<p>I was just wondering about the quality of Cornell Engineering. What sets it apart from other engineering/STEM programs at other schools? Basically, what's good about Cornell's engineering program?</p>
<p>I’d like to know as well.</p>
<p>The things I already know due to reading on this site are: Cornell has an extremely impressive student profile. And the university won a bid to build Cornell Tech in New York City in recent years. The new campus seems to provide students with better opportunities than other east coast universities for innovation (may be similar to Stanford in the west).</p>
<p>My daughter is interested in Cornell and Stanford, but I suggest her to look into more because Cornell may be too hard to get into with highest academic standard and holistic adm process: (all are hard to get into, I know. I saw some people post an engineering link that is helpful and I looked up some schools. Cornell and MIT engineering are with same Math SAT scores, others are lower. I was very very surprised that Princeton’s is almost 100 points lower.)</p>
<p><a href=“http://profiles.asee.org/profiles/5586/screen/19?school_name=Cornell+University”>http://profiles.asee.org/profiles/5586/screen/19?school_name=Cornell+University</a>
<a href=“http://profiles.asee.org/profiles/5566/screen/19?school_name=Massachusetts+Institute+of+Technology”>http://profiles.asee.org/profiles/5566/screen/19?school_name=Massachusetts+Institute+of+Technology</a>
<a href=“http://profiles.asee.org/profiles/5694/screen/19?school_name=Stanford+University”>http://profiles.asee.org/profiles/5694/screen/19?school_name=Stanford+University</a>
<a href=“http://profiles.asee.org/profiles/5692/screen/19?school_name=Princeton+University”>http://profiles.asee.org/profiles/5692/screen/19?school_name=Princeton+University</a>
<a href=“http://profiles.asee.org/profiles/5811/screen/19?school_name=Carnegie+Mellon+University”>http://profiles.asee.org/profiles/5811/screen/19?school_name=Carnegie+Mellon+University</a></p>
<p>Certainly like to know more about what makes Cornell different.</p>
<p>I am a junior mechanical engineer, and there are many things that make Cornell unique. I don’t think I could do Cornell or Cornell Engineering justice in one post…you’re probably best off visiting Cornell and exploring both the engineering quad and the campus as a whole (there is a lot more to Cornell than just the rankings and SAT scores). If you have a specific major (or a few majors) in mind, that may be more helpful to narrow your search.</p>
<p>As for difficulty of admission, Stanford and Cornell are both hard to get into. I found it helpful during the application process to find things I loved in a lot of schools, because there is something you’ll love in every school you look at. Whether Cornell or Stanford accepts you or not, it matters more how you take advantage of what the school you attend has to offer than what school you’re going to. Cast a wide net in your search, and when you finally apply, you should be happy to go anywhere you apply.</p>
<p>I’d be glad to answer more questions, but I hope this is a start.</p>
<p>Stanford has about a 5% acceptance rate, thus is harder to get into. It has had a .lower acceptance rate than Harvard’s over the past few years, fyi. </p>
<p>@Renomamma, it is important to note that while Stanford’s acceptance rate is 5%, Cornell has about twice as many undergraduates as Stanford does. Additionally, it is important to consider that Cornell handles admission by college, so every college has different statistics about its admitted students. Hotel admissions are different from engineering admissions. A&S is different from CALS. Some students will be accepted to both, some to only one, and many to neither. Differences in admission rates such as these are irrelevant. It is more important to consider the programs, professors, student life, and other non-numerical factors in making your decision.</p>
<p>For Princeton, part of the difference may be caused by the fact that students apply to Princeton in general, and are not admitted specifically into the Engineering College like they would be at Cornell, Columbia or Penn.</p>
<p>^same at Stanford - you just apply to the University regardless of your major. Also, post #1 (Findmoreinfo) made it sound like Cornell might be harder to get into than Stanford (“My daughter is interested in Cornell and Stanford, but I suggest her to look into more because Cornell may be too hard to get into…”) and, generally, it would be easier to gain acceptance, especially as a female to COE at Cornell, than to gain acceptance at Stanford. Sure there are many factors at play, it just sounded funny to me since Stanford is probably the hardest University to gain acceptance to now, as far as the numbers go.
@bigredengr- my comment was directed towards Findmoreinfo, not the OP. </p>
<p>@Renomamma Think that Findmoreinfo was referring to the fact that they wanted their daughter to look into more schools besides Cornell and Stanford 
Any suggestions on that one?</p>
<p>Ahhh…perhaps I misunderstood. Sorry, I don’t, although I’m sure many do.</p>
<p>Forgive the repost, but please allow me to refer to one of my previous posts from 2012. I’m working full-time now but I still feel the same about what I’ve written</p>
<p>Not sure if this will link to my comment but it’s the really long one:
<a href=“What sets Cornell Engineering apart from engineering at other schools? - #2 by fallenmerc - Cornell University - College Confidential Forums”>What sets Cornell Engineering apart from engineering at other schools? - #2 by fallenmerc - Cornell University - College Confidential Forums;
<p>After 1.5 years in industry, I find it hard to distinguish the “academic rigor” between my colleagues who are also from Cornell, and others from New England engineering programs (UConn, Umass, WPI, Boston University, MIT). This is probably due to the effect of being hired - the managers here are pretty good at telling whether or not someone will be able to contribute positively. Once you’ve made that benchmark, a lot of the “excess” or “deeper” knowledge doesn’t really make that much of a difference. Therefore, my commentary on the steeper math curve at Cornell should be appended with the fact that it sees no benefit at all in industry. However on a personal level, I value knowledge so even if I’ve forgotten most of it or will never use it, the fact that we went deeper during the course made my experience in getting an engineering degree more satisfying, at least in retrospect. </p>
<p>Cornell’s project teams do very well. The one’s I’m most familiar with: CUAUV and CUAIR. Check out their websites! Or at least this link does a good summary:
<a href=“Special Issue: Peer Review: Project Teams Win First | The Cornell Daily Sun”>http://cornellsun.com/blog/2013/09/18/special-issue-peer-review-project-teams-win-first/</a>
I think my comments about the peer groups and the engineering supplemental support plays a large part into these results. CUAIR was only 2/3 years in before this result.</p>
<p>Thank you all for your posts, they are helpful!</p>
<p>The link I posted from American Society of Engineering Education is supposed to accept reports from Engineering only but I think it is true that some universities gave overall admission rates because their admission process didn’t require applicants to choose colleges. </p>
<p>While Cornell admitted more students and the scroes are still higher than other universities - that tells me that the higher admission rate is probably because students are so self-selective that only the high-achieving ones have the courage to apply; I am definetly not going to take it as ‘easier’ than other universities, that’s why I said it is equally hard. Sometimes numbers are surface information and one need to dig deep to get the true picture.</p>
<p>Are Cornell students active in student organizations/clubs (not frats or parties)? (I do agree with a Princeton Alum who stated that college years are the best time to find the significant half and I’d like to see my daughter balance on academic and social life so we basically prefer larger universities. Well, MIT isn’t big though, but it’s difficult for an Engineer to not thinking about it.)</p>
<p>“For Princeton, part of the difference may be caused by the fact that students apply to Princeton in general,…”</p>
<p>Much2learn, If you look at number of applicants and number of studnets admitted you will find the stats were for engineering only. Princeton had ~30,000 total applicants, not 5,513 applicants.</p>
<p>@Findmoreinfo
That is a good point. They must have split it out some way, perhaps by indicated major. However, it would not be as clear as Cornell, Penn or Columbia where they have separate Colleges for Engineering.</p>
<p>It does not surprise me that Cornell, Columbia and Penn would all have stronger Engineering students, on average, because they all have reputations for putting more resources into Engineering and more money into Engineering research than Princeton. </p>
<p>Princeton probably has a stronger broad reputation, however.</p>
<p>The reality is that you will get a world class education at any of these schools, and if you are fortunate to get into more than one of them, you really need to visit them all and decide which one is the best for you and your specific situation. When you are thinking that through, challenge yourself to be specific about what you prefer about each, and don’t stop with something like, “It has a better vibe.” Ask yourself what that means specifically.</p>
<p>"The reality is that you will get a world class education at any of these schools, "</p>
<p>I agree with this totally. </p>
<p>“Princeton probably has a stronger broad reputation, however.”</p>
<p>It depends on who you ask. Since you mentioned ‘world class education’ and the world is more globlized it won’t hurt to know how students all over the world view these universities. The link below is based on web visits globally:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.4icu.org/topNorth-America/”>http://www.4icu.org/topNorth-America/</a></p>
<p>MIT
Stanford
Harvard
Berkeley (yep, the image of the 70’s the world remember…and it is always on TV and movies)
Cornell
… </p>