Is UVA or Cornell harder to get into overall?

Cornell is usually considered harder to get into than UVA. Cornell is an Ivy League school with a broader national and international applicant pool, and its admissions process is highly selective across its colleges. UVA is also very competitive, but its admissions landscape is shaped a lot by Virginia residency, with in-state applicants having a noticeable advantage compared with out-of-state students.

For a student applying from outside Virginia, UVA can still feel extremely selective, sometimes close enough that it does not feel meaningfully easier on a personal college list. But in the broadest sense, Cornell has the stronger reputation for overall selectivity, especially because it draws huge numbers of applicants aiming for one of the Ivies.

The main complication is that both schools vary by program. At Cornell, admission can look different depending on the undergraduate college, and some programs are much tougher than others. At UVA, the biggest dividing line is often in-state versus out-of-state, more than major, since students usually apply to the university as a whole.

If the question is simply which school is viewed as more selective overall, the answer is Cornell. If you are a non-Virginia applicant, though, UVA should still stay in the same mental category of highly reachy, very competitive admissions.