Ask A Freshman Any Questions

<p>I'm a Freshman about to finish my first semester so I've experienced quite a lot about Cornell in the past few months. I know many of you high school seniors are getting anxious with decisions coming up so I'm here to take any questions you might have about the decision or Cornell in general or anything else; I'll answer as best as I can. I got accepted ED last year to Human Ecology. I can't promise any fast responses since finals start next week but I'll do my best to help out!</p>

<p>And yes, I am pre-med as is about half of the freshman class haha.</p>

<p>Thank you for doing this!!! Could you talk about finding out your decision in detail? Like what logging in was like, what you saw when you logged in, what you had to click, and then what the acceptance page said? I think we all want to know what to expect! Thanks!!</p>

<p>Ok I applied ED to HumEc HBHS major, and I plan on going pre-med. I am extremely anxious for the decisions but I think that goes without saying. Let me thank you in advance for making this thread because it is exactly what I was looking for.</p>

<p>My questions are:

  1. What is the workload like? Is it manageable?
  2. How do you feel HS prepared you for college?
  3. What can you tell me about frats? Rushing? Is it something a lot of people do?
  4. Do you do anything outside of class?
  5. Do you have time to do anything outside of class?
  6. What is the social/party scene like?
  7. What is your favorite and least favorite part of Cornell? (if any)
  8. Are the dorms/living conditions/food at least passable?
  9. What should I know before/if i get to go there?</p>

<p>I know that is a lot of questions, and again I appreciate you creating this thread!</p>

<p>Hi there! I applied ED to CAS with a Sociology major.</p>

<p>What was the nightlife/party scene like for you?
Is it easy to find something to do every night?
Is the general vibe more bookish and scholarly or is it more “let-loose” and exciting?
Any specific dorm recommendations if you can even ask for one?</p>

<p>1) By any chance do you know any EOP applicants and know their GPA / ACT / SAT scores and which college at Cornell they applied to? (Pref. CALS majoring in Biological Sciences)</p>

<p>@dougieb92 Okay well decision day was very scary as you can imagine. I was thinking about the decision all day and after school I had a club event which felt like forever. The decisions were to come out at 5 and I got back to my school around 4:55 and I rushed to my car and sped home really nervous to get back at 5. I ended up pulling into my driveway around 5 exactly and I ran upstairs and turned on my computer. My mom was home and she was waiting with me and my dad wanted us to wait until he got home which would be around 5:10 but I couldn’t wait that long. So I typed in the username and password they give you a few days before the notification date and then it brought me to another screen with a link that said something along the lines of “click here to view your decision.” So I said some last words to myself and clicked and another window opened with the message, nothing fancy really. But I just looked for the words congratulations or acceptance in the first sentence and I saw them and I got so happy then and my mom cried. My dad ended up coming home and I felt bad so we did the whole thing again acting as if we hadn’t seen yet but it was hard for me to hide my acceptance. He got very happy too and it was very exciting and I told all my friends.</p>

<p>If I could change anything I definitely wouldn’t have told so many friends that I applied there because it would have been disappointing to tell them if I did not get in. Also, do most of your regular decision essays in advance so you don’t have to do them all in a depressed state and in so little time. Hope that helped!</p>

<p>@ParadiseCity Haha I’m pretty sure every HBHS major is pre-med, not even kidding. Idk if you know this but the intro class for it is Nutrition health and society, or NS 1150, which is a pretty interesting class, I’m taking it now. </p>

<ol>
<li><p>The workload is definitely much greater than high school, and I had a fairly busy high school schedule. But you learn how to manage your time, and learn that you might get a lot less sleep than high school and start to go to bed much later than usual. But, it’s not bad because a lot of people stay up late. The key is to not be lazy and take advantage of tools like office hours when you need help.</p></li>
<li><p>My high school was pretty good and I took a lot of APs I guess (10) so I felt pretty prepared for this level of work. I’m not going to lie though some people I know definitely were not prepared as well (at least it seems that way to me) but they are definitely smart and will get more used to it with time. </p></li>
<li><p>Rushing for freshman does not start until the beginning of Spring semester, and I’m still thinking about doing it. I don’t know too much about it but to me it seems like a lot of people are planning to rush. It’s probably around 30% of people do it maybe? </p></li>
<li><p>Outside of class I am in several cool clubs that you join at Clubfest during Orientation week. One of mine is where we get paired up with a local 3rd grader and we hang out every week doing various activities along with other mentors and other elementary kids, it’s fun and it’s basically volunteering. I did intramural soccer too which was once a week and it was nice to do a sport. </p></li>
<li><p>There is definitely time to do things out of class, even being premed, as long as you manage your time right and don’t waste time. It’s definitely important to have a social life and not spend all day every day doing work.</p></li>
<li><p>There is definitely a party scene if you are looking for it. I’m premed but I still always make time on weekend nights (and sometimes Thirsty Thursdays haha) to go to Frats or other parties there might be. It’s definitely a good way to relax and forget about school and hang with friends. But if you aren’t into that type of thing there isn’t much pressure to doing it. A good portion (maybe about 60%?) of people probably do party and go out though, but there are people who don’t too. </p></li>
<li><p>Though the academics are hard and time consuming, I like the challenge and how much I am learning. I already feel like I’m becoming more scholarly/professional but that’s probably at many schools. I also like meeting so many interesting people and having fun on weekends a lot. There isn’t much I dislike besides the workload sometimes or lack of sleep but you get used to it, at any college these are the cases. And the bipolar weather isn’t great either but I’m used to it because I’m from Central New York.</p></li>
<li><p>Most Freshman dorms are pretty good but some I know people don’t like. But most are good and up to date. Some don’t have air conditioning which is bad for the first few weeks but then Ithaca kicks in and cools everything down. The North Campus (freshman) food is decent but the West Campus food (Sophomores mainly) is much better and so I go there occasionally with friends. There are a lot of good places to eat in Collegetown (a place across campus with bars/restaurants/frat annexes/apartments for upperclassmen). </p></li>
<li><p>If you get in there is so much to know but focus on that after you get in, you’ll have time for that if you do.
Good luck and hope this helped!</p></li>
</ol>

<p>@Vininly The party scene for me has been pretty good and I really enjoy it. There are usually a decent amount of parties Thursday-Sunday, but knowing people in Frats and people to get you in helps a lot to know about the parties and get in. Orientation week is the best time for parties and getting to know about frats; it’s crazy. Read my above post for a bit more on this topic. Sometimes it is hard to find a party if nothing is going on but with a lot of friends you usually can. </p>

<p>Most of the people here definitely are scholarly and the faculty definitely is, but people like to have fun here too (“work hard play hard”). So yes it can be exciting often and there is usually something going on non-party related which is related to clubs or something like that. </p>

<p>The only dorms you can ask for are the program houses, such as Risley (arts/music theme), JAM (music), and other ones you can look up but you need to write an essay for those. The best regular dorms are probably either Donlon, Mews, or CKB; donlon being a very social one, and Mews and CKB being the newest with air conditioning. </p>

<p>Hope that helped good luck!</p>

<p>@kaytea11 I am not familiar with that program so I don’t know anything about it sorry!</p>

<ol>
<li><p>How many hours will students typically study each day/week and how much sleep will they get? </p></li>
<li><p>Are there still cliques like in high school or are people pretty open and get along with each other? </p></li>
<li><p>How are the gpas in HumEc? Is the grading pretty fair or is there grade deflation?</p></li>
</ol>

<p>Thanks for doing this! :)</p>

<p>thanks a lot!!</p>

<p>That might be a bit of a weird question but I am wondering, are there any separation between internationals amd american students?</p>

<p>@Bubbles888 1. You will definitely spend more time on work than you do in homework. I personally study probably around 30 hours in a week (excluding weekends) maybe sometimes more or less. This seems the case for many students here. I usually don’t do work on Friday or Saturday unless I have big tests coming up and so I have a lot of work on Sunday’s to do too. So total maybe 35-40 hours? On average during the week I get about 5-6 hours of sleep sometimes more or less but this is because I like to work on my homework at night and go to bed late. Some people I know go to bed earlier so they probably like to work on their homework earlier in the day. But on the weekends I get to sleep in and so I make up for what I didn’t get during the week. </p>

<ol>
<li><p>The first few weeks definitely are not at all cliquey and you can basically say hi to anyone and ask them the big three questions (your major, where you are from, and your name). But I found that after a few months people start hanging out with the same group of people so it is kinda cliquey in that sense but everyone is still pretty friendly and approachable. It definitely isn’t as bad as it is in high school.</p></li>
<li><p>I feel that the majors in HumEc aren’t all that difficult and so the classes for the majors (at least intros) are not as bad as some for other majors in other colleges. But, most of the classes HumEc people take are in different colleges and so the gpas are probably similar to those of other people in other colleges. But HumEc is definitely great because of the helpful faculty, the small community and relations you make with others in HumEc, and because its mission is so unique and just seems professional. The grading for classes in general depends on the class. But overall it definitely takes a good amount of work to get an A in the class, you need to work for the grade you want. It’s not like Harvard where everyone gets A’s. Yes, you will probably get grades lower than A’s here even though you might have all A’s in high school but that’s not the end of the world. Grad schools and Med schools know how rigorous Cornell is. But the hard academics I know will pay off in the end in making me a more knowledgeable, hard working person and more prepared for whatever I do (hopefully med school). But if you have a good work ethic, don’t slack, study a lot, and the like you can get A’s. Some classes are definitely known to be hard though so they take a lot of work. Overall the grading is fair I guess though.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>Hope that helped and good luck!</p>

<p>@Brouhahah That’s not a weird question. I don’t think there is much separation between internationals and americans. Personally, my roommate is international and it’s been great learning about his culture and he always hangs out with me and my other friends who are mainly Americans, so it is not weird at all for him I don’t think. It is definitely cool learning from the International students and hearing about where they are from. I have seen a lot of international students hanging out with Americans so I don’t think it is weird. However, they do also hang out with other international students because I guess they can relate to them more (being far from home and such) but they definitely do not stick to only hanging with other internationals; they hang out with everyone. Overall the community is very friendly and welcoming to all kinds of students; everyone is open to new experiences.</p>

<p>Good luck!</p>

<ol>
<li><p>What’s the difference between HBHS and Biology and Society? I know there’s a difference in course requirements, like HBHS requires a few chemistry classes, but I can’t tell that much of a difference otherwise. I want to do something in the health field, but I feel like either major could prepare me about equally. </p></li>
<li><p>Did you use your AP credits for anything? If so, which classes? For HBHS, would you recommend not using your ap bio and chem credits and just taking the equivalent classes again? I’ve heard that the intro biology class is pretty rough</p></li>
</ol>

<p>Thanks!</p>

<p>@Bubbles888

  1. From what I’ve heard from a few friends, Bio and society is more of a curriculum rather than a major, there are less classes specific for Bio and Society I think. To me HBHS seems more interesting especially for pre-meds, and there are definitely more HBHS students than bio and society. I feel that HBHS would better prepare you for health but it’s up to you, you should research it more. Personally I’m HD.</p>

<ol>
<li>They don’t register your credits until the Spring but I think I’m going to use some of my humanities classes like history/econ for requirements that I do not want to do. I’m also skipping Calc I and going to Calc II. I could get credit for science courses but for premed you can’t really skip the intro science classes. If you aren’t premed you could skip them with AP credit but I am not sure if that would be the best idea since the intro courses could be much different from AP courses. But yes the intro science classes are all hard but you might benefit from them more than if you skipped them.</li>
</ol>

<p>What do you/people think of Hotelies and the Hotel School? What are the Hotelies like?</p>

<p>Not a question but my heart started beating so fast just reading about you opening the acceptance haha, I’ll probably have a heart attack when I do. Congrats!</p>

<p>Hotelies are dumb h4h4h4</p>

<p>@flyingeagle - Thank you so much for answering my questions!!! I really hope I get in because Cornell sounds like the perfect place for me.</p>