Outcomes: Careers After Cornell

For the past five years, a majority of graduates have entered or been seeking to enter the workforce upon graduation, while about 1/3 enter or prepare to apply for graduate school. Most Cornellians applying to law school apply a few years after college, usually within one to three years of graduation. This is increasingly common with other graduate and professional programs as well.

Graduates of A&S find success at organizations across the world in a diverse array of career fields: from technology, law, and finance to communications, government, and nonprofits. Similarly, A&S graduates pursue a bright diversity of graduate degrees after finishing their undergrad degrees here. A&S graduates find success in fields like computer science, medicine, mathematics, social sciences, fine arts, business management, law, engineering, and more at schools like Columbia, Georgetown, Brown, MIT, NYU, Northwestern, Oxford, Penn, UCLA, Tufts, and Cornell.

Cornell University conducts an annual survey of the postgraduate activities of our graduates. The reports provided represent first-destinations as reported by students. Graduates of the College of Arts & Sciences go on to prestigious graduate programs, advanced professional degrees or directly into challenging and rewarding careers.

Overall college reports and reports for each major are available for survey years 2017, 2018, and 2019. Major reports may include data from multiple graduating classes depending on the number of graduates.

• For majors with 50+ respondents in the most recent year, we provide percentages for the most recent year.
• For majors with 50+ respondents in the last 5 years, we provide percentages for the last 5 years.
• For majors with <50 respondents in the last 5 years, we provide descriptive information, but no percentages.

View and download college and major reports

If you need accessible versions of any of these documents, please contact as_communication@cornell.edu. You will receive a response within 2 business days.

77% of the Class of 2019 responded to the survey. (n=783)

* Other Endeavors includes preparing for graduate school, traveling, volunteering, time off.

EMPLOYMENT DETAILS

Class of 2019 graduates reported entering 18 unique sectors following graduation.

Salary

• Average: $66k
• High: $150k
• Median: $62k

Top employers

There were multiple ties within the top companies that employed Cornellians, with fifth place having an eight-way tie. 337 unique employers hired Class of 2019 graduates.

1. Facebook | Goldman Sachs
2. Google
3. IBM | JPMorgan | Walmart eCommerce
4. Deloitte Consulting | Massachusetts General Hospital | Teach for America
5. Amazon | Citigroup | EY | McKinsey & Company | Microsoft | Morgan Stanley | National Institutes of Health

Other sample employers

• Comcast/NBCUniversal
• Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
• Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
• CNN
• Duolingo
• Manhattan District Attorney
• Museum of Modern Art
• Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP
• Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory
• Spanish Ministry of Education and Professional Formation
• The Walt Disney Company
• US Department of State
• Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.

GRADUATE SCHOOL DETAILS

Class of 2019 graduates reported entering 84 unique graduate fields following graduation.

DEGREE TYPES PURSUED

Sample Graduate Schools Attended:

Class of 2019 graduates reported attending 95 unique graduate institutions.

• Cornell University
• Columbia University in the City of New York
• University of California-Berkeley
• University of Pennsylvania
• Harvard University
• New York University
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Stanford University
• University of California-Los Angeles
• University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
• University of Cambridge
• University of Virginia-Main Campus
• Emory University
• Georgetown University
• Johns Hopkins University
• Princeton University
• University of Chicago
• Vanderbilt University
• Yale University
• Brown University
• London School of Economics
• New England Conservatory of Music
• University of Toronto

PRE-PROFESSIONAL 2019 DATA

Pre-Law Students:

75% of A&S applicants (for the 2019 cycle) took 1 or more gap year(s).

Top Law Schools for Class of 2019

1. Cornell University
2. University of Pennsylvania
3. Harvard University
4. University of California – Los Angeles
5. Stanford

Pre-Med Students:

81% of A&S applicants (for the 2019 cycle) took 1 or more gap years(s).

Top Medical Schools for Class of 2019

1. New York University | Rutgers University | Stony Brook (tied)
2. Columbia University | Harvard University (tied)