Cornell University: Influence Ranking, Acceptance Rate & Notable Alumni

Cornell University at a Glance

U.S. influence rank: #11
Acceptance rate (fall 2024): 9%
Tuition and fees (2025–26): $72,270
Graduation rate: 95%
Undergraduates (fall 2024): 15,995

Reviewed by James A. Barham, PhD, Vice President and Academic Editor. Influence ranks come from our InfluenceRanking™ methodology; other figures come from federal data, with the year shown under each section. Report an error

Cornell University Featured Rankings

About Cornell University

By James Barham, PhD

In brief

Cornell University, in Ithaca, New York, was chartered in 1865, less than two weeks after Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. Its founders were the businessman Ezra Cornell, a founder of Western Union, and the historian Andrew Dickson White, who envisioned a secular university with a special emphasis on the natural sciences. By our measure of academic influence, it ranks #11 in the United States and #17 in the world. It admitted 8.8% of applicants for fall 2024; admitted students had a median SAT score of 1535 and a median ACT score of 34.

Its medical college, Weill Cornell, is in Manhattan, with a branch in Doha, Qatar.

Where Cornell’s influence is strongest

Cornell ranks in the US top 25 in every broad field we measure, led by biology, engineering, and literature. Its strongest broad fields, by US rank in our data, are:

Biology: #7 in the US (#13 in the world)
Engineering and literature: #8 each
Physics, psychology, computer science, and chemistry: #9 each

Within those fields, Cornell is a national leader in several specialties:

#1 in the US and the world: crisis intervention
#1 in the US: developmental psychology and legal psychology
#2 in the US: entomology (only Harvard ranks higher), agricultural economics (only the University of Chicago ranks higher), agriculture (only Harvard ranks higher), and polymer chemistry (only UC Berkeley ranks higher)

How we measure influence: these ranks come from the citations and recognition earned by a school’s faculty and alumni in each discipline, not from surveys or admissions statistics. See our methodology.

Notable people

About 50 Nobel laureates are connected with Cornell, among them the physicists Hans Bethe, Richard Feynman, and Kenneth Wilson, the chemist Roald Hoffmann, the geneticist Barbara McClintock, the economist Amartya Sen, and the writers Pearl Buck, Toni Morrison, and Wole Soyinka. The novelist Vladimir Nabokov taught there from 1948 to 1959. Our full lists of Cornell’s most influential alumni and faculty appear below.

Frequently asked questions

Is Cornell hard to get into? Yes. It admitted 8.8% of applicants for fall 2024; the middle half of admitted students scored 730–770 on the SAT reading section and 770–800 on math.

What does Cornell cost after financial aid? Tuition is $72,270 for 2025–26. The average net price for aided students with family incomes of $48,000–$75,000 was $6,797 in 2024–25; it ranged from about $6,152 for incomes of $30,000–$48,000 to $55,935 for incomes above $110,000.

How do Cornell graduates do? 94.6% of students who started in 2019 graduated within six years, and 98% of first-year students return for a second year. Ten years after starting college, former students had median earnings of $113,531.

What is Cornell best known for academically? By our influence data: biology, engineering, and literature, plus specialties such as developmental psychology, where it ranks first in the country.

According to Wikipedia, Cornell University is a private Ivy League land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. The university was founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White. Since its founding, Cornell has been a co-educational, non-sectarian institution where admission has not been restricted by religion or race. The student body for the fall 2022 semester consisted of more than 15,000 undergraduate and 7,000 graduate students from all 50 American states and 130 countries.

Cornell University's Online Degrees

Certificate in Digital Photography

Required Credits: 7
Completion Time: 1 year or less
Format: Fully online

Average Net Price by Family Income (2024–25)
Income	Average Net Cost
0 - 30K	$6,371
30K - 48K	$6,152
48K - 75K	$6,797
75K - 110K	$13,422
110K+	$55,935

Cornell University

Cornell University at a Glance

Cornell University Featured Rankings

About Cornell University

In brief

Where Cornell’s influence is strongest

Notable people

Frequently asked questions

Cornell University's Online Degrees

Cornell University Admissions, Retention, and Graduation Information

How Much Does Cornell University Cost To Attend?

How Much Do Cornell University Graduates Make?

Cornell University's Demographics

Where is Cornell University?

How Safe is Cornell University?

What Is Cornell University Known For?

Cornell University's Top Areas of Influence With Degrees Offered

Who Are Cornell University's Most Influential Alumni?

Who Are Cornell University's Most Influential Faculty?

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