Cornell Engineering has been famously stressful and competitive for 30+ years. Hardest ivy school to get top grades in.

Anonymous wrote:SEAS and Dyson are THE two best programs Cornell offers, crown jewel. It's comparable to Michigan's Ross and engineering. To me those are the only two reasons to go to Cornell. You can easily find better programs at many other colleges, outside SEAS and Dyson.

Another perspective would be that Arts and Sciences are in fact fantastic at Cornell and that the engineering and business, though difficult to get into, have a noxious effect on the overall culture of the school, which has a competitive pre-professional orientation that makes the place feel like a high-stakes trade school (which, in many ways, it is).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Many engineering courses are graded on a curve. This makes grades a zero sum game. If one person does well, it necessarily pushes someone else down. Depending in the course and professor, median might be set at 3.0 or 3.1, therefore half the class has grades below median. Grade competition can be fierce in such situations. MIT has first 2 years as pass/fail, unlike Cornell.

“Grading on the curve” at Cornell usually means that when the entire class scores below 50% that most everyone ends up with an A to C.

It helps, not hurts.

That's not what it means, actually.

My kid is majoring in engineering at Cornell. It’s definitely challenging, but DC hasn’t witnessed any sabotage. Kids are generally pretty supportive of each other.

The work load is intense. You really have to stay on top of the work and be efficient with your time.
That being said, there’s still some time for fun, but don’t expect to be partying nonstop.

DC’s advice is to get started on problem sets early then go to office hours to ask questions and check over your understanding of the material. It’s great for learning and buys you a lot of good will with the Professors and TAs if they see you working hard.

Anonymous wrote:SEAS and Dyson are THE two best programs Cornell offers, crown jewel. It's comparable to Michigan's Ross and engineering. To me those are the only two reasons to go to Cornell. You can easily find better programs at many other colleges, outside SEAS and Dyson.

I agree with this pp

Anonymous wrote:SEAS and Dyson are THE two best programs Cornell offers, crown jewel. It's comparable to Michigan's Ross and engineering. To me those are the only two reasons to go to Cornell. You can easily find better programs at many other colleges, outside SEAS and Dyson.

Ok, and? No one GAF what you think.

SEAS and Dyson are THE two best programs Cornell offers, crown jewel. It's comparable to Michigan's Ross and engineering. To me those are the only two reasons to go to Cornell. You can easily find better programs at many other colleges, outside SEAS and Dyson.

Anonymous wrote:Many engineering courses are graded on a curve. This makes grades a zero sum game. If one person does well, it necessarily pushes someone else down. Depending in the course and professor, median might be set at 3.0 or 3.1, therefore half the class has grades below median. Grade competition can be fierce in such situations. MIT has first 2 years as pass/fail, unlike Cornell.

“Grading on the curve” at Cornell usually means that when the entire class scores below 50% that most everyone ends up with an A to C.

It helps, not hurts.

No one accidentally gets a 4-year degree in engineering. It is a tough slog for almost everyone; exceptions must exist somewhere.

With the exception of a few, smaller, speciality engineering programs, your kid is going to find it a tough major, especially if not great at calculus.

Reddit's user base has a large foreign component. Just keep that in mind when parsing these sorts of complaints.

Cornell engineering is very very hard. Did he get in?

Many engineering courses are graded on a curve. This makes grades a zero sum game. If one person does well, it necessarily pushes someone else down. Depending in the course and professor, median might be set at 3.0 or 3.1, therefore half the class has grades below median. Grade competition can be fierce in such situations. MIT has first 2 years as pass/fail, unlike Cornell.

Ranked #10 in engineering by USNWR. What else you want to know ?

DC is considering Cornell Engineering. Some of the points mentioned in that Reddit post sound quite toxic;

https://www.reddit.com/r/Cornell/comments/1jyphm7/please_read_if_considering_cornell_especially/

A few of the negative behaviors described in the Reddit post are very similar to what we usually hear in the competitive high schools. I’d like to hear some input from people here. How bad is it? What are students competing about in the Cornell? Internship opportunities?