<p>to add to the financial aid: GO FOR LOCAL SCHOLARSHIPS NOW!! I got a lot of money from my hometown before cornell grants and scholarships were added, and for freshman year in CAS I actually got paid an overall stipend of 4K (that's how much i went over) which paid for my summer trip this summer to vietnam. Cornell can be a b!tch or gives hand-outs (I know of at least one other person who is getting 29K in grants from Cornell like me, but our EFC is 1K). I just transferred to Human Ecology, and my finaid package is going to only get sweeter since the grants are from the University NOT the college, so i'm going from 20K next semester to 13K next semester total (i live in a super single -- converted double to single -- but i got a 20% discount in dining, so it evens out to a regular person).</p>
<p>if you work in college and do community service and have a relatively good gpa, you can apply to be in cornell tradition which gives you like 4-6K, but if everything is already given, then they give you instead money for books, so it's still a good program, plus, it'll look good for grad/med/law school.</p>
<p>Not really lol. I applied for TONS of local scholarships and a lot of national scholarships and got NOTHING. Unless you are a minority, a female in a predominantly male field, or have a disability or some other thing that opens you up to all those special scholarships, then in my experience it is really hard to get scholarships. There are very few organizations that give you money for being smart, middle class, and/or white. </p>
<p>Do you have your financial aid package yet hotelie? If not you might want to wait and see. I dont know how the hotel school is on financial aid; some colleges are better than others. For example, engineering is pretty stingy. However, the Ag school, as another example, is completely different: I have friends who were called by ag professors and asked "How much do we need to pay you to come to Cornell?" </p>
<p>As far as scholarships, I'm again not the biggest expert. Definitely go local is what I have heard. The only people i know who won scholarships of any kind won local ones. Look for ones sponsored by clubs (rotary etc), local businesses, or families. And ask your high school counselor, because they usually keep big databases of those things. Good luck!</p>
<p>strange, because cornell is need base not merit base, so if they asked that question to someone who could pay for cornell, it undermines cornell. besides, i know of plenty of people who don't qualify for finaid, and i doubt those people, no matter how bright, would get anything from cornell university. perhaps tradition or other specific scholarships, but not cornell university itself.</p>
<p>Yeah it is need based. Thats what I was saying. No, it doesnt matter how bright you are if you are rich, but I wasnt talking about rich kids. The kids that I was referring to in the Ag school did qualify for need-based aid, that is, they werent rich, but the Cornell's "need-based" aid is notorious for not meeting the true needs, i.e. making your parents pay 1/3 of their salaries in tuition. So the ag profs were asking how much above the calculated need these kids would need to get in order to be able to come to CU. It had nothing to do with merit.</p>
<p>It has been my experience that Cornell is extremely generous if you have very little (by that I mean less then 30,000 a year). But if you fall in the upper middle class range and you think you need help then find scholarships now.</p>
<p>Thanks so much for all of your input.. My mother's income is definitely under $30,000 but I'm still trying to figure out exactly how they will calculate my father's salary. (They've been divorced for 5 years.) I did not recieve any information yet because my father forgot to send a portion of the noncustodial parent info. Do any of you have friends with divorced parents receiving financial aid?</p>
<p>i think starmel18 stated it the best. cornell is cornell, i know ppl who owe 80K upon graduation and ppl who are actually getting paid to go to cornell--all based on needs and not merit.</p>
<p>perro, i was wondering if you could read over my essay. i can't pm you so maybe you could give me a shout at candi<em>1</em><a href="mailto:4ever@hotmail.com">4ever@hotmail.com</a></p>
<p>No problem, I really wouldnt mind editing your essays. Although i might not respond too quickly right now, if you email them to me I will eventually get you some feedback.</p>
<p>Lets say I got accepted into CAS and would like to take a premed track. Would a major in Economics instead of Biological Sciences impact my admissions to medical school. Also, which one is easier to do well in. (I want to sleep 7 hours a day)</p>
<p>One more thing what do you guys think is the hardest major and the easiest major at in Cornell's CAS</p>
<p>I was wondering how placement exams work. I am interesting in continuing some spanish, but i dont have an AP class to try and test out of the first level. Are there/when are the exams? Thanks.</p>
<p>thebear: I'm currently a sophomore at Cornell (premed, CAS, biology major). I can't speak for the Econ major, but so far the biology classes I've taken have been very manageable. Of course, organic chem is very time consuming but you'll have to take that no matter what major you're in. I don't think it'll hurt you to major in something other than biology as long as you satisfy the premed requirements.</p>
<p>VashTheStampede: I was in your situation last year. I took Spanish 4 in HS but didn't take Spanish 5 which was the AP class. I had to take the Spanish placement test during orientation in the first week of school (before classes even began). The placement test was very hard. I would estimate that 80-90% of the people who took it did not pass (the scores were posted the following monday). Luckily I passed and was allowed to take Spanish 209 and the class was VERY easy (for me at least), easier than my Spanish 4 class in HS. I would even say that it's probably been my easiest class at Cornell so far.</p>
<p>sociology is seems like it would be the easiest. many hard majors. just look at their courses median. sociology - mostly As, philosophy (for example) - a little lower.</p>