<p>The general consensus at CollegeConfidential is that Cornell doesn't meet Ivy standards, and hence is not an Ivy. I have read numerous posts on this forum, belittling Cornell.
"Apply to some non-ivy colleges too, just for safety. Try Duke, Tufts and Cornell (HA HA)"</p>
<p>Why do people disparage Cornell? What makes Cornell a lesser Ivy than the others?</p>
<p>The Ivy League is a sports league with eight schools, all old and academically excellent. Cornell is an excellent school, I would not belittle it or put it down.</p>
<p>Of course it is a sports league, but we all know their worth in academia. I am glad you think of it as an excellent school, but others might disagree. I’ve started this thread in a bid to understand why one would think negatively of this institution.</p>
<p>“I would found an institution where any person can find instruction in any study.”</p>
<p>Ambitious, but neither lofty nor pretentious enough.</p>
<p>Cornell is the work your ass off hoping for an A, but get a B Ivy. It is an excellent university.</p>
<p>Cornell mingles with universities like JHU and Northwestern. They’re all great universities but most people expect more from the Ivy League.</p>
<p>^^^Yeah, like better than mediocre engineering colleges. Only Cornell and Princeton are top schools.</p>
<p>What’s the hype about Ivies? I would rather go to a college where the professor gets to see my face once or twice. The only special thing about Ivies is the prestige and the connections; the education is no better than a UC.</p>
<p>A prof will get to know you as an undergrad at a UC? Do your homework.</p>
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The hype, my friend, is the HYP. <em>Budum tish</em></p>
<p>A prof will get to know you as an undergrad at a UC? Do your homework.</p>
<p>That’s not what s/he said. S/he said that the education is about the same as a UC, but it also has connections and the prestige. JUDY would prefer going to a different school, neither Ivy nor UC, in which s/he gets to see his/her professor.</p>
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<p>Could you be a little more specific? Of course I realize, HYP are in a league of their own. But in comparison with the other Ivies, does Cornell fall behind? I am getting a feeling that some people are accusing Cornell of large class room sizes. Cornell has about 13,000 undergrads, while UPenn and Columbia have ~10,000 and ~7,000 respectively. Penn’s acceptance rate is very similar to Cornell’s. So, why the bias?</p>
<p>I hate to break it to many on CC, but non-HYP ivies are all equal and no better than Duke, JHU or Northwestern.</p>
<p>Cornell is a combination of private college and state land grant school for NY. Some of then land grant programs have lower admissions standards that Cornell arts and sciences and engineering.</p>
<p>The ivies should not be lumped together. They each have their strengths and weaknesses.</p>
<p>What they do have is some of the strongest student bodies as they have their pick of top students from around the world due to reputation and large endowments making generous aid available. Few schools can
compete on these fronts, and certainly not UCs which offer almost no aid to students not from CA.</p>
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<p>I can’t agree with that. Columbia was ranked 4th by USNEWS, well Duke, JHU and NU were in the early 10s. I’m not basing my premise on rankings alone. Lots of people transfer from NU, JHU etc to Columbia and other Ivies. I doubt if the reverse process is as common. </p>
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Could you enumerate the strengths and weaknesses of Cornell, Columbia and Penn?
:)</p>
<p>Cornell JHU, Northwestern, Columbia, Penn, etc are all academic peers. There are very few differences between the schools academically. All schools are about equal in terms of prestige and quality of their undergraduate student bodies.</p>
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Duke is ranked #9 in the country and Northwestern is ranked #11 according to USNWR so they are not too far away from Columbia. Based on the USNWR methodology, there is a GIANT gap between HYP and every other top private school.</p>
<p>“I can’t agree with that. Columbia was ranked 4th by USNEWS, well Duke, JHU and NU were in the early 10s. I’m not basing my premise on rankings alone. Lots of people transfer from NU, JHU etc to Columbia and other Ivies. I doubt if the reverse process is as common.”</p>
<p>In a country with over 2,000 LACs and universities, of which the top 50 LACs and top 50Universities are all excellent, rankings cannot accurately differentiate between #4 and #24. </p>
<p>Admittedly, there are some students who “settle” for non-Ivy elites (such as Cal, Chicago, Duke, JHU, Northwestern etc…) and who are insecure (mostly due to the ignorance/prejudice of their social network) enough to transfer to an Ivy League if given the chance. That does not make the Ivies are any better. </p>
<p>There are also many students who are admitted into Ivies but rejected by those non-Ivy elites.</p>
<p>This thread is idiotic. </p>
<p>People/high-schoolers don’t respect Cornell as much as other ivys because it’s easier to get into. Mystery solved.</p>
<p>Some underestimate the difficulty of admission to Cornell, particularly its liberal arts [College of Arts and Sciences] and engineering colleges. CAS has a 15% admit rate and SAT scores for its enrolled class significantly higher than the overall university median of 1410. Cornell’s other more specialized schools [e.g. #1 ranked architecture] focus more on fit than standardized tests.
University applications have soared in the last few years. Applications have doubled in the last 7 years for CAS, as there are now over 17,000 applications for a class of 1,000.</p>