If SAT II scores are not required, do not send it in unless it is going to help your case. No information is better than bad information. I would say send in 700+ scores. On the other hand if your math score on SAT I is 600 and your math II is 680 then it may make sense to send in the math II score.
True if CALS doesn’t need them, don’t bother. As an engineer I had to send them, so that’s where my line of thinking came from.
@AGoodFloridian I’m going to take Biology-E, U.S. History, and World History.
I guess I’m gonna hold off on sending my scores during registration until I actually see them. Thanks guys!
@IndoorCloud25
Hey man thanks for helping us prospective undergraduate students out. It really helps to have a Cornell student answer our questions 
I am gunning for Engineering, but I also wanted to take some business and finance classes as well at Cornell (let’s just say high-school doesn’t really emphasize those areas as much as it could). I was wondering how flexible the common core is at Cornell, and if it would be easy to explore careers outside of engineering during the first year.
@MysteryBox Taking business and finance classes is very easy to do as an engineer. I would highly suggest doing the Dyson Business Minor for Engineers, which is basically 5 classes through Dyson, SHA, or even ORIE to get a business minor specifically for engineers. This option is awesome because it’s catered to engineers and you take classes in the Dyson school, which is a top notch business school. I’m doing this with the ChemE curriculum, which is loaded with requirements, but if you take enough credit to place out of core classes or can manage time well, you’ll have plenty of space to take minor classes with low stress. Typically your Econ and some AEM courses will fulfill the liberal distribution for one category (you need to take liberal studies in at least 3 of the 7 or 6 categories), but not all will, so you’ll still have to take other liberal arts classes. I’d say start planning the minor as early as possible and the classes you’ll take to have a game plan for your 4 years if you’re really interested in business and finance along with engineering.
With regard to the common core, for engineers, the common core is as follows: Calc II, Multi, Diff Eqs., Lin Alg. or a few other math courses like Stats, CS, Gen Chem I (and Gen Chem II for ChemEs), Physics I and II (for some majors III), Bio, FWS, ENGRIs, ENGRDs, and other core classes for certain majors. These core classes are requirements based by major and you really have no flexibility as to what intro classes you take. Mostly by the time you get to the end of sophomore year you will have a larger selection of major approved electives, but for all engineers that’s pretty much the common core. You’ll also have liberal distribution classes which you have the option of choosing. You’ll have to take classes from at least 3 categories of the 6 or 7 listed (there’s a list online you could find with the categories and the classes). I think the bare minimum number of liberal arts classes you need to take is 6, and most need to be able the 2000 level. There’s a lot of leeway here as there’s literally thousands of classes to choose from to fulfill the requirement. I’d highly recommend looking at the engineering handbook for the curriculums for each major to see the classes you would take and what interests you the most.
Do I have to send all SAT subject tests scores for school of engineering?
What are typical class sizes for freshmen in humanities/ social science classes? What is the role of professors and TA’s in these? Also, how dominant is Greek life in the social atmosphere?
@Alamalaki Yes you do, though admissions would never know whether you sent all the ones you took. I sent all of mine, even the scores that weren’t so good.
@TheGreyKing Typical class sizes for any introductory class could range between 50-1000 depending on how popular the class is. Typically Oceanography and Psych are the largest ones and are held in Bailey Hall, the largest auditorium. Intro classes for more obscure majors/topics will tend to be on the lower end. Although I’m not a humanities major, I would venture to guess that most intro humanities courses will likely never be above 300, Psych being one of those exceptions.
The roles of the professors is what you’d think. They’re mainly there to lecture and present the content to you. They’ll answer questions in class, but some won’t due to the size of the class, and they’ll certainly answer questions in the required office hours. Much of the “dirty” work is given to the TAs. They run the discussion sections to go over material covered in class in more depth and also serve as a resource to get answers to your questions and help on your homework. The TAs will also be the ones grading your homework and exams as well as proctoring exams. Generally, there will be multiple TAs for large classes, and each TA usually hold office hours, so they’re always available out of lecture and discussion.
As for Greek life, I’d venture to say that it’s definitely a prominent part of the social scene on campus, but a larger percentage of students choose not to join frats and sororities (I might be wrong but I think about 30% of students are in Greek life). You’re certainly not put at a social disadvantage for not being a part of Greek life as you’ll likely have friends who will and won’t join. You don’t necessarily need to be in a frat or sorority to get into parties, but it will be tough to do so if you don’t have some connections to the frats be it through a friend who knows someone in one or you know someone in one. At Cornell, frats and sororities can’t recruit until spring semester, which gives you plenty of time to be on campus and decide whether you want to join or not, and which ones appeal to you. If you decide to rush, you’ll have to be back from winter break a week early, so you’ll have about a 5 week long winter break compared to the 6 or so week winter break.
Do you know anything about the Fine Arts major? I feel like its really overshadowed by the other majors especially since the architecture program is so well known in AAP.
Hi there, @IndoorCloud25 ! Thanks so much for your patient and thorough responses. I really appreciate it…! Especially as a hopeful CoE applicant.
I have a question regarding the learning atmosphere. I know Cornell is very competitive to get into and also competitive once you’re in the school, but how competitive is the environment among students? Like, would you say that the students are generally helpful to each other or somewhat secretive with their studies due to grading curves and whatnot? Perhaps this is a dumb question, but I would just like to know.
In addition, what is the health insurance like there? I have a medical issue that will likely need constant attention even when I am in college (and for years beyond), and I’m wondering how the student health insurance plans work at Cornell and how much is covered.
@chootimes So one of the major things that Cornell Engineering and the university as a whole encourages is collaboration within the confines of the code of academic integrity. This really promotes an environment where people work together and help each other. You’ll tend to see a lot of people study in groups and work on homework in groups. It’s really a matter of your preference on how you like to study and work. Obviously the university can only do so much to encourage such an environment, so there will be the hyper competitive students who really keep to themselves to protect their own grades, but I’d say that doesn’t occur as often as people think.
As for medical issues and insurance, Cornell has a health service place on Ho Plaza called Gannett. Gannett gets a lot of mixed views from students around campus since they’re generally slow, inefficient, and sometimes can’t get you immediate appointments depending on your need. Gannett is open from 8:30am-7pm Monday-Thursday, 8:30-5pm on Friday, and 10am-4pm on Saturdays, which can be an inconvenience if you happen to have a medical issue not during those hours. However, if it’s something severe, there are emergency services that are generally fast at responding and can get you to the hospital. Gannett also has a pharmacy that can get the medications you need without much hassle. Regarding the insurance, if you get in and enroll, you’ll be asked to either enroll in Cornell’s insurance or opt out if your insurance meets the requirements Cornell put in place. That’s something you’ll have to discuss with your parents and I encourage you to browse Gannett’s website and search insurance to see what your plan needs to cover if you want to opt out. Also if you enroll, contact Gannett to find out how to you’ll deal with your health issue while on campus. Finally, Cornell requires a $350 health fee as part of your enrollment fees, which should not be mistaken for insurance – they are completely separate things.
@fairpear As a fine arts major, you’ll be required to send in a portfolio like the Archies, which I assume by now you know. The curriculum focuses on painting, sculpting, digital media, and photography I believe. The intro classes are generally within those topics, and as you reach your 3rd and 4th year, you’ll focus even more on what you want to do in art. I believe you’ll have to do a thesis in your 4th year, but unfortunately I don’t know what that’s comprised of. A few unique things about the AAP school is that you can spend spring semester of your sophomore year in NYC or your fall semester of junior year in Rome like the Archies, or both. Beyond that, you’ll still have to meet the FWS requirement and the PE requirement as well as take elective course out of the AAP school. A lot of what I’ve told you can be found on AAP’s website, and I think you should take a look under academics for more information about the program. Since I’m an engineer, I know next to nothing about AAP, but if there’s any Fine Arts majors following the thread I’d encourage them to provide some input.
Hi, I’m wondering how the grading system works and how bad the workload is. I have a health issue so I want to try to reduce my workload a bit. Being on financial aid means I need a minimum # of courses each semester and avg. gpa >2.0. Is the grading curved so theres only a few A’s or is it like in high school where you don’t compete with others? If I have some APs, can I decrease my total # of courses? Thanks!
@KonnoYuuki At Cornell, the grading system works on a 4.0 scale. An A+ is a 4.3, A is 4.0, A- is 3.7 B+ is 3.3, etc. Grading at Cornell and many colleges is not like the majority high schools because nearly everything is traded on a curve. You will be graded against your peers, so your raw score on exams matter less than the mean and standard deviation, which means you should not freak out if you get a 50 on an exam where the average is a 40 and the SD is 15 for example. As far as I know, the university does not put a cap on the percent of A’s, B’s, C’s, D’s, and F’s a professor must give (Princeton used to do this). In most of my classes, the professors will look at all the final raw grades and find cut offs based on a bell curve with the average letter grade set by the department/school. This means you could have classes with averages being B-/B/B+ and even A/A-.
When you get here, you will find the coursework to be much different in terms of difficulty compared to AP classes (Hint: College classes are harder than AP classes). That being said, it can be easy for you to find yourself on the wrong end of the grading curve if you don’t put in significant effort. After all, many top students come to Cornell and a new standard of average, above average, and below average needs to be set. Maintaining above a 2.0 ©, even above a 3.0 (B), is very doable if you’re willing to put in effort to do so. How easy it is to do that really varies between college and major along with your work ethic.
In terms of AP credit, definitely consider using it for FWS and classes that aren’t major prerequisites or are distribution requirements not relevant to your major (i.e. liberal distribution classes for engineers). AP credit that’s a prerequisite for your major or a requirement for your school, I’d be a little more cautious with. If you’re really familiar with the material and think you can do well at a higher level, then by all means take the AP credit, if not, just retake the intro class at Cornell. Lastly, I think there are limits to the number of AP credit you can take, but they may vary by college, so definitely look into that for your college/school if you get in to make sure.
@IndoorCloud25 Not sure if I understand that 100%. So if everyone in lets a chemistry class had an average between a 90 -100 the 90’s would likely get an F in the class based on the class curve?
@CCSenioritis Sorry I wasn’t too clear on what I was saying. I meant that some classes will have average grades of B+ to A after curving. This could mean that the average raw score was in the 90-100 percent range, which is sometimes the case since you don’t see this kind of average until small, high level classes mostly pertaining to your major. These classes tend to have people who are very good at what they do or have relatively easier work hence higher average grades. The other case is where the class average raw grade is not in the 90-100 percent range, but on the lower end like 70-80. In this case, something like an 80% raw grade could mean an A- where the class average raw grade is like a 70%, which could correlate to a B+, for example. This is usually because the department set the specific letter grade to be the average grade given. In the rare case, curving down could occur, but by the first prelim, professors can tell if the work is too easy/hard and adjust the next prelim accordingly to account for that. For example CHEM 2070 had a first prelim with a really high average since the exam was easy, but the second prelim was more difficult and had a lower average.
Hello,
So I was wondering about applying to the College of ALS for the Biology and Society Major.
The question is that the College of Arts and Sciences has the exact same major
Why would anyone apply to the COAS for this major when they could apply instead to the CALS ???
I know that CALS is way easier to get into it has a 20% acceptance rate. Unlike the COAS which has a 15% acceptance rate.
Is their a difference in quality between the CALS and COAS??
Also is CALS mostly for in-state students. Would applying from out of state (Ohio) put me at a disadvantage?
Anyways my stats aren’t that amazing I’m just putting my name into the bin and hoping it comes out if applying to the CALS helps my odds than I’ll probably just apply there.
Who knows maybe my name could be part of the 5%.
@Leicisbest There is no difference in quality for the major as the major requirements are the same in both colleges and run by the same department. The difference between CAS and CALS are the degree requirements to graduate. CALS requires more science classes, social sciences and humanities, and written and oral expression distribution whereas CAS has requirements like foreign language, humanities, social sciences, arts, geographic breadth, and historical breadth. The other difference is the essay topic for applying. CALS and CAS essays look for different qualities. Between the two schools the acceptance rates do not mean one is easier to get into, it’s mostly dependent on how you fit in to the school that gives you a better chance. Finally, you’re not at an admissions disadvantage for being out of state for CALS. Your state of residence is used for the cost of attendance since CALS is a contract college, so NY kids pay less. This isn’t to say there aren’t a lot of NY kids getting in since most attend really good schools, have money, have connections to Cornell, and are fantastic students.
Hi @IndoorCloud25 can you tell us a Cornell inside joke?