Cornell - honest opinion

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Regardless of weather, it's important to distinguish that students majoring in engineering and CS are having a very different experience at Cornell than the hospitality or the humanities students. I'd throw in Dyson too - Applied Econ and Management. Those three programs are incredibly competitive. There are known to be difficult, intense, and cutthroat. You either have the disposition for it, or you don't - particularly engineering and CS.

It's probably best for students that like the outdoors, can compartmentalize, and have an outgoing personality that makes it easy to make friends. I'd be wary of sending an introvert with Seasonal Affective Disorder to do STEM at cold and dark Cornell. Hotel Administration and the softer majors will be different. Plenty of time to join clubs or the Greek system. But engineering and CS are very time consuming majors at Cornell.

Dyson difficulty is closer to the hotel school than Engineering/CS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have many Cornellians in my family.

It has always been rigorous. If your child is a straight-A type and would be broken-hearted to lose that record, it's not the right place. There will be anything from Bs to Ds on the transcript...all of which is survivable.

If your family cares a lot about weather, then it should be a factor. People who don't like cold weather are people who are foreign to my way of thinking. I think a good test would be whether a person likes skiing. I can't imagine anyone who skis having issue with Cornell weather.

Wrong

it’s not the cold/snow that irritates people as much as the gloomy weather

Salt lake last year got mega snow but it’s a lot sunnier and dry powder vs Ithaca

[Anonymous]

My DS was waitlisted at Cornell for engineering for RD as well. I think maybe had we applied sooner he would have been accepted and encourage people to try sooner than later. He is now an engineer student for another non Ivy school and the rigor is tough. I think no matter where you go with an engineering major, expect it to be time consuming and the worst grades you’ve prob had to see with your entire life.

[Anonymous]

Cornell grad from 20 years ago. Engineering was always crazy tough, also pre med, pre vet, and architecture school. I have many friends who started out in all of the above majors / schools and ended up doing something else. The curve is tough. Very competitive. I was a social science major- that was fine.
School had always been gloomy. It’s the weather + grey skies and constant participation. I also went to Michigan- similar weather but way happier undergrads (have you ever met a Michigan grad who didn’t love the school?) Not sure if Michigan has the special sauce or what’s wrong with Cornell.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Regardless of weather, it's important to distinguish that students majoring in engineering and CS are having a very different experience at Cornell than the hospitality or the humanities students. I'd throw in Dyson too - Applied Econ and Management. Those three programs are incredibly competitive. There are known to be difficult, intense, and cutthroat. You either have the disposition for it, or you don't - particularly engineering and CS.

It's probably best for students that like the outdoors, can compartmentalize, and have an outgoing personality that makes it easy to make friends. I'd be wary of sending an introvert with Seasonal Affective Disorder to do STEM at cold and dark Cornell. Hotel Administration and the softer majors will be different. Plenty of time to join clubs or the Greek system. But engineering and CS are very time consuming majors at Cornell.

Dyson difficulty is closer to the hotel school than Engineering/CS.

Is Cornell Applied Econ really considered difficult and cutthroat? Curious to hear more about this major - is it a Wall Street feeder or something like that? Back in my day at Cornell (Arts and Sci) no one really understood what/who that major was supposed to be for.

[Anonymous]

Cornell grad from 20 years ago as well.

Weather is going to be very similar to any place in the Midwest. Northeast schools closer to the ocean might get more clear days. Clear days= colder temps generally. Anyone who has experience with the cold in the northeast or Midwest knows much of the difficulty is now the snow and ice, but the slushy days/mud season. It always seemed to get nice just as the spring term was ending. If your DCgets in and goes, I would recommend that he spend one summer there.

Most of the grumbling I heard was not about the weather but about there being nothing to do. Because three of the colleges are state supported, there’s a very high percentage of NYC students. It was difficult for friends to go from the city to a very sleepy, outdoorsy town.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Regardless of weather, it's important to distinguish that students majoring in engineering and CS are having a very different experience at Cornell than the hospitality or the humanities students. I'd throw in Dyson too - Applied Econ and Management. Those three programs are incredibly competitive. There are known to be difficult, intense, and cutthroat. You either have the disposition for it, or you don't - particularly engineering and CS.

It's probably best for students that like the outdoors, can compartmentalize, and have an outgoing personality that makes it easy to make friends. I'd be wary of sending an introvert with Seasonal Affective Disorder to do STEM at cold and dark Cornell. Hotel Administration and the softer majors will be different. Plenty of time to join clubs or the Greek system. But engineering and CS are very time consuming majors at Cornell.

Dyson difficulty is closer to the hotel school than Engineering/CS.

Is Cornell Applied Econ really considered difficult and cutthroat? Curious to hear more about this major - is it a Wall Street feeder or something like that? Back in my day at Cornell (Arts and Sci) no one really understood what/who that major was supposed to be for.

yeah, I'm curious as well. I'm one of the alum PP's who graduated in the 2000s and I don't remember the AEM major having a reputation for being super competitive or challenging. My best friend majored in AEM and he breezed through it, by his own admission, as did a lot of his other friends in the major. The Economics majors in Arts&Sciences seemed to gripe a lot more about their problem sets and courseload. However, this was back when AEM was solely housed under the Agriculture school; I'm not familiar with the Dyson structure or affiliation with the Business school. Maybe that's upped the competitiveness of AEM somehow?

[Anonymous]

DD graduated last year. She did not think Environmental Engineering would be on the list of competitive majors. The last few years have not had much snow. It does have grey winters but she loved the campus, the arboretum, the sunsets on the slope. She was looking for a northern climate so that is not something everyone does tough. She had a solid group of friends in her engineering major. They studied ALOT (imo) but were not competitive.

I imagine someone with a different major or someone involved in Greek life could have a very different experience. It is a big school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Regardless of weather, it's important to distinguish that students majoring in engineering and CS are having a very different experience at Cornell than the hospitality or the humanities students. I'd throw in Dyson too - Applied Econ and Management. Those three programs are incredibly competitive. There are known to be difficult, intense, and cutthroat. You either have the disposition for it, or you don't - particularly engineering and CS.

It's probably best for students that like the outdoors, can compartmentalize, and have an outgoing personality that makes it easy to make friends. I'd be wary of sending an introvert with Seasonal Affective Disorder to do STEM at cold and dark Cornell. Hotel Administration and the softer majors will be different. Plenty of time to join clubs or the Greek system. But engineering and CS are very time consuming majors at Cornell.

Dyson difficulty is closer to the hotel school than Engineering/CS.

Is Cornell Applied Econ really considered difficult and cutthroat? Curious to hear more about this major - is it a Wall Street feeder or something like that? Back in my day at Cornell (Arts and Sci) no one really understood what/who that major was supposed to be for.

yeah, I'm curious as well. I'm one of the alum PP's who graduated in the 2000s and I don't remember the AEM major having a reputation for being super competitive or challenging. My best friend majored in AEM and he breezed through it, by his own admission, as did a lot of his other friends in the major. The Economics majors in Arts&Sciences seemed to gripe a lot more about their problem sets and courseload. However, this was back when AEM was solely housed under the Agriculture school; I'm not familiar with the Dyson structure or affiliation with the Business school. Maybe that's upped the competitiveness of AEM somehow?

The business school now houses Nolan (hotel admin) and Dyson (applied economics) While Nolan has the highest acceptance rate at Cornell, Dyson has the lowest, even lower acceptance than engineering. It’s incredibly competitive to get into with a 5% acceptance rate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I almost never hear that Harvard, BC, Colgate, Hamilton, Bowdoin, Bates etc. and cold dark and dreary but for some reason that is the first thing I hear about Cornell. Always wondered if it was just a way to discredit it or is there more to it.

New England Slacs give off Rory Gilmore vibes

Cornell suffers from what CMU and Case suffer from

The vibes are grindy and the weather is gloomy.

I still think it’s a great school tho but I get why the vibes aren’t palatable for most people

[Anonymous]

The opinions about the Cornell "experience" primarily depend on the major/school and, secondarily, how outdoorsy the kid is. My outdoorsy kid majoring in Psychoiogy absolutely loved Cornell. Played on club sports team, greek life, campus job, took 5 Physical Education classes (sailing, skiing, golf, mountain biking, ice climbing) when only 2 were required, etc. Graduated with very good grades.

My STEM kid there found it to be a grind -- requiring tremendous about of lab and study time in order to earn decent grades for medical school applications.

As others have said, I highly recommend spending at least one undergraduate summer on campus taking advantage of the lake, hiking, wineries, golf, easy parking, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The opinions about the Cornell "experience" primarily depend on the major/school and, secondarily, how outdoorsy the kid is. My outdoorsy kid majoring in Psychoiogy absolutely loved Cornell. Played on club sports team, greek life, campus job, took 5 Physical Education classes (sailing, skiing, golf, mountain biking, ice climbing) when only 2 were required, etc. Graduated with very good grades.

My STEM kid there found it to be a grind -- requiring tremendous about of lab and study time in order to earn decent grades for medical school applications.

As others have said, I highly recommend spending at least one undergraduate summer on campus taking advantage of the lake, hiking, wineries, golf, easy parking, etc.

If you aren’t going to major in stem or gun for Wall Street/mbb consulting then why wouldn’t a “outdoorsy” kid go to cu-boulder instead?

[Anonymous]

DS was accepted two years ago for CS. Originally applied ED, was deferred and got in during regular decision. DS ended up going elsewhere.

While I’m sure he would have been happy there, he is really thriving where he ended up. Ultimately it was the Cornell admitted student’s day (April) that turned him off and made him reconsider. Things that made him rethink Cornell were class sizes (especially for intro classes) and lack of freshmen with summer internships. It also seemed the college of engineering did nothing for admitted students day - opened up buildings for touring in your own and a few tables in a lobby with a handful of students to answer questions. It was pretty lame. The weather was horrible that weekend too.

They couldn’t throw together a presentation on why Cornell CS or Engineering is so great. They couldn’t bother to have a few professors there. We did our best to ask our questions to the student reps. Their responses were probably the most honest we would get but did not put Cornell in a great light - eg classes could be 1000+.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The opinions about the Cornell "experience" primarily depend on the major/school and, secondarily, how outdoorsy the kid is. My outdoorsy kid majoring in Psychoiogy absolutely loved Cornell. Played on club sports team, greek life, campus job, took 5 Physical Education classes (sailing, skiing, golf, mountain biking, ice climbing) when only 2 were required, etc. Graduated with very good grades.

My STEM kid there found it to be a grind -- requiring tremendous about of lab and study time in order to earn decent grades for medical school applications.

As others have said, I highly recommend spending at least one undergraduate summer on campus taking advantage of the lake, hiking, wineries, golf, easy parking, etc.

Definitely! The Ithaca summer is glorious. Cayuga Lake, Taughannock and Buttermilk Falls, and just the campus itself are beautiful during the warmer months. It does get hot and humid, but not unbearably so - certainly worlds better than DMV area during the summer. I worked on campus several summers and had a great time. A lot of students stay on campus to either work, take classes, or both... so chances are at least some friends would be sticking around for the summer. The only tricky part was finding a place to live because at the time, the dorms weren't open for living space; I ended up subletting from a friend who lived off campus and went home for the summer, which worked out well.

[Anonymous]

It is a large campus that would require a lot of walking (or waiting outside for buses). It is also quite hilly.

This would be a detraction for my child.
Summers in Ithaca are gorgeous. Would he likely stay there in the summer (like to work in a lab) or be elsewhere (like for a business internship)?

My kid had similar concerns about a school in Maine (where we were warned about it getting dark at like 4pm??)