Cornell Admission Essay-Describe your intellectual interests and their evolution

Any suggestions or correction would be appreciated.

Cornell no more than 500 words
Describe your intellectual interests, their evolution, and what makes them exciting to you. Tell us how you will utilize the academic programs in the College of Arts and Sciences to further explore your interests, intended major, or field of study.

My intellectual interests have always been changing. My interests do not move from one thing to the next, they seem to just keep dividing and growing. For example I am currently interested in computers, math, neurology, and music; however, if you were to ask me last year about my interests, they would have been philosophy and history. I am still interested in these, but my attention is now more split with them than it was before.

I do not mean to make myself sound indecisive, but I have noticed that in any area, the deeper you dig into it, the more you find it connects with other areas. My interests have been branching off and growing rather than changing or shifting. To be able to truly understand something you have to not only understand the concept of it, but also the context of it.

For example, obviously the foundation of computer science is math itself, but at the same time math is also foundational to music. And what about music makes our brains feel happy, sad, or any other emotion? The concept of how art makes us feel and how that can be understood scientifically through computers is an area that I am very intrigued by.

Cornell's "Computing in the Arts" course with the psychology track is a major reason for my interest in Cornell. I was interested in many of the psychology courses, particularly the ones about sleep cycles and brain activity, and I believe majoring computer science with a minor in psychology is the most practical way for me to bring both these interests together.

I believe Cornell is a great fit for me because I will be able to utilize its diverse course selection to pursue several different interests and be able to correlate the different subjects to create a stimulating, practical educational experience.

Don't be discouraged...but I think you may need to redo/add on quite a bit. You don't particularly focus on the evolution of your interests, aside from saying that they've branched out. If you're going to list computers, math, neurology, and music as your interests (which by the way sounds very intriguing and will give you a lot to work with), you need to delve deeper into how one led you to the other, and how the connections you found between them are exciting to you. Especially focus on why these areas excite you: do they show you the world in a different light? do they give you insight into daily life? etc.

Keep and work with the first two paragraphs, those are good.

Your last paragraph won't cut it though...if you want to stand out from the other applicants (I believe Cornell has the most undergrad applicants) you're going to need to show FIT, ie why YOU belong at Cornell. Instead of vaguely talking about faculty and students and resouces, go to their website and specifically look up courses, professors, and majors that interest you. With your interest in computers/math/neuroscience/music, there should be many interdiscplinary courses/majors that would allow you to study all four.

Anyway, coming from someone who has also applied to Cornell, I hope this helps! Good luck.

Thanks for the advice. I tried to take your advice; I'm still not sure if I sufficiently covered the evolution, but I changed the second half of the essay a lot. If I need to cover the evolution more please let me know, but here is the revised draft.

It's a lot better! I think you should probably dive into the evolution/how it appeals to you a bit more. For the evolution bit, which one of these came into your life first? Was it math, which you learned at a young age, or music, like the songs sung to you, or computers, maybe because you come from a family of engineers? Or were you always surrounded by all areas, but then as you grew older you began to see the connections between them? Obviously those examples won't all fit, but I'm sure you can find something like that.

Maybe write more about how these subjects appeal to you. For example, as an avid music fan, are you excited about dissecting the math behind the melodies?