<p>So I'm 99% sure I'm going to apply ED to Cornell, but in the back of my mind I'm still wondering about Columbia. Cornell is ranked #10 for engineering and Columbia is #25 so I know Cornell is the right decision program wise. I even got over the remote location vs. NYC after staying on campus and visiting college town. The thing is...Columbia is ranked higher as a school itself 9 vs. 12 - I know that these ranks don't mean much, but I want to understand how Cornell is regarded for when I graduate. Is Cornell well regarded? Is there a good Cornell alumni network out there?</p>
<p>"Is Cornell well regarded?"
Extremely! Especially for engineering, it's the best in the Ivy League (and everybody knows it). With 3,500 colleges in the US, 9 vs. 12 isn't something you should even think twice about. </p>
<p>"Is there a good Cornell alumni network out there?"
225,000 strong and counting. The alumni are very generous to the school and the networking and connections you can form are extremely strong. Since the engineering school is so large, there are thousands of connections to this school alone.</p>
<p>Nine and 12 overall gives you pause? Check this year's, and remember too that Columbia does not submit its Engineeing school statistics to USNWR, nor Barnard's, either of which would punch it down far lower than Cornell overall. I would focus more on the #10 Cornell (best in Ivies) ranking for Cornell and the 25th position of Columbia (3rd in Ivies and behind U Minn, VA Tech, etc.)</p>
<p>My friend declined Harvard Engineering for Cornell Engineering.</p>
<p>If you want to be an engineer, if you are serious I think you should contact the Career Centers at each college and find out how many specifically engineering employers interview on campus for specifically engineering jobs.
Don't let them confuse the issue by throwing in employers recruting for jobs outside engineering. I'm talking about engineering jobs here.</p>
<p>In the past I've read that Columbia FU is one-half the size of Cornell's College of Engineering to start with, and only about 1/3 of Fu grads pursue engineering careers. Given that, it wouldn't surprise me if engineering recruiting there was comparatively light. NYC is not a hotbed of engineering activity, frankly, so they won't get much of a bump from that. Frankly it wouldn't surprise me if Cooper Union gets as much action with engineering recruiters in NYC.</p>
<p>Mind you I could be wrong but it might be worth it to find out.</p>
<p>Also look at the course catalogs at the number of engineering courses offered, majors, etc. Availability of upper-level electives in various sub-areas can literally dictate what kind of engineering specialty you will decide to pursue.</p>
<p>Engineers tend to be "where's the beef?" kind of people. The engineering firm I worked for cared not about some overall prestige ranking. They cared about who produced good engineers. They chose to recruit at schools known for good engineering programs, who would likely have sufficient numbers of interested and qualified candidates to justify them making a recruiting trip there. They recruited at Cornell. And several major flagship state Us. And MIT, RPI, Georgia Tech. They even recruited at Rice. And other places.However they did not recruit at Columbia. Or Harvard engineering. This was many years ago though.</p>
<p>There is a CC poster Rogracer who recruits for a large engineering firm. Perhaps he will see this thread and comment.</p>
<p>Cornell has a coop program where students get work experience as undergrads. This is a great opportunity, in that it helps inform upper-class course selection and often leads to a job offer too.</p>
<p>I don't know if Fu offers this.</p>
<p>On the other hand, if you don't want to be an engineer there may be other colleges that are more attractive than Cornell's College of Engineering. No sense filling your mind with tons of specialized engineering courses then. IMO, I would focus more on courses that will have more lasting value to you. I would recommend a College of Arts and Sciences in this event. </p>
<p>Many people like the big city, and New York is the best big city. On the other hand, there are those who love Ithaca and going to school in a vacationland/parklike setting as well.</p>
<p>By the way, I've read that Columbia now does include Fu in the stats it sends to US news. It used to deliberately leave them out though, that is true. They still don't include stats for its undergrad College of General Studies though.</p>
<p>Cornell Engineering! but I guess I'm biased. I can just repeat what people said above: as far as support to become a practicing engineer, Cornell is the place to go! The co-op program was a really important thing for me in choosing an engineering school. I'd also say Cornell Engineering is bigger meaning more opportunities, etc. The only exceptions to choose Columbia would be if you are looking at doing Finance (i.e. Financial Engineering, Operations Research) or if you are sure you want to be pre-professional (i.e. pre-med, pre-law). You can of course do this at Cornell and excel, but those would be the only two areas in which Columbia may be better. Interestingly, I know someone transferring from Cornell to Columbia because she was "bored in Ithaca!"</p>
<p>Frankly I doubt that Cornell is behind in Operations Research; it has one of the oldest and most highly-regarded programs in that area. It does appear that Columbia is much more focused on finance though.</p>
<p>"Interestingly, I know someone transferring from Cornell to Columbia because she was "bored in Ithaca!"</p>
<p>how dull do you have to be in order to need a city of 22,000,000 people to be entertained?</p>
<p>I visited both schools within one day of each other, and I liked Cornell more, but mainly for academic reasons. In terms of campus scenery, Cornell is beautiful, huge and hilly. Columbia is also pretty good looking with it's nice buildings, it looks like D.C. However, academically Cornell was better because I wasn't totally in love with the idea of a core curriculum at Columbia. I've heard about the core and thought it was something small, easily dispatched, however I found out it was a pretty huge deal-and I'm not a "LitHum" kind of guy. Gomestar, I'm not sure if your comment is entirely founded, at least when I visited (drove up there from NJ), I was like damn Cornell's really in the middle of nowhere. I didn't find it a huge deal though, but don't be surprised if you see lots of farm land, cows, horses, and not many people. Also, half of Ithaca's population is full of college students. But again, if anything, it was a neutral factor for me, certainly not a deal breaker. Hope that helped, not confused.</p>
<p>When I visited Cornell, I spoke to an engineering student and he was extremely tense and nervous. He said the workload is insanely tough....Good luck!</p>
<p>Try perhaps for a soft major (i.e. ILR or American studies)</p>
<p>When I visited, it seemed that the engineers worked the most, followed by the pre-meds. What was clear was that the students who were sociology, history, ILR, and AEM majors had it pretty easy in comparison.</p>
<p>ILR is not a soft major...ILR is known as I Love Reading...it would be ideal for one who likes reading about history/policy/psychology...</p>
<p>engineering would be good for those who pwn at math/science/logic...</p>
<p>"Gomestar, I'm not sure if your comment is entirely founded"</p>
<p>You visited the Cornell campus once and I've lived in Ithaca since first comming to Cornell (i'll be graduating in december). I can assure you way I say is 'founded'. </p>
<p>for my first semester in ILR, even though I had 4 classes for 13 credit hours, I still pulled in about 500 pages (if not more) of reading per week. I think reading is easier than math problems, but alot of work is always alot of work.</p>
<p>Well, I turned down Cornell for Columbia so let me add some perspective. I will first confirm that SEAS is counted in the USnews rankings for Columbia. In terms of size Cornell is a lot bigger school in general, and within the Engineering school itself. </p>
<p>Pros of a bigger school: More money for more facilities.</p>
<p>Cons: More competition within the student body.
Larger class sizes, and larger amounts of people in Majors. </p>
<p>Cornell is known to have bigger grade deflation than Columbia. </p>
<p>Cornell's Coop, at least when I looked at it, seemed to not leave one with a whole lot of flexibility. </p>
<p>Columbia's core for SEAS is basically a bunch of science math classes you would be taking already, an Engineering class, a writing class, either a English or social studies class and either an art or music class. So that's pretty much it, not really that big of a deal. The admissions office makes it out to be a bigger deal than it is. </p>
<p>In terms of jobs, both schools are so good it doesn't really matter. It is true that about a third go into finance or something like that, but that just means of a 300 or so graduating class only less than 200 are going to be competing for engineering jobs (which is already a bloated figure because many choose to do something else, like go on to grad school or something). Basically, you are going to get a job at Columbia, so that shouldn't be a concern. </p>
<p>I figured Columbia would be a more enjoyable experience than Cornell on the whole, so if the ends are the same, I'd take the better means.</p>
<p>I would respectfully just reiterate OP should investigate the actual facts per my post #5 above, rather than just accepting assertions.</p>
<p>Engineering is a broad field, encompassing many different sub-areas. </p>
<p>Items such as:</p>
<p>-Availability of upper-level electives in a broad range of sub-areas ;
-exposure to "real-world" engineering in time to inform upper-level course selection (e.g, via co-op);
-exposure to a wide breadth of the opportunities that are out there via broad corporate engineering recruiting at your school </p>
<p>All of these can literally dictate what kind of engineering specialty you will decide to, or can, pursue.</p>
<p>It is not an issue of whether you will be able to get a job at all. Rather it is an issue of how well-informed, armed, and exposed, you will be about what's out there in engineering that may appeal to you. So that you may best see, and optimize, your choices about the path you want to pursue subsequently.</p>
<p>If there in fact are material differences between the schools in these significant parameters they can in fact make a difference.</p>
<p>As a trivial example, a while ago I checked and the specific sub-area of engineering I in fact practiced was completely unavailable at two small programs that were being discussed. Would I have been able to get an engineering job if I graduated from one of these schools? I would imagine so. In the particular sub-area that, given its availability, I actually chose above all others? No.</p>
<p>The company I actually worked for recruited at a good number of major engineering schools, but not at lots of smaller or lesser reputed programs. Would I have gotten a job someplace if I'd gone to some other program? I would imagine so. Would it have been at the same company that, given the choice, I actually selected? Unlikely.</p>