这项调查，而一些计划提前申请康奈尔大学的学生已经转而申请其他学校——她说，人数“只有个位数”。

施瓦茨说，他问那些退学的学生是否出于安全考虑。“他们开始说，‘是的，是为了安全，但够了就是够了。’”他说。“这就是改变的途径，当一群人齐声说‘不，我不会去那里。’”

安娜贝尔·戈登/路透社

萨姆拉维特是一位新泽西州高中毕业生的母亲，她说康奈尔大学地理位置便利，但她儿子“对这一切荒唐事感到厌恶”。她还说，她认识的另外三个孩子也拒绝申请。

“我真的不明白，为什么一个家庭在得知康奈尔大学发生了如此严重的学生事件后，还会选择申请这所大学，”她说。

顶尖招生机构 Top Tier Admissions 的 Stone 指出，即使是那些没有申请康奈尔大学的学生，以前只研究大学学术方面的学生现在可能会更深入地了解校园安全，看看他们心仪的大学会如何处理类似的情况。

斯通说：“家长们现在更全面地看待这所学校的历史以及其他大学校园里发生的事情。康奈尔并不是唯一发生可怕事件的地方。”

在申请流程的这个阶段放弃一所大学可能是一个艰难的决定，而且并非总是显而易见的。康奈尔大学是常春藤盟校中入学难度相对较低的院校之一，以其顶尖的工程专业而闻名，同时也是少数几所设有面向本科生开放的商学院的常春藤盟校之一。鲁宾表示，对于那些寻求职业预科专业的学生来说，这是一个颇具吸引力的选择。

它也是常春藤联盟中本科生人数最多的学校，拥有超过16000名学生，这对于那些既想体验大型学校氛围又不想牺牲顶尖学术水平的学生来说很有吸引力。但鲁宾表示，由于它位于相对偏僻的纽约州伊萨卡市，社交活动往往围绕着派对和兄弟会/姐妹会展开。

常春藤招生咨询公司Ivy Coach的招生顾问查里斯·拉尔科表示，目前还没有学生放弃康奈尔大学。只有一位家长打电话来抱怨学校对诉讼的回应，但她的儿子仍然计划提前申请。

“学生的申请材料基本都完成了。我们正在进行校对和最后的润色，”拉尔科说。“现在突然放弃原计划有点晚了。”

迈尔斯是犹他州的一名高中生，他说自己“从小”就梦想着能上康奈尔大学。他很喜欢这座大学城，也喜欢那里庞大的学生群体和工业与劳动关系学院。然而，诉讼的消息以及康奈尔大学对最初调查的处理细节彻底粉碎了他的梦想。

“我不想身处一个政府支持强奸犯而不是受害者的地方，”他说。

迈尔斯说，他为此纠结了三天，最终还是决定申请提前录取。他说，看到教职工和学生们抗议并声援简·多伊，让他意识到康奈尔大学确实是“我想去的地方”。他尤其受到与康奈尔大学在校生交流的鼓舞，这些学生表示，校园需要更多像他们一样对当前新闻感到震惊的人。

“我们不应该阻止那些反对性侵犯的人来康奈尔大学就读，否则这所学校会变成一所糟糕的学校，”迈尔斯回忆他们当时说。“学校仍然需要那些愿意参与长达七小时的静坐示威，并放弃课程来争取学生权利的人。”

并非所有学生都出于原则而做出选择。迈尔斯说，他的一位朋友决定放弃康奈尔大学的提前录取申请，并非因为那件事本身，而是担心学校的声誉会受到损害。

常春藤教练的拉尔科回忆说，一位家长问，由于这则新闻，今年考入康奈尔大学是否更容易。在大学丑闻发生后，这种询问变得如此例行，以至于拉尔科甚至给他们起了个名字：“挤破头”，因为他们认为在他们认为竞争不那么激烈的一年里，他们可以挤破头进去。

在竞争日益激烈的本科招生环境中，顶尖大学似乎仍然不易受到丑闻的影响。2006年，杜克大学校方将学生录取率的略微下降（估计下降了3个百分点，仍在学校通常的录取率范围内）归咎于该校的长曲棍球强奸丑闻，而该丑闻后来被证实是一场骗局。2014年，艾玛·苏尔科维茨公开批评哥伦比亚大学对其性侵案的处理方式。苏尔科维茨在校园内扛着床垫进行无声抗议，此事广为人知，并获得了包括参议员克尔斯滕·吉利布兰德在内的各界人士的支持。尽管如此，2015年哥伦比亚大学的申请人数仍然有所增加；今年，该校收到的申请人数创下了历史新高。

琳达·克恩是康奈尔大学的校友，从事大学招生咨询工作已有八年。她说，没有学生提起过康奈尔大学的这起案件，也没有学生因此放弃申请。她表示，她怀疑这起案件不会对学生或家长产生负面影响——她说，大多数人都明白这种事可能发生在任何校园，而且很多申请者可能根本没想过简·多伊的遭遇也会发生在自己身上。

“这就像你在新闻上看到自然灾害时会想：‘嗯，那件事发生在那个社区，但这不会影响到我，’”她说。

康奈尔大学仍然是一所常春藤盟校。对许多家庭和他们的孩子来说，“最重要的考虑因素是声望”。

“他们相信这些学校能让他们一生无忧，”克恩说。“某种程度上来说，这话不无道理。”