<p>LOL i just sent in my CSS to Cornell today and Chicago has yet to receive my noncustodial parent information so i'm pretty much in the same boat.</p>
<p>Another ex-Ithacan here who attended U of C for college. Chose not to attend Cornell so perhaps I am biased. Choice ought to be fairly straightforward as the two are so very very very different.</p>
<p>U of C vs Cornell</p>
<p>cold, snowy, grey and windy vs cold, snowy and grey
flat urban concrete vs hilly rural with gorgeous gorges and woods
poor inner city black vs upscale upstate new york whites
College in a city of millions vs a college that is the city</p>
<p>On a more serious note, I think you can get a degree from Cornell without becoming an educated person. Due to its very large size, it is not difficult to cruise through, take easy classes and graduate. That would not be possible at U of C. where they force you to become a learned person whether you want to or not. If you are a motivated student then you should do fine at Cornell, but for those more lackadaisical like myself, U of C education was invaluable in terms of requiring me to read the Greeks and the Federalist Papers (even though I ended up in the sciences). In fact, just today I had a nice discussion about history with a Carlton History major and held my own.</p>
<p>Also illustrative of the difference is the fact that the Engineering school is one of the largest schools at Cornell whereas U of C turned town a benefactor who wanted to give them money to start one up (or so the story goes). I believe their reason was that Engineering wasn't cerebral enough, and too tradesman like. I have to say, I did not miss having them around...</p>
<p>The above highlights some actual differences to consider, though the "spin" reflects personal preferences regarding these distinctions.</p>
<ul>
<li><p>There is probably more freedom of course selection at Cornell CAS (distribution requirements vs core), and probably far more areas of study and courses available to choose from (via the other colleges). It takes a particular type of person to view less discretion and less to choose from as a positive , though that happened in above post.</p></li>
<li><p>I did not encounter a high proportion of all those "easy courses" when I attended. For better or worse. But if they are there, a few of those, if they were interesting, would not have been such a bad thing to mix in with the rest. It was a pretty tough school. If Chicago doesn't offer a smattering of such "easy courses" to take some of the edge off, and Cornell does, that would be something to investigate and consider. But my conclusion about it would be opposite of the above. Both of these schools are considered to be tough by outsiders, sometimes enough is enough though. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>Personally I think it would be preferable to have some control over the degree to which you were killing yourself, depending on how things are actually going for you once you get there. If someplace offers notably less of this degree of control, seems to me that could potentially cause some issues for you.</p>
<p>But again, I did not really attain a great ability to manage this while at Cornell either, I found it pretty tough sledding. Most people there found it pretty demanding , from what I could see, and that was its reputation. That was a long time ago, but the reputation is still the same. for better or worse.</p>
<p>Finally, Cornell is undoubtedly a far more diverse school , in terms of programs of study in the various colleges but also types of people enrolled in these different colleges. Only 1/3 of the undergraduates there (which is still a large number of students) are enrolled in the Arts & Sciences College, which is the one college there that is most similar to U chicago. In the dorms you wil be in the company of this entire diverse group. You will likely share some classroom time with people outside your college as well, but to a greater or lesser extent depending on your particular program of studies.</p>
<p>Some people prefer the company of people who are most homogeneously similar to themselves. Other people may thrive in the company of more diverse groups of people, and feel they grow personally by exposure to people who have differing perspectives.
So that's a choice about which one may differ, but there is probably some real difference there.</p>
<p>Finally, I don't recall if this was mentioned previously, Cornell has fraternities and stuff, ,most people aren't in them but a lot are.(better housing, for one thing). And they have some sports teams, notably hockey, that some people there actually like. There are a large number of intellectually-oriented people there, but there are also lots of people- sometimes the same people- who are into this kind of stuff. It is simply a very diverse place.</p>
<p>Ithaca is beautiful, Chicago is a great city. Though I lived there when I was not a student, and had money. I don't know how great it is for a student with no money. It would be important to determine whether the presence of the city detracts from the cohesion of the student body and the college experience, I've a family member who left an urban school for this reason.</p>
<p>That's why I think one really ought to overnight at each if possible, get an inkling for what life would really be like, what a typical weekend evening would be like, see where you best see yourself loving it. There will likely be different answers for different people.</p>
<p>monydad:
How did you find the curriculum, or lack of one, at Cornell? My problem is that I feel that I will take all the classes that interest me: physics, math, writing. While that may sound great, I fear it could potentially blind me from the other classes that I might find interesting but choose not to take because of some stereotype or other. Whereas at Chicago, the Core, through their requirements, transforms some students: in fact, they reportedly take pride in seeing a student switch majors because of the discovery of a new passion.
In short, could you further explicate the course structure at Cornell and how you and others dealt with it?</p>
<p>Cornell CAS has distribution requirements, language requirements,and major requirements. You cannot just take whatever you want, you need to fill the various buckets. The preponderance of liberal arts colleges in this country have a requirement structure very similar to Cornell's. There are a few outlier colleges with no requirements, but Cornell CAS is not one of them. There are a mere handful of colleges that have a core curriculum of specific courses like chicago has.</p>
<p>If you have a strong preference for chicago's curriculum, you should go there. Or columbia. Or Reed. And whatever couple others there may be. Because this particular program of studies is not available outside of this handful, in exactly the same way and format. Virtually everyplace else is like Cornell's situation.</p>
<p>On the other hand my D1 may in some ways have been a good fit for chicago, but couldn't stand the idea of being forced to take these specific courses. She strongly preferred traditional distribution requirements, and freedom to choose.</p>
<p>To each their own.</p>
<p>But where there is choice, if you exercise it wisely you can accomplish a great deal. If you don't, you may accomplish less. On the other hand, you may be able to get more of exactly what you personally want. Such is the nature of choice.</p>
<p>So to continue: how did I find it at Cornell? I thought it was just fine. The type of discovery you describe occurred to me a number of times. In various fields of study: sciences, social sciences, French literature, others, even courses in the Agriculture college and the engineering college. Some of these I took to "fill the buckets" of distribution requirements, some I took because they simply had material I wanted to learn.</p>
<p>I didn't have any burning desire to closely mimic a "great works of western civilization" educational program of studies, so I didn't try to do that. But I could have tried, if I wanted to.</p>
<p>If I had been the student, it would have taken me about 2 years just to get over the awe I felt when visiting Cornell. To me it looked like the epitome of what a university should look like, and on top of that magnificent hill to boot. S had different ideas. He thought it was too big and he definitely wasn't going into engineering. He applied to Chicago sight unseen and accepted EA. The Life of the Mind seeds fell into fertile ground. He loved it after visiting during Sr year. I was initially reticent but now realize it was a good fit. Very happy college student surely beats a sullen one anytime.</p>
<p>My kid also thought the campus looked huge, almost too big to get one's arms around.
So I printed out a map of the campus, and started tearing off all the sections your basic CAS student basically would never need to go to, until, and if, they decided they wanted to go there. (eg Ag quad, engineering quad, plantations, etc). What was left, the part that necessarily mattered, was quite considerably smaller.</p>
<p>It's all pretty manageable, in the end. Maybe it takes a little while to get one's bearings, that's about it. There are parts of the ag quad that are still a mystery to me, but I don't care about them frankly.</p>
<p>Thanks for the posts, they really help. I am now leaning towards Cornell; i feel that cornell is a rare school/environment to live in. I will probably end up in a big city later on in life, whether that be grad school or career choice, so cornell will fit me as an opportunity to see a different side to things. </p>
<p>Additionally, I have talked to some other cornell students who corroborate your take on the school, monydad, regarding the course selection. I was under the impression that Cornell will let you take whatever the hell you want even if it compromises the quality of your degree in a certain subject. I know this not to be true and actually look forward to being able to map out my own degree: one that is valid as well as diverse in areas that interest me.
Thank you for the input!</p>
<p>Well you're welcome.
Personally I think these two are both rare schools/environments, there are just some differences that can be recognized and people should choose based on their preferences.</p>
<p>Another factor that has just come to my attention: learning. I know that the U of C is notorious for it's creative spin to learning coupled with the fact that many there do care about learning and questioning. Is this kind of environment just for show at the U of C or does it continue to exist past freshman year?
Additionally, how is the learning environment at Cornell? Do the students generally care about learning and questioning or is it the grade that matters above all?</p>
<p>I don't think you can completely generalize about either college. I believe that the University of Chicago attracts a high proportion of learning-for-learning's-sake students because of its reputation, and because it's not just reputation, there's substance behind it. But I'm sure there are plenty of students at Chicago who are there for the prestige and for a leg up on the next stage of their brilliant careers. Cornell's undergraduate programs are, collectively, more than twice the size of Chicago's, and Cornell pulls in a very wide range of students, including many who may be brilliant students and great human being but who wouldn't even think about applying to Chicago because it wouldn't meet their needs (e.g., people who know they want to be engineers, architects, veterinarians, farmers, hotel managers, union organizers, etc.). Does Cornell have pre-professional grade grubbers? Sure. Is that all it has? Of course not.</p>
<p>I have a really high opinion of Chicago; it's one of the great universities of the world. But so is Cornell, without question. It has many, many students who are thrilled to be there and to have a chance to learn there, and many, many students who get turned on to the excitement of high-level learning while they are there. Chicago's commitment to intellectualism may be a point in its favor (or not) for any particular student, but any comparison to Cornell isn't a question of night and day. It's really a question of a place with one dominant (but not universal) style, vs. a place where there are all sorts of different attitudes and styles.</p>
<p>My cohort at Cornell CAS seemed to contain a high % of future PhDs, by my personal count and limited exposure. But there is diversity, and there will be people with different goals, which may reflected in greater or lesser proportions in various of the colleges, and majors. Most of my major time was spent in physics (CAS)and in engineering, and I found them plenty intellectual; people were not just getting a grade. But I can't speak for a whole university, or current circumstances. (Moreover, I have a bad memory). My guess is there will be more diversity there in this aspect, and most others, than at Chicago.</p>
<p>In the end, I do not perceive that this diversity materially adversely affected the personal academic mission of students there who were highly intellectually oriented. They had plenty of company there, as well. As for influence of individual student motivations on the nature or conduct of specific classes, I don't really remember anything negative that stands out. Maybe sometimes people asked what was going to be covered on an exam??</p>
<p>But there may well be more diversity in motivations, I doubt it would create big issues for people but I can't guarantee it makes no difference. It would be pretty hard to determine this accurately though, one way or another.</p>