<p>I know that I always hear that Cornell is the toughest Ivy to graduate from, that Cornell is the most stressful, cut-throat Ivy there is. If I were to take similar courses at another Ivy League school, would I have to work harder for good grades at Cornell? Or is the stress going to be the same wherever I go, just because I choose similar courses? I come from Long Island, and many schools around here are VERY competitive and VERY cut-throat. I'm looking for a break, yet I still want to go to an Ivy League school. How do you think the rigor and average stress-level at Cornell compares to the other Ivies? Why?</p>
<p>I can’t really compare to other ivy league schools, but at Cornell I feel like the course work is pretty rigorous. I mean unless you’re an absolute genius you’ll obviously have to work hard and study to get good grades. And not minor studying either. It also depends on your major. I had suitemates who are engineers who I literally wouldn’t see for days because they were in duffield or the engineering quad working. Architects are basically non existent. Keep in mind this is just my opinion.</p>
<p>Cornell is not that bad at all. It’s tough, but that shouldn’t be surprising. But any top school is tough. Is Cornell more competitive or cut-throat than its peers? I cannot say definitively since Cornell is the only school I have experience with, but I would be shocked if the answer is yes. If you work hard here (which you should expect to do at ANY top school), you can do very well. And you do not have to disappear in the library stacks for days at a time to do that, either. I’m a premed, and I have found that my workload (and stress level) is very manageable.</p>
<p>Do not let the rumors freak you out. I was scared as hell coming into Cornell because of the rumors, and I now realize almost every one of them is unfounded.</p>
<p>yea the course work for premeds isnt as bad as for like engineers.</p>
<p>True. But even so, lots of my friends who are engineers find time to socialize during the week, and many of them never miss a party on the weekends. They do fine academically. And while engineering will require more time and effort than other majors, that wouldn’t be different at Penn, Dartmouth, Northwestern, Hopkins, etc. Engineering is tough everywhere.</p>
<p>Cornell’s difficulty is far overblown.</p>
<p>It is the largest Ivy with multiple independent colleges and many programs within these colleges. To try to attach a label of tough or easy or whatever to Cornell as a whole is impossible and ridiculous. It depends on what you are studying, how passionate you are about it, your talents, and how much time you take to pursue the many other activities Cornell has to offer besides pure academics.</p>
<p>Agree with CayugaRed – I think the rumored difficulty is a self-fulfilling prophecy – that is, students come here fully expecting their experience to be very difficult, and so that’s what it feels like, whether or not it actually is.</p>
<p>The workload is somewhat difficult (after all, you WILL learn; learning can’t happen without some persistence through difficulty) but only occasionally “stressful.” Of course, difficulty varies across the multitude of programs (it’s simply undeniable that students in, say, Engineering Physics have a more time-consuming workload than AEM or Communications students, though I think the size of that gap is probably overblown).</p>
<p>But I’ve never met anyone who didn’t consistently have a couple of hours every day of free time for socializing/fun. That’s really what it comes down to.</p>
<p>Also, I should add that difficulty is much more related to what courses you choose to take within your major than what your major actually is. Let’s say Major X requires 11 courses, two of them at the 4000-level: a student who takes six 4000-levels will have a more strenuous workload than someone who takes two. (IMO, they will also learn more.)</p>
<p>Fortunately engineering isn’t what I’m after. I’m still unsure about major, but I’m pretty confident in CALS and doing one of the environmental majors, but I want to get all of the prerequisites for Medical School as well.</p>
<p>I don’t know what these other people have experienced, but I well remember D1s college hunt. We visited: Wellesley, Bryn Mawr, Haverford, Swarthmore, several other schools (Not Cornell, she wasn’t interested). and at every one of them we encountered students who were under stress, facing a demanding workload.</p>
<p>I was well aware of the challenges at Cornell, having attended, but I came away from D1s college hunt with the distinct impression that there really is no free lunch. If you want to attend a college with a reputation for academic excellence, you should expect that you will have to earn your way, pure and simple. That’s how it seemed to me, based on those visits.</p>
<p>It’s hard to really know for sure how much difference there is.</p>
<p>Cornell has a relatively high proportion of engineering & science majors overall, that can affect preceptions.</p>
<p>One nice thing about Cornell is that within its various colleges there are some offerings that are both highly valuable and knowingly a little less stressful, that can take some of the edge off of a grueling schedule, if you desire. You have the opportunity to mix in an interesting wine tasting couse at the Hotel School, along with your three or four other demanding courses for your major, Etc. I don’t know if you have equal opportunities to manage that aspect at Princeton, et.al. These other universities are more like CAS (& engineering) alone, whereas the courses I’m thinking of are scattered among Cornell’s various colleges.</p>
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<p>I respectfully disagree. My experience is that it is rare to have THAT much free time, especially for those actively involved in clubs, project teams, work, or research. </p>
<p>Still, I agree that it would be inaccurate to say that Cornell is any more difficult than any other top school. I don’t know where people get that notion.</p>
<p>i have a couple of hours free everyday… except during exam times and i say my course load is not that easy. except i blow all that time on facebook and watching stuff on laptop -_-</p>
<p>I know that this question may be unanswerable, but please give me your best guess. DO you think that should I go to Cornell, I would be more stressed out than I would be at some other Ivy, say Dartmouth? Mainly, I am comparing the two schools. In addition, I know Dartmouth has killer study abroad programs. How are they at Cornell?</p>
<p>I have to agree with Tchaikovsky…It is pretty rare to have THAT much free time.</p>
<p>I agree with Cayuga-- I think Cornell’s reputation for a stressful workload is overblown, and possibly connected to the suicide myth. Cornell’s sheer size also makes it much more manageable for students on the margins who just want to “get by;” there are PLENTY of classes, and some majors, where getting A’s isn’t very demanding, and failing would basically require complete disaffectedness. Given the larger student-faculty ratio, there’s maybe a little less hand-holding in intro courses vis-a-vis some of its Ivy peers, but my impression is that the given grades are similar to those for similar-quality work at other top schools.</p>
<p>In comparison to other Ivies, I can’t really say much, however, I have heard that some of the Ivies (Harvard to be a little more specific) use a lot of grade inflation whereas Cornell makes you work for the A rather than hand it to you.</p>
<p>but I won’t say more than that.</p>
<p>How much free time you have is largely a measure of how much sleep deprivation you are willing to endure. It is a measure of how you balance SSS - Socializing, Study, and Sleep.</p>
<p>^^ very true.</p>
<p>there are many different kinds of people at cornell…</p>
<p>some try to focus just on school, others avoid school as much as possible, and i’d say many more aim to seek a balance between the two (how well one does this is what’s important)</p>