Cornell CS vs JHU- competitive pressure and happiness

College Search & Selection
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Ok, some last minute stress trying to help my son choose the right college for a CS major, would appreciate any help. I’m hoping that in addition to getting a great education and having good career prospects, he will actually be happy for the 4 years.

He will major in CS. He is choosing between Hopkins (Engineering) and Cornell (admitted into A&S, not sure if he wants to stay there or transfer later into Engineering). Not sure about career choice yet - possible software engineering, possible law school, possible anything else at this point. His interests lean towards math and physics, but he also has other interests such as astronomy, philosophy, foreign language. He is smart, mature, and a hard-working, disciplined, self-motivated student. However, he can suffer from major anxiety and inability to sleep during exams. He has plenty of high school friends but is on the introverted side, needing time to himself. Not a big partier. Likes playing video games with friends.

Cornell is very appealing because of the excellence of its CS program, overall academic excellence and breadth, natural beauty, some alumni family ties, the Ivy moniker, and just an exciting feeling. We are from NYC and the rural community feels a bit limited, but Ithaca and Collegetown seem nice and he feels he can enjoy four years there. And great food on campus!

Our cons for Cornell are the idea of walking a mile to class in freezing, bitter, snowy weather and living with the depressing-ness of dreary grey skies and cold, and the perception we’ve developed that there might be an academic environment of intense competitive pressure, weedout course competition, grade deflation, expectation of all-nighters, causing extreme anxiety and inability to sleep on the nights before exams (especially if he transfers into Engineering). We’ve encountered numerous posts saying Cornell students are not happy because of these factors. In addition, I wonder if the huge number of students makes Cornell a more impersonal experience, and more difficult to make friends?

Hopkins seemed smaller, more intimate, more friendly, with a very pretty but smaller, navigable campus where dorms are close to classes. Students we met there said it’s nice to walk into a dining hall and always know someone. So maybe easier to make friends? The CS department is also smaller and more intimate, with maybe more chances to get to know profs. And the climate is warmer.

But the CS program is not nearly as well-rated, and we have heard that the Hopkins CS education is not as deep as Cornell’s. Baltimore is also not appealing. Although students seem to feel safe on or very near campus, and we really liked the campus and immediate surrounding areas, the area only a few blocks away seems sketchy and unsafe. And as pretty as campus is, there’s no good place for students to hang out while studying (Hopkins is building a really nice student center but this won’t be completed for 3 years.) And although both schools are incredibly great, it’s a bit hard to turn down the Ivy League.

Financially both programs are similar.

Would appreciate any suggestions or hearing people’s experiences. Especially interested in hearing what people think of Cornell’s CS culture in terms of competitiveness, unhappiness, degree of pressure and tension students feel.

Thank you very much!

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My son is in the same boat - he’s narrowed it down to Hopkins vs Cornell. He’s interested in Engineering. In our case, we’re still waiting for financials from Cornell and that will be an important part of the decision. I’m looking forward to seeing the responses you get comparing the two schools.

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I’m a Cornell alum. Had an amazing experience back in stone ages ;). My h’s entire family went to Cornell. Needless to say we were rah rah Cornell with our D

My D toured both Cornell and JHU for engineering. My D had a terrible Cornell visit. Stressed out unhappy students, too much competition for clubs and research, and too many out of college requirements for her taste. She found the students at JHU to be more collaborative and happy.

That said I know plenty of current cornellians who are living their experience so I think it’s a very personal choice.

Honestly I never had an issue with the weather. Cornell is beautiful even in the winter.

It’s a very personal decision and you don’t have a bad choice

Good luck to your student!

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A bit bemused that the choice for a student who has anxiety issues and is worried about a competitive atmosphere has narrowed the choice to JHU & Cornell- two schools that are heavily stereotyped as full of competitive, highly stressed, overworked, unhappy students.

Most of the concerns that you have mentioned above are second or third tier things: weather isn’t what makes a school work or not work (and Baltimore, while definitely not as cold as Ithaca, is no great shakes for weather either anyway). “Cornell/Ivy League” vs JHU is about the bumper sticker on your car, not something that will meaningfully advantage/disadvantage the student. Ithaca is farther from cities in absolute terms, but for the lived student experience is arguably less isolated than JHU, as the students free range through both the town and the region. NYC isn’t a day trip, but it’s easy enough to take the Cornell bus for the weekend, similar to Baltimore (yes, I know DC is an hour for JHU away also).

Your point that he is not 100% sure about engineering seems relevant to me, and would tip the balance a bit towards Cornells encouragement to take a range of classes.

Still, the bottom line is that both places are chock-a-block with students who take their work very seriously, and who push themselves. Neither is what I would imagine is an obvious fit for a kid who ‘suffers from high anxiety’ about exams and academics.

If those are the only 2 choices, then I would go with the place that he felt more comfortable.

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JHU isn’t known to be a more collaborative environment, especially in those classes premeds need to take, so I wouldn’t choose between the two schools on that basis. For CS, Cornell has a broader and deeper program while JHU is more focused on bio-related subfields in CS (e.g. bioinformatics, computational biology).

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I was Cornell COE CS (late 90s).
I always felt it was hard enough, but not over the top . The project courses were amazing. Professors were/are amazing. Schneider, Van Loan … they are awesome. Emin Gün Sirer - one of the BEST ppl in distributed systems.

Also with the amount of money that’s falling on Cornell CIS, the department is only getting better. I highly recommend to become part of it :slight_smile:

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Ithaca is beautiful all year round. And one of the coldest experiences of my life was visiting JHU for a campus tour one day back in Feb. 2015, when it was 17 degrees.

We liked JHU, but D and I both felt it was intensely academic. Every single student in the library had their nose buried in a computer. We didn’t feel there was an oppressive vibe, but we did feel that students are super serious and that the surrounding area didn’t seem conducive to a classic college experience. I’ve only visited Cornell briefly, and it is also intense, but I think it has a huge advantage simply because it’s in such a gorgeous place and Ithaca is a great college town. But you seem to prefer JHU. What does your son prefer?

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Thank you all, I really appreciate the perspectives. My son had his second Covid-vaccine dose yesterday and unfortunately now is in bed with aches and chills and fever, so I’m trying to do some opinion-gathering for him till he can think.

A couple of things in reply.

  1. I have no doubt that he can do the work, he will have to work very hard but so does everyone at both schools. He is definitely someone who takes schoolwork seriously. He is not afraid of the academic rigour of Cornell, just the possibility of intense overwork and competitive, non-collaborative, all-nighter-pressure. The anxiety is a problem, but it doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to attend a top school. The anxiety is something which will be difficult and will have to be managed wherever he is. I know a lot of kids who have high stress at college so I’m not sure anxiety is so rare. But given the situation, we’re trying to figure out which school is best for him and those are the two that he’s narrowed to. He’s also considering Tufts which might be less pressured and is in a great location (sibling in Boston too), but he doesn’t like the significantly lower CS rankings.

  2. I don’t agree that the ivy league is just for the bumper sticker and confers no advantages. I went to an ivy (not Cornell). And although I have a plain-old regular life and career and there are many people who make more money than I do, and I never talk about it unless asked, I feel good about where I went and I feel there have been certain benefits. The way I feel about the Ivy prestige is that it’s one factor to consider, but only one among many, and definitely not the most important.

  3. I am probably leaning towards Cornell for intangible reasons: I have relatives who went there and loved it, my sibling went there for 4 years of grad school and I spent great time up there, it’s incredibly beautiful, and it’s just a great university overall. Not my life or decision, though. My son is also leaning towards Cornell but the lean is slight, he mostly feels on the fence and says he will decide at the last minute, but I can tell he feels very stressed about the decision - even though I’ve repeatedly reminded him that both schools are great. I believe he is leaning towards Cornell because of the top-notch CS education. He says that even after two visits to each school he does NOT really have a gut feeling. He liked the intimate campus of Hopkins but also the gorgeousness of Cornell. It is of course not possible to really know what will come along in college that will lead to happiness or unhappiness. So in the end it’s hard to know how much weight to give all those second-tier factors.

  1. And sometimes the second-tier factors make or break the experience. For example, if you’re a night owl like my son (and like most kids during the pandemic?), it’s helpful to roll out of bed at a JHU dorm and be at class in 15 minutes, vs. having to get up in time to take a bus to class at Cornell! Again, hard to know how much to weight something like that.

  1. When we recently went to Cornell the weather was cold, dreary, gray, drizzling. We met CS students liked CS/Cornell, but all said it was hard with periods of intense stress. All said they really liked CS except one, who said “it’s hard”. When we went to JHU recently it was a gorgeous sunny day in the 70s. We also met CS students who seemed to be happy, some said they “loved” JHU. They did not seem to feel the pressure or workload were intense, they all said it was manageable - one graduating CS major said she wouldn’t give up a night’s sleep for anything and never had had to at JHU. She said if you managed time well it was very doable.
    My son and I ended up concluding that although students will work hard at both schools, maybe the intense pressure-cooker stress JHU is known for applies mostly to pre-med students. Not sure.

  2. But the fact that JHU’s CS focus is bioinformatics/biomed is a con - he’s not really interested in healthcare or medical fields. He has a pure love of technology.

  3. So putting aside all the other factors, I think the most important thing he’s trying to get a feel for is: With the hard work/academic intensity a given, do Cornell CS students find it to be a heavy stress inducing, happiness-limiting, highly competitive pressure cooker environment?

May all our kids be happy where they end up!!

Thanks!

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I have no idea why you think this going to be any different at JHU or 50+ other universities (especially in engineering).

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If he plans to do CS then Cornell is much better than Hopkins as Hopkins isn’t really on the radar for CS. If he isn’t sure then it’s irrelevant. It isn’t a mile walk in cold days to Engineering or any classes from the freshman dorms because many kids just take the free bus door to door so no one has to walk. My daughter is in CS at Cornell and has found it to be extremely collaborative. But as @momofboiler1 mentioned, if your son is interested in joining clubs and activities like a project team, etc. those are very competitive and he has to put himself out there and be prepared to not be accepted. That’s ok. He also has to be prepared to not get all A’s. That’s also ok. I wouldn’t say it’s a competitive environment more so that it’s stressful and a lot of work. Mine doesn’t feel she’s in competition with others, but she feels overly stressed with deadlines and tests (prelims) stacked one right after the other. Some parents don’t like that prelims are at night (big deal) or weekends (also big deal). But mental health for some, and the sun not shining a lot is a serious issue. If your kid sees a therapist of any kind, I would make sure that does not stop once he goes to school. Mental health of any sort is vital and some kids need that. Parents asking for these resources on the parent page often say it’s hard to get appointments or people are full, etc. There was a recent student death a few weeks ago. The family doesn’t want details shared so I can’t say what happened but you can google. That’s not uncommon on college campuses in any case. But people need to be aware that it is a pressure cooker and they cannot go to Cornell for the Ivy name only. It is not worth it. It’s more about fit than anything.

I have another daughter who intentionally chose not to go to any Ivies. She was worried we were disappointed in her decision. I told her absolutely not. I wasn’t the one going to college she was. I could never be disappointed in my kids with one exception. If they didn’ try their best. Cornell or any Ivy would not have been for her. She is a perfectionist. She would not have been able to handle getting a B+ at Cornell. Or the constant stress.

While mine have never needed the help of a therapist or have mental health issues, I have a child that does have SAD and their father is a psychiatrist so we are always on the lookout for our kids mental health and we ask constant questions, always try to be supportive of them, and if they need help we are there for them. So, take all of this into consideration when your son is making his final decision. My daughter absolutely loves Cornell, loves being around smart people. Her sister absolutely loves where she is and is also with smart people, but she is also with more mainstream people in her non-Honors classes (sometimes she sees the big difference) but the bottom line is they couldn’t be happier with their decision.

@momofboiler1 is a Cornell alum who clearly didn’t push her D to go to an Ivy or “elite” college and he daughter is highly successful at a top engineering school but with different recognition than what people think an Ivy means. (Hope that makes sense).

Key word being FIT for the student.

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