11th hour addition of Cornell to S's list?

Parents Forum
21

<p>Beware of overconfidence – S1 got into MIT, but not Cornell! Based on Naviance from his HS, most students with his profile were accepted, so we felt he had a strong chance of getting to the admissions committee table.</p>

<p>What S1 liked about Cornell was that the math and CS programs were BOTH very strong. He felt there wouldn’t be a trade-off between the departments as there were at some of the other schools on his list.</p>

<p>I would consider any Ivy a mega-reach; too many kids, not enough spots.</p>

22

<p>I would say that your son has a good shot at Cornell, but I would not call it a sure thing. For male students applying to the College of Engineering for the Fall of 2010, the acceptance rate was 17.2%. For comparison the acceptance rate for males at MIT was 7.9% the preceding year. Both are highly selective, but MIT is more so. Your son will be a competitive applicant at either one, but his chances of getting in are somewhat better at Cornell.</p>

23

<p>Yes, a “good shot” is probably the right way to put it for Cornell - definitely a shot worth taking!</p>

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<p>Ok, thanks, just wanted to make sure we weren’t adding another crazy super-reach. Obviously there are no sure things at that level, we get that.</p>

25

<p>I’m a big Cornell fan. My older S is a recent graduate and we spent a lot of time on campus over the past four years, as he was a varsity athlete. They talk about energy vortexes in Sedona … but I really felt the energy vortex at Cornell every time we came on to campus. All those kids really passionate about whatever it is that they are doing.</p>

<p>Still have my fingers crossed that S2 will accept his transfer option to Cornell … his freshman year grades are in, and well over the required mark for the guaranteed transfer!</p>

26

<p>Cornell is somewhat different from other very reachy schools is that they do look for consistency in the application through ECs and letters of recommendation. When my sons applied I think the fact that their ECs demonstrated a clear picture of their interest was evident. Your son may has good stats but Cornell may see the ECs as not being strong for the major. Thats why it really can’t be considered a sure thing. They really do admit with consideration to the entire application. It is certainly worth applying to. </p>

<p>Don’t worry about the car situation. So many kids have cars on campus after the first year, that your son will have plenty of opportunity for rides either close to home or directly to your home, and to off campus adventures. If he is a skier/boarder he could join the ski club and meet some terrific kids as well as get a ride to the slopes almost any time of the weekend.</p>

<p>Again, wishing your son lots of luck!! CNP55^ nailed it right on the head I refer to it as “seeing the brains working when you walk through the campus” and that is not to say that it is all work because Cornell kids do have great times.</p>

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<p>You see the brains working and engaged … but it’s not all geeks! Just a lot of really bright kids … with the motto: any person, any study. The Land-Grant college to the WORLD! It’s an amazing place.</p>

28

<p>My daughter is a senior at Cornell, in the College of Arts and Sciences. I graduated from Cornell myself, a long, long, time ago, and my husband got his doctorate there (in math).</p>

<p>A few things you might want to know:</p>

<p>I think Cornell is a “match” for your son if his GPA is in line with his test scores. I wouldn’t be worried about the non-matching ECs. My daughter, who intended to major in economics, had ECs that were heavily skewed toward music. Cornell didn’t seem to care.</p>

<p>There is a pre-professional feel to the place. Uniquely among the schools in the Ivy League, Cornell does not have the majority of its students in liberal arts majors. However, it is not exclusively a tech school. There are a wide variety of majors, including some that you probably never knew existed. One of my daughter’s roommates is majoring in hotel administration, and a friend from her high school is majoring in industrial and labor relations. You won’t find those majors everywhere. And of course, there are 3,000 kids in Arts and Sciences as well, with some in small programs such as classics or film, as well as the more common biology, psychology, or economics majors. </p>

<p>The computer science department is excellent.</p>

<p>There are lots of kids from magnet programs (including my daughter, who comes from a magnet, but not one in New York City). But there are plenty of kids from other backgrounds as well.</p>

<p>Yes, it’s cold in the winter, and although there are a few connecting buildings, you have to walk outside to get to most places. Given a good coat and a lot of hats and gloves, students survive (although there is the problem of cold legs). My daughter comes from the Washington, DC area, where winter is something of a joke (“Horrors! We’re getting three inches of snow! The sky is falling! Time to close the schools for a week!”), but she has managed. </p>

<p>Getting in and out of Ithaca may be a challenge – or it may not be. Is anyone from your son’s high school at Cornell? It may be worth finding out how that student gets home for breaks. When my daughter was considering Cornell, we discovered that there were charter buses directly from the campus to our area for every break – a simple (and remarkably cheap) solution to the transportation problem. She really didn’t have transportation challenges until last semester, when she had to travel to other locations at other times to interview for jobs. (On the other hand, thanks to extensive on-campus recruiting opportunities, she had a job lined up for after graduation – and it’s quite a good one – before Thanksgiving of senior year.)</p>

<p>A few other things about Cornell culture:</p>

<p>Cornell has a strong fraternity-sorority culture, but it is also possible to have an active social life without joining a Greek house. </p>

<p>Cornell has a reputation for academic intensity, but I’m not sure that it’s really any more intense than other schools of its caliber. </p>

<p>Except, perhaps, for students in the smallest schools at Cornell (such as Industrial and Labor Relations or Architecture), the place can be a bit impersonal. Cornell offers lots of support, academic and otherwise, especially for freshmen, but students have to seek it out. It won’t find them. Students with an independent streak like this just fine. Some others may not. </p>

<p>If you go to Cornell, you will almost certainly live off-campus at some point unless you become an RA. On-campus housing is guaranteed for only the first two years. Living off-campus in no way isolates you; it’s what all your friends are doing, too. And most kids live in shared apartments or group houses, usually with friends. It can be quite nice. You don’t need a car to live off-campus. But you do need parents who understand that Cornell students sign leases for off-campus housing for the following academic year before Thanksgiving. They are not making this up. </p>

<p>Yes, there is a swim test. But if you cannot pass, the only consequence is that you must take swimming for PE (Cornell requires one year of PE). If you still cannot pass the swim test after two semesters of Beginning Swimming, Cornell figures it’s their fault that they couldn’t teach you to swim, rather than your fault for not learning, and they consider you to have met the requirement.</p>

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<p>I apologize for the double post, but this one is on a different topic – admissions details, rather than life at Cornell.</p>

<p>You have already been told that the computer science major is available in both the College of Engineering and the College of Arts and Sciences.</p>

<p>What you may not know is that the requirements for admission to those two colleges are different – specifically, in terms of SAT Subject Test requirements and high school course requirements <a href=“http://admissions.cornell.edu/forms/FreshmanRequirementsChart.pdf[/url]”>http://admissions.cornell.edu/forms/FreshmanRequirementsChart.pdf&lt;/a&gt;, as well as the questions on the Cornell supplement to the Common Application <a href=“http://admissions.cornell.edu/forms/FreshmanSupplement.pdf[/url]”>http://admissions.cornell.edu/forms/FreshmanSupplement.pdf&lt;/a&gt; </p>

<p>It is possible to apply to two colleges at Cornell – one as a primary choice and one as an alternate choice. Alternatively, the student can choose to apply to one college only.</p>

<p>Your son’s choice of whether to apply to Arts and Sciences or Engineering may need to be a strategic one. If he doesn’t have three years of a foreign language, for example, he may be better off applying to Engineering, which doesn’t care about foreign language. If he doesn’t have a science SAT Subject Test Score, which is required for Engineering, he will have to apply to Arts and Sciences.</p>

<p>If your son meets the requirements for admission to Engineering and that’s where he wants to be, that’s great. But if he’s unsure of which college he wants or prefers Arts and Sciences, applying to Arts and Sciences might actually be advantageous for him because his proposed major reflects one set of interests, while his ECs reflect a different set. This could be regarded as an indication of diverse educational interests, which Arts and Sciences likes. In fact, for students of this sort, the Arts and Sciences essay on the Cornell supplement to the common application almost writes itself. (Hint: Theatre is an academic subject in Arts and Sciences, not just an EC.)</p>

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<p>" I was wondering if anyone can give us any feedback on how the “feel” of Cornell compares to the explicitly techy schools my son has enjoyed visiting, such as WPI, RPI, RIT, MIT, etc"</p>

<p>1) Cornell has a large, sprawling, bucolic campus ,and is located in a college town, not a big city.</p>

<p>2) Cornell is not such a “techie school” overall, there are seven undergraduate colleges, engineers represent only 20% of the total. Overall the university is more science-y than many other universities, but much less so than the tech schools. All these people, with all these different interests and objectives, are together in the dorms.</p>

<p>3) It follows that there is a substantial representation of quite intelligent but not necessarily techie women sharing the campus, and the dorms. The university’s undergrad male-female ratio is about 50-50.</p>

31

<p>Re: weather :
The average temperature is 68.5 °F in July and 21.5°F in January. The average yearly rainfall is 35.4 inches, and the average snow fall is 67.3 inches. Ithaca is not in the snowbelt. It gets about 2/3 or less of the snowfall that cities like Rochester, Syracuse, Buffalo get. It rains a lot in the Fall, though it is otherwise beautiful there.</p>

<p>[Average</a> Weather for Ithaca, NY - Temperature and Precipitation](<a href=“National and Local Weather Radar, Daily Forecast, Hurricane and information from The Weather Channel and weather.com”>National and Local Weather Radar, Daily Forecast, Hurricane and information from The Weather Channel and weather.com)
[Northwest</a> Ithaca, New York (NY 14850) profile: population, maps, real estate, averages, homes, statistics, relocation, travel, jobs, hospitals, schools, crime, moving, houses, sex offenders, news<a href=“scroll%20to%20%22average%20climate%22%20charts”>/url</a>
[url=&lt;a href=“Ashburn, United States - Weather Forecasts | Maps | News - Yahoo Weather”&gt;Ashburn, United States - Weather Forecasts | Maps | News - Yahoo Weather]Ithaca</a> Weather | Records | Averages - Yahoo! Weather](<a href=“http://www.city-data.com/city/Northwest-Ithaca-New-York.html]Northwest”>http://www.city-data.com/city/Northwest-Ithaca-New-York.html)</p>

<p>One issue though is, because the campus is large and must be walked about, you are actually out in whatever weather there is for much of the time. It is not like being in a suburb where you drive from the garage in your house to the garage inside your classroom building, you are walking outside a lot, a long way, from your housing to your classes and between classes. But the truth is, they dress warm enough, then they just do it, they deal. Because they are 17-22 years old and invincible, not old, tired, lazy wimps.</p>

<p>All these years later, my clearest recollections are not of the snow, though it gets called to mind when someone brings it up. What I remember spontaneously are the beautiful Fall days, when the leaves are turned and you feel the crisp clean air in your lungs. Selective memory perhaps, but that’s how it is. [File:Ithaca</a> Hemlock Gorge.JPG - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ithaca_Hemlock_Gorge.JPG]File:Ithaca”>File:Ithaca Hemlock Gorge.JPG - Wikipedia)</p>

<p>More pictures,etc:
[Around</a> Ithaca, New York Photo Gallery by Unexplained Bacon at pbase.com](<a href=“Unexplained Bacon's Photo Galleries at pbase.com”>Unexplained Bacon's Photo Galleries at pbase.com)
[Explore</a> Cornell Tours](<a href=“http://www.cornell.edu/tours/tour_home.html]Explore”>http://www.cornell.edu/tours/tour_home.html)
[YouTube</a> - Welcome to Ithaca](<a href=“Welcome to Ithaca - YouTube”>Welcome to Ithaca - YouTube)</p>

32

<p>My daughter just completed her first semester at Cornell and LOVES it there. From the moment she set foot on the campus when we were doing the college tours, it was the place for her. Ithaca has a college town feel (we live very near Penn State and the vibe is like downtown State College). The area around is rural, and beautiful, with gorges and lakes and lots of outdoor activities. When I picked D up for break, there was more snow on the ground here in PA than in Ithaca, but it does get bitterly cold and windy by the lake. The college is beautiful. </p>

<p>The financial aid department is amazing, and everyone I’ve come across is friendly and helpful. </p>

<p>D is in the College of Human Ecology, so I can’t speak specifically to your son’s interests.</p>

<p>I also have about a 3 1/2 hour drive, but can’t complain. If I can answer any questions for you from a parent’s perspective, please do not hesitate to pm me.</p>

<p>Good luck - it looks like your son has some amazing schools lined up!</p>

33

<p>momofswimmer, does your D have a car, and if not does she find that she can get around Ithaca sufficiently without one (or never needs to leave campus ;-))</p>

<p>We already live in rural New England so in a way, Cornell may be “too much like home” – he’d love it but maybe it would be nice to experience something different. But I think he will apply and we will visit if he is accepted.</p>

<p>Thanks to all for the feedback!</p>

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<p>Cornell students do not need cars, although some have them. My daughter has gone three and a half years at Cornell without a car and does not intend to buy one now because she is moving to a major city after graduation, where a car is unnecessary. She has not suffered significantly from her lack of wheels.</p>

<p>Ithaca has a pretty good bus system and taxis that actually show up when you call them, and you don’t really have to leave the immediate vicinity of campus all that much anyway.</p>

<p>One caution, though: There is no supermarket within walking distance of the Cornell campus. There are on-campus eateries where students not on a meal plan can pay cash, convenience stores, nearby restaurants, and take-out places that deliver, so off-campus students without cars don’t go hungry, but they do spend more on food than they would if they could shop for food and cook easily. This is something to take into account when making financial plans for the upperclass years.</p>

<p>A car is only something to think about for the upperclass years, anyway. Few freshmen have cars. They don’t need them, and finding (and paying for) parking is difficult. All Cornell freshmen live together in a large dorm neighborhood called North Campus, which has two large dining halls and lots of activities. The day-to-day lives of freshmen tend to center around North Campus and the parts of campus where they have their classes, except for occasional bus trips to such places as the movies or the mall.</p>

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<p>Many people rarely leave the campus and immediately surrounding areas. A car is not necessary, but what it allows one to do is make fuller connection with the greater area of Ithaca & surroundings. There is good bus service to downtown & some other points of interest, but it does not fully replicate the convenience and flexibility of a car, and the buses cannot possibly go everyplace of potential interest. I had a car my last two years there, and I think it materially enhanced the range of my experiences. However many people never have one and get on just fine. I didn’t have one my first two years and didn’t think anything was missing. It is a campus with 20,000 students so there is a lot to do right there.</p>

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<p>The info given so far has been great. I am also a long ago grad so was letting those with more recent info pipe up.</p>

<p>I was a computer science major in the engineering college. At the time I was there, there were about 100 cs majors total, maybe 1/4 or 1/3 in engineering. I know of many friends who transferred out of engineering, none who transferred in. So although it might be easier to gain admittance to A&S it might not be a good plan if you plan to transfer into engineering.</p>

<p>Although that was my main major, maybe in my soph year I also signed up for a dual degree program where I got a math BA in the A&S school. The dual degree program at the time was typically a 5 year program but since there was alot of overlap between the BS-CS and BA-math degrees I was able to do this in the four years. I remember meeting the extra requirements for the math degree, I don’t remember additional A&S degree requirements but I assume I met them. (I came in with a couple of good language SAT subject scores and I took French lit classes to meet an engr humanities requirement)</p>

<p>============
on the other points, I lived in north campus for three years (this was before the fancier new dorms were built) the first in a very heavily freshman dorm and the next two (really 1.5 with a break for an engineering coop semester) in an on-campus apartment. Because of the lack of car and lack of market in this area of campus, we mostly ate in the dining halls. This has not a problem as the dining hall food was excellent. When I moved to collegetown senior year, it was not bad to walk to the market and do our own cooking. It was also not bad to walk downtown, but not something we did all the time.</p>

<p>Although Cornell is rural, I would not compare it to living in a rural area. You are able to walk to all ends of the campus and to town, something I can’t do in the suburb where I now live.</p>

<p>I picked Cornell over tech schools because I wanted the diversity of students. I had friends in ILR and HumEc (and of course larger schools like Ag and A&S) and I took too of my favorite courses in the hotel school. I also fell in love with it when I visited the campus.</p>

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<p>“When I moved to collegetown senior year, it was not bad to walk to the market and do our own cooking.”</p>

<p>However my sense is, it is worse now, because the collegetown IGA supermarket is not there anymore, and some smaller convenience type shops have only unsatisfactorily filled the gap. D2 is there now and does her share of cooking. But she, and/or her friends, has a car, to get to Wegmans et al.to shop for food. The buses go there too I think, but that’s a whole different level of convenience.</p>

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<p>

</p>

<p>Yes, the IGA is long gone, and there is no adequate substitute.</p>

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<p>Thanks to everyone who replied and encouraged my S to apply! He was accepted to the college of engineering (his first choice) and has just decided to attend Cornell after a great Cornell Days visit.</p>

40

<p>Congratulations! Cornell is awesome. Hoping my S2 will follow his brother to Ithaca.</p>