I was recently liklied by Cornell and now i’m facing big college choices. What is is atmosphere at Cornell like? Is it competitive? Is the emphasis placed on academics or on partying( I’m really not into “partying” I care more about academics). How are the Engineering schools? Is the environment depressing (I’ve hear people say it is in the middle of nowhere). I have so many more questions someone please answer.
I’ve never really experienced a ton of competition here - I think the competition is really just with yourself to try to do your best.
Academics and partying is sort of odd, because never before have I seen people who can get blackout drunk one day and then ace a prelim the next (slight exaggeration, but not much). People here love to do well in academics and they love to party. Personally, though, I am not a partier. There are plenty of other people who don’t go out much either. If you don’t want to party, you by no means have to, but it is always available just about any night you want.
Engineering school - I’m not an engineer, but the engineering school is fantastic. It’s super tough from what I know, but it’s an amazing school.
I love the environment. I’ve lived in Ithaca my whole life and it’s just my favorite place in the world. It’s the number one college town in America. It gets cold, but you get used to it. What’s more annoying than the cold is just hearing people constantly complain about the cold. And it’s always so odd to me when people say it’s in the middle of nowhere, because personally my house and high school were about 15 minutes from Ithaca, and they were legitimately in the middle of nowhere (picture miles and miles of farmland and the closest store miles away). So Ithaca was the city to me, it was where you went when you wanted to actually be somewhere. So hearing it called the middle of nowhere is so counter to what I’ve associated it with.
Let me know if you have any more questions!
D is a chemE. She is not into partying, and the engineering social scene (for her) revolves around office hours. COE seems to place a big emphasis on teamwork, and her “teams” are constantly attending office hours together and working on their group projects/assignments. There are also lots of opportunities for things like the Mars Rover & ChemE Car teams, both of which do very well nationally in competitions. She hasn’t experienced a lot of competition, and likes the grading scale in COE, which is based on the mean/median and standard deviations. if one person gets an absurdly high score, then good for them as it doesn’t typically affect the mean This does take some getting used to; a 63% may just be an A and that was initially rather tough for her to accept.
She loves it, and has found numerous opportunities to volunteer, participate, research, etc. As for “middle of nowhere”, Cornell’s campus/college town is always busy. She rarely needs to wander off campus for anything (but the bus is convenient when needed) so she likes the atmosphere.
I also have many questions concerning Cornell’s atmosphere. As a student from the west coast, is there a certain culture shock that I’d experience once on campus? Furthermore, is there a general friendliness, or do most people seclude themselves?
Regardless of the question, Cornell has always been a top school for me, and I’ve been recently admitted as well. I just have a ton of questions since I have never been on the East Coast.
Thank you for your help! 
@chatennoir I can’t imagine there would be a huge culture shock moving from west coast to east – probably the only startling thing will come when it first gets cold. You’ll get used to it pretty quickly, though. Since people at Cornell are from all over the world, there isn’t one set east coast culture that’s really followed here. You’ll probably be very comfortable. I would say there’s a general friendliness on campus; I certainly haven’t met anybody blatantly mean. There are some people who are arrogant, which can be annoying to deal with, and certainly during prelims everyone gets stressed and deals with that in their own way. But I would say overall that people are very friendly.
Most students are from the Northeast, though. And you’ll notice some cultural/behavioral differences coming from Cali 
@Renomamma care to elaborate?
I would not say that cultural and behavioral differences are prevalent only at Cornell. 40 per cent of students are from NE (30 % NY). I looked at Stanford and 38% are from California. It is certain that the environment in which one grows up will certainly play a role in how one interacts. On the other hand, it is up to the person how to adapt in a new sorrounding. There is no doubt there will be surprises, but life is all about dealing with those.