<p>This makes no sense. You are comparing a 2 year degree with a 4 year one. But I’ll tell you, some kids I know who are Cornell grads are taking some skill courses at comm college after getting their degrees from Cornell to get their foot in the door for certain jobs.</p>
<p>This thread is absurd.</p>
<p>While a small number of community college students might be intellectually comprable to Ivy students, the overall quality of the student body is vastly different. Also, even if one believes that a CC education is similar to an Ivy education, which is a ridiculous claim, no CC has the postgraduate connections or opportunities that an Ivy can offer.</p>
<p>This is hilarious</p>
<p>OP being attacked by a horde of midgets is the closest analogy i can think of. YouTube vid incoming.</p>
<p>I took an extension / continuing ed class one time at another top university and learned very quickly that there is a HUGE difference between classes anybody can sign up for and the normal Ivy League experience - in terms of peers, teaching quality, pace, depth of subject matter… . I guess people don’t know what they don’t know, which is why they could possibly conclude there is a parallel, but this thread really should end.</p>
<p>So that you understand my perspective is not entirely based on theory, I have a BA from a state uni, an MBA from Ivy League, and now I teach at a community college. To say that the general student body at a CC is equal to the Ivy League is ridiculous. Are there some good students at CC? Absolutely. But sitting in the same class with those students are some that should not have even graduated from high school - and in fact, some did not (they have GEDs). Many CC students have to take developmental (read: remedial) courses to bring them to college level. In short, CC’s have much greater diversity of competence than you’ll ever find at elite schools.</p>
<p>But . . . the one disagreement I have with the previous post is that the teaching quality is much lower than Ivyed. CC instructors in general are much more student-focused. They are not worried about publish-or-perish, they don’t have TAs teaching or grading for them. Many left high-paying industry jobs to help educate their community, which is a noble cause. In my graduate program, I remember I had a few really inspiring professors, but the rest were either pompous, didn’t care much about students, or too busy consulting to do their real jobs. If I hadn’t had a full scholarship, I would have felt very angry about having to work so hard to get into this Ivy school and having to pay too much money to essentially teach myself.</p>
<p>“In short, CC’s have much greater diversity of competence than you’ll ever find at elite schools.”
Is that a good or a bad thing? It sounds almost good the way that you described it :).
I appreciate the information in your post and i actually can see where you are coming from.</p>
<p>In some ways the diversity of competence is good. It provides learning opportunities that go beyond the academic. For instance, I’ve had a number of students on the GI Bill, and the perspective they have of the world is quite fascinating. I’ve had an MD who was taking a management course to better manage his medical practice, and he was a fabulous “father figure” to other students. He taught his classmates as much as I did.</p>
<p>In other ways, the lack of academic competence can be frustrating, especially to higher-achieving students who find themselves at CCs because of economic issues. I would personally be embarrassed to sit next to someone who cannot write one short grammatically correct sentence and wonder why I am in the same class.</p>
<p>As a result, I would probably not send my own children to CC because they are high achieving students (they are still in K-12). In elite schools - with all their drawbacks and costs - at least you have a student body that is highly intelligent. Also, the “branding” of the school unfortunately still makes a difference - hence the reason I went to an Ivy grad school.</p>
<p>But the comparison of a 3.6 at Cornell to a 3.7 at CC is still ridiculous . . . of course the 3.6 at Cornell is more impressive because of the competition.</p>
<p>Failing out of Cornell is better than receiving a 4.0 from a community college.</p>
<p>I was a cc student for two years and will be attending Cornell in the Fall. To be honest, I’m kind of nervous because I already know it’s going to be a huge adjustment. I felt that in most of my classes there wasn’t anyone that bright. There are some, but very few. The students in my classes would always ask about my scores after I take a test. I think it’s ridiculous. There are some tough classes at my cc. They were sciences taught by retired doctors. I found that I did well regardless, but I really had to study hard. I was talking to my advisor at my cc about going vet school. He was telling me to go to a low ranked college to get the highest GPA to get in and that grad schools do not really consider rank. I, of course, disagree. I hope that a degree from Cornell will help me in the long run.</p>