Cooper Union vs. Cornell Engineering - who's better?

College Majors Engineering Majors
21

<p>I am not sure who told you that Cooper Union Engineers had higher SAT scores or were more academically inclined. But that is actually incorrect. The colleges of Visual Arts and of Architecture are the ones that are actually very selective (1800 applied to those two programs and only 100 were admitted). Engineering had 800 applicants and accepted 200. </p>

<p>The mean SAT score of Cornell Engineering students is 1460...and the mid 50% range is 1400-1520. </p>

<p><a href="http://www.engineering.cornell.edu/prospective/undergraduate/class-profile.cfm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.engineering.cornell.edu/prospective/undergraduate/class-profile.cfm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Unless students, in the schools of Architecture and Arts at Cooper Union average under 1250 on the SAT, I doubt Engineering students at Copper Union have average SAT scores much higher than 1450.</p>

22

<p>this is why posting here is a waste of time. You answer the OP's questions and get on, I don't spend my life on this engineering thread looking at every sentence 20 times and analyze whether you'll misinterpret me. DOn't pick words out of my mouth and start these pointless arguments. (didn't I mention that it was just around my circles of friends?) REspect Professors, why does a professor have more respect when this is the internet, when did I curse at him? Who actually verified that he is a professor in the first place? I goto Michigan Engineering. </p>

<p>Cornell Engineering's advantage over Cooper Union:
1. Better Faculty
2. Stronger Engineering Program reputation
3. Vastly more alumni connections
4. Better chances of having fun(more things to do, more people, and there is a campus, dorm life, school pride, sports team-cornell hockey is really good.)
5. More talented student body.
6. Top programs in every discipline.</p>

<p>Cooper Union's over cornell:
1. Cheaper(no tuition), cornell might be close since it offers a lot of financial aid.</p>

23

<p>Alexandre: I was actually looking at the median SAT range for the entire freshman body at Cornell, and I referred to Fiske's College Guide. I remember looking into the book a few years ago and finding that Cooper leads by about 20 pts. I didn't get a chance to look at the engineering college as the data was not given in the book.</p>

<p>Jeffl: Still very disrespectful and trying to exploit the anonymity of this board. If you ever get a chance to look back on your posts when you eventually get mature, you'll be ashamed of yourself. By sensing the confidence with which dr_reynolds discusses academic topics, the web page he linked to, and the intellectual gap between you two, I can confidently say that he is a professor. If you still don't believe it, why don't you email him. If you would not bother, that's because you know he is a professor.</p>

<p>Did you ask why a professor deserves more respect when this is the internet? Just spend five seconds thinking about what you just said and you'll hopefully realize that idea is completely outrageous. The internet is only a communication medium, and remember that this is a 'college discussion board', not Craig's list.</p>

<p>The Cooper Union student body includes Intel finalists and Westinghouse finalists. Don't judge a school's student body based on your circle of friends. When Cornell hires Cooper undergraduates instead of their own to do research with their graduates students, you know something is going on. About thirty companies attended last year's engineering career fair competing for an engineering graduating class of 100 - and most of these companies come back every year.</p>

<p>You mention Cornell having better faculty, well I can't really comment on that because I don't know any Cornell faculty - and I am sure that you don't neither. Don't go look it up right now and act like you do.</p>

<p>The advantages of Cornell are its vast alumni connections, campus life, and that fact its reputation (decent) expands nationwide. (Better chances of having fun? Cornell 'boasts' one of the highest suicide rates in the nation. Cooper is yet to sacrifice one of its students) Cooper Union's are that it is tuition-free, located in NYC, has stellar reputation in the area, and that it is undergraduate-focused, making the faculty extremely approachable. Trust me, that makes a difference.</p>

<p>You need to realize that these are totally different institutions and understand that difference leads to neither superiority nor inferiority. It is really up to what the important factors are for the student.</p>

24

<p>"Cornell boasts one of the highest suicide rates in the nation."</p>

<p>Your post just lost all credibility.</p>

25

<p>The only post that lost its credibility is jeffl's. And yes, Cornell does have one of the highest suicide rates in the nation, if not the highest.</p>

<p>Quote: "why does a professor have more respect when this is the internet"</p>

<p>This may just be "the internet" but i think as college students, it won't kill us to show a little respect for one another.</p>

<p>I think it is a privilege that a professor is taking time to actually talk to us in "the internet". </p>

<p>So Jeffl, I really think it to be unneccessary to be a smart-ass with the professor.</p>

<p>Oh and by way, I have said some bad things to other people but only students who snapped back at me with crude comments. So unless that is your excuse (which in this isn't), don't try and justify yourself.</p>

<p>Quote: "posting here is a waste of time" </p>

<p>Not quite. </p>

<p>I have received e-mails from people telling me that a lot of the posts in this thread are helping them choose between smaller sized schools and larger sized ones.</p>

<p>Also, they have more confidence and interest in this thread because a professor has joined. That only adds more credibility to this thread.</p>

26

<p>Show me evidence that Cornell's suicide rate is high. That is just hearsay on this board...it is NOT true...see <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornell_University#Suicides%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornell_University#Suicides&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Just because someone is a professor does not mean he is an authority on a subject such as school (other than his own) quality. Sure, he may be very talented in his specific engineering field, but that credibility does NOT necessarily (and often doesn't) transfer into a topic of which he may know little. I don't know whether Dr. Reynolds knows much about either school or if he is making speculations like the rest of us, but don't place him on a pedastal just because he spent more years in school (schools which are NOT involved in this discussion--Purdue and Marquette) studying something unrelated to campus life.</p>

<p>BTW, the above was not an attack directly on Dr. Reynolds, nor was it an outright rebuttal to his statements; personally, I don't know enough about Cooper to judge (and I don't know as much about Cornell as I would like, even though I'm going next year). I've read some of his past posts and have found that his experience going through schooling and now as a professor have helped others seeking engineering advice. Indeed, he is a great asset to the board, as he has experienced much of what we all hope to. But again, don't assume that because someone is good at one thing, he/she is good at another.</p>

<p>Oh, and, correct me if I'm wrong...but I haven't seen anywhere where Dr. Reynolds explains his personal experiences with either school.</p>

27

<p>Yeah, actually, I've spent the past hour doing research on this... There's no publicly published list out there on ranking the university suicide rates, but the idea that Cornell has the highest is a major fallacy. MIT is known to have the highest rate, with Harvard in second place, significantly far behind.</p>

<p>Haven't been able to find any more info about it, but seeing as how it's such a commonplace myth that's oft-repeated as being true, I wouldn't say that groundforce1's credibility is left in shambles because of that statement....</p>

28

<p>Towerpumpkin,</p>

<p>I never said jeffl was directly attacking the prof. like you implied. I told him to stop being a smartass which is exactly what he was doing. </p>

<p>You said that "credibility does NOT necessarily (and often doesn't) transfer into a topic of which he may know little". You also posted that "Oh, and, correct me if I'm wrong...but I haven't seen anywhere where Dr. Reynolds explains his personal experiences with either school." </p>

<p>Cooper Union is a school with very few students where teaching is more emphasized than research. Dr. Reynolds actually teaches at school which small sized classrooms where teaching is a higher priority than research. He also experienced this "small scale" school environment in his graduate studies at Purdue as he said in one of his posts. Therefore, I think it would make a lot more sense to say that he can relate quite a bit to Cooper Union as opposed to "a topic which he may know little" about.</p>

<p>Furthermore, I said that he adds credibility to this site which you actually prove in your post. "I've read some of his past posts and have found that his experience going through schooling and now as a professor have helped others seeking engineering advice. Indeed, he is a great asset to the board, as he has experienced much of what we all hope to".</p>

29

<p>If given the opportunity to attend one of those schools, I'd choose Cooper Union. It has an excellent reputation in the engineering community, and I feel that its super small size would give me a much more personal experience. Cornell is fantastic and has a great engineering program too (and offers a LOT more degrees than Cooper Union and more research), but I'd feel the competition there would be unnecessary and my professors would probably care more about their research than their students. Both are excellent engineering schools and you cannot go wrong with either schoool.... I really believe it comes down to preference.</p>

30

<p>Further research: Cornell has a rate below average.</p>

31

<p>I actually saw a report on the subject of suicide a couple of years ago. From 1990-1999, Cornell was not one of the top 10 in terms of suicides. If I recall the stats, MIT had 11 student suicides in the 90s compared to 20 at Cornell...but MIT has 9,000 students compared to Cornell's 20,000. MIT was indeed high on that list. </p>

<p>I was a graduate student at Cornell from 1999-2001 and during my stay there, there was one suicide. It was obviously one too many...but considering its size, it isn't bad.</p>

32

<p>Source: The Daily Princetonian</p>

<p>Abstract: </p>

<p>"The National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, which compiles the vital statistics, states that rates based on '20 or fewer deaths may be unstable' for statistical analysis."</p>

<pre><code>"It is also hard to draw conclusions comparing other colleges when so many colleges failed to provide reliable facts on suicide to the newspaper," Campbell added.
</code></pre>

<p>Aibarr,</p>

<p>The above abstract implies that the national average is skewed and that professional statisticians agree. </p>

<p>However, this doesn't necessarily mean your wrong. It just says statistically, it wouldn't be accurate to compare Cornell's suicide rate to the national average. This means that Cornell may be below or may be above when compared to the national average - we don't really know due to a lot bias in the present data available.</p>

<p>As a result of this, we can argue either way for hours without coming to a conclusion of whether or not Cornell's suicide rate is about average, low, or high. </p>

<p>Everybody has to really draw their own conclusion regarding this topic. Nothing is set in stone.</p>

33

<p>Here are some quotes from the February, 2001 Boston Globe article on college suicides, the only such study I have seen. It was mostly about MIT.</p>

<p>"Students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have been far more likely to kill themselves over the past decade compared to those at 11 other universities with elite science and engineering programs - 38 percent more often than the next school, Harvard, and four times more than campuses with the lowest rate - a Globe study has found."</p>

<p>"MIT's rate stands at 20.6 undergraduate deaths per 100,000 students since 1990. For the comparable age group in the United States, 17- to 22-year-olds, the rate is 13.5 per 100,000. At all colleges, experts estimate, about 7 undergraduates per 100,000 kill themselves. Calculations based on 100,000 are used by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other experts to compare deaths among populations."</p>

<p>"The rate at Harvard, with total annual enrollment of about 18,500, was 7.4, with 15 suicides since 1990. The rate at Johns Hopkins was 7, and at Cornell, 5.7. At some public universities that compete for students with MIT, incident rates were also lower: The University of Michigan, which enrolls about 37,000 students a year, had a rate of 2.5."</p>

<p>The full Boston Globe article can be purchased from Boston.com.</p>

<p>The student newspaper at MIT published an article in February, 2000, which provides a snippet of information about Cornell:</p>

<p>"Cornell University is one peer institution that does maintain moderately complete records of their student deaths in response to a common perception that they have a high suicide rate. Cornell had eight students take their own lives in the past ten years. With about 19,000 students on campus, Cornell has a suicide rate of about 4.3 per 100,000 student years for that time period, far below both MIT and national rates."</p>

<p>The full MIT article is located here:
<a href="http://www-tech.mit.edu/V120/N6/comp6.6n.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www-tech.mit.edu/V120/N6/comp6.6n.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>My summary: The national college undergraduate suicide rate is 7 per 100,000, which is actually much lower (about half) than the rate for all people of college age. Cornell's rate, likely taken from 1990-2000, is around 4.3 to 5.7. MIT's rate is much higher, but there is no full national study of all universities to show which school has the highest. In fact, both of the above articles state that several schools refuse to provide suicide data or do not keep track, including Princeton, Stanford, Columbia, the University of Pennsylvania, Carnegie Mellon, and Yale. </p>

<p>This is the latest data I could find on school suicides. Draw your own conclusions.</p>

34

<p>I bow down to you to whomever kept on saying that I am not respectful. That point has taken up 50% of your posts! I agree that I simply cannot be verbose like you are, u are obviously more articulated and respectful, I also like being called a smartass(whoever did this). I've wanted to be an engineering major since freshman year of high school, which was 2000, when I had an engineering internship as a research assistant in a small school. I have done considerable research on engineering schools and colleges, and I hope that I can use this knowledge to help others in the process of making decisions, on topics that I may be of help. This is why I am still here as a rising college junior. It isn't fair to compare faculty quality of cornell(a prestigious university with vast resources(money, facilities)'s against Cooper Union's because Cooper Union just can't compete. While it may be true some professors at Cooper Union might teach better, one has to realize in hiring college professors at any major research university, teaching is evaluated as well. In my engineering classes and science classes, 95% of my professors have been very good, nice, and are willing to help. There are course evaluation forms at the end of every term and these evaluations are crucial to professors who want to get tenured.
And since we were talking about suicide rates, as a student who has had a bad freshman year, I can say that student suicide has more to do with non-academic reasons. I really don't buy that some students kill themselves because they failed organic chemistry, or that they were on academic probation. Most major research Universities have established psychiatric help centers for people seeking help. The size of a University, as showed in the above study, has no correlation with suicide rates.</p>

35

<p>They are both excellent, in their own way, and which is better depends on your priorities.</p>

<p>From an engineering perspective, Cornell will have more resources and more course offerings, particularly advanced ones. Cooper Union will have fewer TAs and a priority of teaching undergraduates.</p>

<p>Engineers at Cornell take many electives, and its students have the resources of its outstanding other colleges (Arts &Sciences, Agriculture,etc)at their disposal for this purpose.</p>

<p>Cornell is in a large campus-based college town. Cooper Union is a building in New York City.</p>

<p>Cornell has the relevant trappings of a normal college experience. It has sports, fraternities, many kinds of students from all over. Cooper Union is more of a commuter school.</p>

<p>Cooper Union is less costly, particularly for the many students who already lie in New York.</p>

<p>Cornell will get recruiters from all over. Cooper Union will probably get fewer recruiters (though maybe not per student) and more of a local bent.</p>

<p>They both are known to have bright students and excellent reputations in engineering.</p>

<p>If you decide you don't like engineering and want to switch to another field, it is highly likely you can do this and stay at Cornell, as long as your grades have been decent. If this happens to you at Cooper Union you will probably have to transfer to another college.</p>

36

<p><em>off-topic but on the topic of MIT suicides</em>
Hey, two or three of the MIT suicides in the '90s were from my dorm -- my floor even (I live on the 15th floor). True story.</p>