anyone that got accepted into cornell university... what did you do to get in?

Answer 1

My son's best friend went to Cornell. He was VP of his class, 2nd in the school academically, a five-state regional debate champion, and co-captain of Cross Country. He had about 2200 on the SAT.

If you check the stats for Cornell you will see that he is just about average or maybe just slightly better than average for them. If you want to go to an elite school, you have to compete with the best, and win.