See portfolio below

Here's the portfolio

I have no knowledge of the admission process at Cornell and am currently not a professional Architect but overall I think you have some interesting projects and a potential to succeed in the field. The one advice I could give is your presentation of the projects themselves. The landscape quarry and 3D sculptures are photographed okay but the others are not. You can actually see the shadow of your hand taking the photograph in the one drawing. 

remember to work on those essays as well, telling a compelling story.

Your grades & high school coursework appear strong.  Work on preparing for the interview and writing a good essay.

Have you considered Rice for your B.Arch?

Cornell is literally the #1 ranked school for Arch undergrad last time I checked. And undergrad is way more competitive than grad because every high GPA high school graduate without solid goal wants an ivy league title. Only few can afford ivy league grad school. But honestly, why even ask. Just apply and try the best. I really like Cornell because last time I checked their curriculum many years ago, you do not need to take generic classes like English or Physics. Ivy league already assumes your competence on generic stuff. Only core architecture courses and electives. Which means you can do 100% architecture courses. Other than that, the rest is the same besides a few famous professor and smarter classmates to inspire from. Also, finance matters more, don't want to have 200K loan and make 50K salary when you graduate. So, also look at the Financial Aid number they provide. I would rather take full ride on a mediocre school than no aid from ivy unless I am rich.

I went there. Sorry to say, but its a really really shitty school. However, look on the bright side, it's not hard to get in. 

I did my MArch there and we shared most classes with BArch kids, because most classes you'll take at AAP are common courses like history, structure, es. So I pretty much know all my undergraduate peers. There are probably 2-3 actually talented students when entering AAP, who already have tons of background knowledge in science, politics, and history, and they can't stop talking in class. I saw some of their portfolios, they actually had insane fashion design, sculpture projects, and mostly insane pencil drawings when they entered AAP. Many master students can't even compete with those hand drawings. But again, the same 2 to 3 people. The rest... I'll just say on a huge scale of difference. Most of them are social elite for sure. You saw Coachella type of people, many rich. In general, kids here are not hardworking and they are not good artists. I did electrical engineering and pre-med for undergrad in a top 40 school, apparently not close to an ivy level, but I've seen hardworking students, actually most of them. AAP kids are not it. Although you do see a lot of people pull all-nighters, it's the same people who skip class too. And there are much more peeps skip classes, attendance is often pretty bad. I know people take a ton of AP when they entered, but I guess only the people who took a lot keep talking about it in the group chat? I remember they were even chatting about cheating the AP exams that summer. Also, my advice, it might not be a good place for you if you are conservative. The BArch class that I know of has one conservative little racist, nobody knows how he got in. It's basically him versus the other 49 people in his class. He is rich so I guess he'll be fine. I guess if you are a conservative and don't want to be a social outcast, architecture schools in general will not be a comfortable experience. First of all, a lot about climate change, and also inclusive design. AAP is a good place for humanitarian design. But too bad the school is really detached from technology. If I can pick again, I would consider Delft, UCL, SciArc. These schools are more on pace with the field and they are good with humanitarian aspects as well. Anyway, students here are just horrible, so I feel literally anyone has the chance to get in.

And your portfolio... Sorry to say, but your portfolio is in a pretty bad shape. Is this your whole portfolio? I just have so many questions and I am not sure if this portfolio is serious or not. Why is your sketchup project in a tiny icon. Are these all the projects? Do you have a layout at all? Is this your final font? And what's going on with the drawing on the right side? Are you really going to include that paper with four lines and a hand shadow? 

Did you make the hand sculpture? If so, that is amazing! Because everything else about this portfolio is not in the same tier as that sculpture itself. If your plastering skill is really that good, you should have at least five different plaster projects shown here. On the other hand, the staw project could be the most interesting one that got you accepted. But only could be, because if the final product is something that is actually creative as I imagined, what I see right now is only a 10% finished process that probably takes 30 minutes to make. The photo documentation is likewise horrible. Just think about some people's portfolio looks like 40 hours. And some people's portfolio (the very few kids that I mentioned above), looks like 400 hours. The drawing looks like it took 20 minutes. Literally, just trace some printed out drawings. People do that all the time in college if they can't draw. I can tell you the first-semester studio is mostly about paper crafting. The same paper project also dominates the AAP summer program for high school students. Search for some stuff like this: https://www.google.com/search?... I've seen a lot of first-year students being able to do similar projects in their first semester. There are tutorials everywhere for origami stuff like that on youtube. Recycle material is always a plus in sculpture, and straws are... you know. You also need a more official project description. And last, learn software like photoshop, Rhino, and Grasshopper. They say they will teach you, but they actually don't (barely). People pretty much just use them since the start of the semester. (Although for some people, they still don't know what's going on two years later lol). Classes like ES and drawing expect people to know grasshopper after like two months, and these BArch kids cheat in all different ways in homework assignments. Cheating is one thing they are good at for sure. I can tell you some secrets that I learned from student services and some people. I know the undergrad admission uses a system of rating 1-5 to all the parameters that include essays, GPA, portfolio etc. And they leave notes on special qualities or conditions. I don't know how they weigh them and add them up. And I guess that's just for the initial round of filtering. Anyway, good luck with your application. Is AAP ranked No.1? Yes. Does it deserve to be ranked No.1? No. Is it a good school? Not even close. But maybe the education quality in the architecture field is just bad in general. I actually wish schools like AAP could be more selective because there are genuine hippie artists out there who devote themselves to arts and there are pretentious kids who got in Cornell AAP