<p>Cornell’s 4 yr graduation rate is 85% vs Brown=86%, Columbia = 87%. I would have to think those transfer students are very well qualified in order to graduate within 4 yrs.</p>
<p>Good point, Norcal – some of those with a 3.9 at a Community College, actually have a realistic shot at a Cornell. Others really don’t and are fooling themselves.</p>
<p>Really, what it comes down to in my mind, is whether, on the whole, the admissions departments do a good job. Personally, I think they do. A real problem is many of us (myself included) don’t really understand the process.</p>
<p>Lazy- you should have critical and analytical thinking skills- going into a top college. Then, those abilities get honed through college. </p>
<p>One problem with relying on stats: no uniformity in high schools. One kid’s 4.0 at an easier hs is often less significant than another kid’s 3.5 at a rigorous one, with a rigorous curriculum. We know from CC how kids study to improve their SAT scores. </p>
<p>Oldfort, for some kids who have heavy family responsibilities, IME, it is taken into account. Jobs are always good, especially if they are over time. But the most motivated also find some other valid activities, in school or in the community.</p>
<p>This thread shouldn’t scare kids- it should encourage rising juniors to get their act in gear, academically and in terms of the extras. Rising seniors should take this thread as encouragement to take their apps seriously- apply to safeties, matches and reaches- but represent yourself well in the app. Look hard at what those colleges value, how they present themselves, etc- not just the CDS or any numbers- based profiles on the web site. Don’t omit ECs because “someone” told you they don’t matter. Make sure any "Why Us? makes sense for each college. Good luck.</p>
<p>ps. transfers area whole 'nother matter.</p>
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<p>Graduation rate really doesn’t have the sensitivity to detect differences in students. After all, you’d have to do pretty poorly to not graduate from college. And if that’s your only goal when you get to college, then I pity you.</p>
<p>Gomestar, who was a transfer himself (from Syracuse I believe) and worked in the admissions department, acknowledged that the GPA’s of transfer students dropped dramatically after entrance into Cornell. There are two things at play here: Cornell is selective enough that it should strive to take students who are excellent not just those who can do the work. I’m sure 75% of the students who apply to Harvard would do just fine at Harvard but it doesn’t mean Harvard has to take them all. Secondly, as I just said, I don’t think academically transfers match up to the normal admits. Obviously, this doesn’t apply to every transfer but this applies to a lot of transfers. </p>
<p>I’m not asking Cornell to admit more 2300 SAT scorers. I’m asking it to admit fewer 1800-2000 scorers.</p>
<p>Transfers at every college in the country will, on a whole, not be the strongest students on campus. However they will typically graduate which was not going to be the case with the students whose spots they are taking, those who have either flunked out or transferred because of unhappiness with the school. Most transfer students are those who didn’t get in because of low SAT scores, usually students who are not “math / science” kids, thus scored low on the math section of the SAT. If they are in a major (english, theatre, etc.) that has nothing to do with math, they can do very well. After going through the whole admissions process with my two D’s, my biggest frustration is just that, the math section of the SAT is weighed just as heavily as CR, even for students whose intended major with have nothing to do with math. Case in point: We had a girl not get into Cornell because of low math SAT / grades. She went to Geneseo for one year, transferred to Cornell. Theatre major, won the Christofer Reaves scholarship as ouitstanding Junior in theatre & did well enough to be accepted at brown for grad school!</p>
<p>Goal of going to college IS to graduate, by getting a diploma from Cornell means one has met all of Cornell’s requirements, and that should mean something. Of course there are differences in students, or everyone would graduate with As.<br>
Do you have stats to back that up?
What’s your definition of “excellent”? Excellent in football, leadership, music, business, photography, architecture, volunteer, writing, computer programming…? To define “excellent” to mean only academic excellent is a very narrow definition. </p>
<p>What’s very special about Cornell is its students are not cookie cutters who are all the same. My younger daughter visited HYPS and other top tier LACs. Her stats make her a great contender for those schools. What she is having a hard time with is how each of those school’s students are very similar. She has met many of her older sister’s friends from Cornell and she sees how diversed they are. I can’t say it is the case for all Cornell students, but the ones I have met strike me as very smart, down to earth, focused and very hard working. My older daughter believed Cornell was a hard school, as a math major she has said, “My brain is pushed to its limit.” She had to work hard to graduate with 3.7, so to be able “to do the work” at Cornell is a big deal, and many who were able to graduate had jobs and were able to go to some great graduate schools. A lot of employers do recognize Cornell is a hard school, and have respect for its graduates. My older daughter is at a training class in London with 500 new hires (many graduated from Wharton, HYPS, and other top tier schools from around the world), and she is doing quite well relative to them.</p>
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I think one of the reasons could be first year transfer students are going through adjustment period, like all Cornell students freshman year. They may not necessary be less capable. At my kids’ private secondary school, students who come in after 9th grade generally don’t do as well first year, but they do catch up later on. D1’s freshman grades were her worst, could be she was taking weeding out courses, but could be she was getting adjusted to Cornell’s way of teaching and trying to figure out who she should have in her study group.</p>
<p>Honestly, who cares… I am an incoming transfer and I think that is was easier to get into cornell as a transfer than a freshman. I am not the strongest in academics, however in college I have really developed myself in the business area and have really dominated a niche which is why I think I was a good fit for ob in ILR and i was accepted. I think as a freshman we are just kids so they are mainly focusing on overall raw potential, which they have no really other way to base on except scores and grades. Very few kids have amazing ec’s or life experience because were just to young. But in college, were expected to really find our specific goals. Specifically for Cornell- if you seem like a great fit with solid academic potential they’ll take you. This was for ILR though… extremely based on fit… </p>
<p>So who really cares about transfers and their capability? People have way to much time on their hand to be caring about why others are allowed in …come on…If they aren’t smart enough then you’ll just get a better grade when they bring down the class average so there ya go… </p>
<p>As for the “soft factors”… honestly who cares if you get a 2300 vs a 2100… I want the kid whose making a difference and is passionate about what he/she does through example, not talk… who wants a socially awkward kid who can take 15 ap’s but can’t seem to hold a normal conversation? Problem is there are kids who can do those things and are normal haha- hate u guys…</p>
<p>Gomestar’s admissions experience was as an undergrad. I am not sure he criticized transfers- at one point, he defended them against generalizations that their GPA’s “dropped dramatically.”
I also don’t believe Cornell releases any figures related to transfer “success” in their grades. A student admissions worker wouldn’t be privy to such detail. But, the whole issue of why a school seeks transfers and how it treats their applications is very different than the UG admissions mission.</p>
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<p>I’m not sure what norcalguy meant when he said that, but the way I understood it was that along with hard work, there needs to be some natural intelligence or some defining characteristic that separates that one person from everyone else.</p>
<p>I would personally much rather see and would want to be in a class with a student who is innovative and is constantly ‘thinking’ about the subject rather than one that is just listening and studying whatever the professor tells him/her to study. I was very frustrated in my high school math, science, and english (not as much) classes because there were way too many students who could do the work (and were highly capable for that matter), but when a new problem was thrown at them, they didn’t know how to even approach it. They weren’t able to develop any intuition for the subject and could only do the problems that they read or were taught. I’m personally hoping Cornell will be different, but if it isn’t, I want to try and transfer out when I can, so I don’t get a repeat of high school.</p>
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<p>oldfort, just wondering, but how much experience did your older daughter have with mathematics prior to Cornell?</p>
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<p>csdad, it’s a good thing you didn’t post that in the SAT board. Have you looked at the math section of the SAT? It has very very very little “difficult” math on it. It’s more how well you can think than how “good” you are at math. I would agree with you if the math was difficult, but Collegeboard designed the test in a way that doesn’t test how much math you know or how much you like math, but how you approach math problems. There are thousands of students that consider them self * not * to be “math/science” guys and have excelled on the math section of the SAT.</p>
<p>Wong - D1 went to a top private school, she took all the advance math courses at her high school, scored 790 and 780 on SAT math and math II. She was an A to A+ student in math at her high school. What she found hard was not understanding on how to do something once it´s explained to her, and that´s how math is usually taught in high school, teacher shows you how to apply a rule or axiom, student masters it and then gets tested. At Cornell, she had to figure out HOW/WHY/PROOF herself, and most of the time she had to do it during prelim. Professors would teach a concept in class, then they expected you to expand that concept through your paper or prelim. The biggest shocker to most freshmen on their first math/engineering prelim is they are asked to solve problems which they have never seen before.</p>
<p>My daughter also double majored in Econ, and to have those Econ courses to be double counted toward her math major they had to be more math oriented and theoretical. She took some finance courses in Hotel and AEM, and she breezed through them. </p>
<p>Wong - I see you are going to be in CoE. I would like to get your feedback on difficulty of CoE after a semester. You can then tell all of us your “experience” in math and how well prepared you are. I hear 3.0 in CoE is very normal.</p>
<p>^Agree</p>
<p>Math at Cornell (or any sort of similar field) is all about teaching you to think. The professors generally seem to agree that you get enough basic/intermediate practice on your problem sets and thus set to design exams that force you to truly understand the material. On most prelims in these sort of subjects you can expect to see questions on a prelim you’ve never seen before. Especially if you are in engineering, they don’t care about your ability to regurgitate material you’ve already seen.</p>
<p>The most recent example I have is from econ (since I graduated in econ) last semester. The professor required us to know not only the proofs for various types of regression, but wanted to ensure we understood the proofs. Therefore on exams he wouldn’t ask us to simply derive multiple regression, but derive some sort of non-optimal estimator because the proof for the best estimator was already in the book. Is deriving a non-optimal estimator useful in any way? Absolutely not. There’s a reason the book only went with best estimators (hence why they’re best). However, it meant we couldn’t just memorize the proof in the book and actually had to know what each step meant.</p>
<p>“csdad, it’s a good thing you didn’t post that in the SAT board. Have you looked at the math section of the SAT? It has very very very little “difficult” math on it. It’s more how well you can think than how “good” you are at math. I would agree with you if the math was difficult, but Collegeboard designed the test in a way that doesn’t test how much math you know or how much you like math, but how you approach math problems. There are thousands of students that consider them self not to be “math/science” guys and have excelled on the math section of the SAT.”</p>
<p>…given your credentials & field of study, of course you think that the Math section of the SAT is easy! I’ve studied learning styles & brain function for 26 years & can tell you that math success is highly correlated to visual-spatial & visual memory skills. I don’t care how you “approach math problems” if you don’t have these two abilities (which are a combo of genetics & early development) you are going to struggle with visual tasks such as math. I’ve had students with 125 verbal IQ but only 90 nonverbal IQ. They were “A” students in langauge-based classes such as english, history, social sciences, but had to work hard to get “C”'s in geometry & chemistry.</p>
<p>^csdad, I was attempting to speak from a general point of view! >.>. If you think I’m exaggerating about the SAT math section, then ask someone else who you consider to be not so much a math/science person. Also, just because you brought up the subject, when I was elementary school I had many examinations done (asian parent pressure) to see if I was qualified for MENSA and whatnot, and they found I was clearly above my level for comprehension/reading/logic skills but just a bit above quantitatively speaking, so I’m definitely not the math/science genius, but I ended up doing fine on the math SAT portion. I also find it much easier for me to excel in English/Language classes than in math/science classes, so maybe that will convince you I’m not that math/sci dominant as you think.</p>
<p>The only reason I was wondering how much experience your daughter had is because I know many of my friends who are math majors are having a much easier time than most of their classmates because they had done a lot of math competitions while they were in middle and high school (and worked hours on end attempting to better themselves), so most of the stuff they were learning their first couple of years was, for the most part, review, and they used that time to jump ahead. Also (I can personally attest to this), the math that is done in competitions like ARML, AMC, and the like mainly build intuition and help create methods for approaching complicated problems rather than simply memorizing or learning straight from the book, which a lot of high schools (even the best ones) unfortunately do because not all of the students are interested in mathematics to that extent nor really care to spend time on it beyond what is expected to get the grade. Furthermore, some of the advanced combinatorics and number theory that people learn as sophomores or juniors in the undergraduates are taught through AoPS, Mathcamp, and other programs of the like to students who are freshman or younger in highschool, and they are taught in such a way that encourages the student to be even more interested in math, rather than confusing them. Ive only started seriously caring about math this year, and I envy all the kids that are getting into some serious math at such a young age.</p>
<p>I agree with what you say here. If thats how Cornell is, Im happy I chose the right college.</p>
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<p>^^And Ill definitely let you know how it turns out oldfort.</p>
<p>Excellent as in excelling both in terms of EC’s and in terms of academics. People here seem to think that holistics means you can make up deficiencies in SAT scores via your EC’s and LOR’s. In fact, I see a lot of comments on chances threads that seem to imply that. “Your SAT’s seem low but just show passion!”</p>
<p>Again, I’m in favor of holistic admissions. But, to me, that means you should be excellent at both academics and things that are not academic, not that you can make up one with the other. I’d like to see Cornell take fewer transfers over all, fewer transfers from CC’s, and more transfers from “peer” colleges (Boston College, Tufts, whatever). As we see from UC’s (which also take a ton of CC transfers), CC transfers tend to struggle when matriculating at a tough school like Cornell or Berkeley.</p>
<p>Cornell’s freshmen are already not as strong as the freshman body at other similar institutions. I believe when you throw in transfers (not all transfers obviously), the academic capability of the student body is depressed another notch and probably accounts for the relatively mediocre success of Cornell applicants to professional and grad schools.</p>
<p>I love Cornell. I think it prepares you well for your post-grad life. Unfortunately, the statistics don’t reflect the quality of the school because the overall quality of the students aren’t as good as at other schools. The smartest people I met at Cornell compare favorably with anyone I’ve ever met in my life (and I current attend med school where 80% of the graduating class attended a top 20 university). But, Cornell unfortunately was also where I met far too many students who frankly could not compete despite their best efforts.</p>
<p>I met far too many students who frankly could not compete despite their best efforts.</p>
<p>^ I think you have to take it a step further. If any Ivy were to look for even more academically competitive kids, under a holistic system, how would they do this? Most of us now agree there are benefits (to the college, campus and the student community) to evaluating holistically and targeting multipe strengths within a class. So, how would you determine who’s going to be more highly competitive in the classroom, while still achieving the holistic goals? That’s what you mean, right? </p>
<p>Why, you’d look at the application packages, right? (Easy, that’s all you’ve got.) You’d look for evidence of challenges and achievements and a sense of direction- as well as the well-rounded and “interesting” aspects, and some proof the kid can engage, maintain a commitment and rise in responsibilities. You’d look to the essays for evidence of writing and reasoning skills, critical thinking, judgment and a few hints to personality. You’d try to glean from LoRs just how excited teachers really are about a kid. You’d try to separate out kids who seem to be “false” high performers, from easier high schools, kids who can’t write, jumped from one EC to another, etc. And, you think that’s not what happens now? In the context of the U’s goals and institutional needs? Down to roughly 6000 kids for 2000 admit letters, how would you choose? </p>
<p>Btw, I’d find it informative to learn how Cornell assesses the success(es) of its transfer students.</p>
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<p>I agree with this. Yet, I was genuinely shocked when I visited my high school friend at Arizona State University last spring. One of his roommates (a junior at the time in college) asked me to help him with a math problem he was struggling with. He could not see how 70% is equilvalent to .7 as a number. When I explained how these two are interchangeable, he said “Ahh f - it. I am going out to drink tonight. I will figure this out later.” Then, I thought, “Thank God I got into Cornell back in high school.” </p>
<p>I believe Cornell student body is pretty strong as it is now. (at least compared to other 99% of colleges in the nation) However, as you stated, Cornell’s gotta really try to admit much lesser numbers of people below anything 2100 on SAT. And, I don’t care if a kid with a 1900 SAT was the president of a bunch of random clubs that nobody else cares about.</p>
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<p>The big issue at hand is that the process isn’t fair, predictable, and un-meritocratic. People can easily manipulate their activities, or spend few hours to research Cornell and write compelling essays as to why they want to attend. However, one can’t easily fake his scholarly aptitude or intelligence to college, which SAT and academic records help identify. When you see high scores, you can say ‘this kid is pretty smart and serious about studies.’ When you see a kid with strong essays and ec’s, you may doubt ‘did this kid do all these to get in here, or do all these truly reflect his/her passion?’ In my opinion, it is better to judge candidates on more concrete, objective factors and reduce subjectivity, unpredictability, and hence the ‘lottery’ factor.</p>
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<p>As you said, you should have those thinking sklls to succeed at top colleges, so why not assess applicants more on these intellectual factors and rely less on other ‘soft’ factors? As I said before, law school admissions do this. And, I am wondering why colleges wouldn’t follow.</p>
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<p>Yet, relying on stats is way more objective and reliable than relying on ‘softs’. Think about it.</p>