<p>Cornell is known to be a tough school to stay in, but nonetheless one of the greatest in the nation. From your experience (Current Cornellians), how do Cornell (and I'm sure many universities) administer tests and graded assignments? For example, in high school, math tests are more or less regurgitations of classwork, examples, and homework. Is this the same for Cornell? Or is there some sort of tricky outside-of-the-box thinking going on? History tends to be more of memorization and grasping of certain ideas, so listening in class and keeping up with the readings tends to work in HS. Literature and language in high school has mainly been vocab memorizing, reading books, and writing essays that I doubt my teachers even read. And lastly, science is usually the most intense, because there are usually very unique situations in which a reaction or problem occurs (like in chemistry and physics).</p>
<p>I know I've thrown mini questions in there, but my question is: Does Cornell function in a similar way? How does high school and college compare in those terms?</p>
<p>Depends on the professor. Some professors put questions on their prelims on topics that they didn't really emphasize or even talk about. Others stick very very closely to their lectures. One thing is for sure: you learn a lot more material in a shorter period of time than in HS.</p>
<p>Cornell Tests expect you to know things at a high level. I know in HS you could just barely understand the new math concept and pull a B or B-. at cornell, in math for example, you have to know your stuff well. It could be a really basic concept like limits, and you could die on the test just because you haven't practiced with limits a lot (recently), even if you already took AP calc in HS.</p>
<p>it's not so much weeding out as frank indicators of your success. If you're in the top third of a hard field early on at cornell, you'll do well there for a career. If you consistantly suck in the classes, it's a good idea to study something else.</p>
<p>Remember that EP is not harder overall than English or Chem, just different--and therefore harder for some people. The "weeding" sort of makes the best graduate from each major, and helps everyone find his best major. And if you're driven hard enough to succeed, you can succeed in any field you have aptitude in.</p>
<p>sparticus800, do you happen to know which major(s) is/are the most popular at the CAS?</p>
<p>Also, I plan to go into chemistry, and I work hard in my classes at high school, but quite frankly, not all of my classes (at least this year) are all that challenging, even though they are considered to be AP. Only 2 classes of mine give homework every night (Physics and Calc), while my English class is assigned homework when we must read a book at home or have vocabulary exercises to do. History (American Studies) is pretty much up to us to make sure we're keeping up with the reading, so that tends to be the most flexible class in that respect (though we still have essays, tests, etc. once every few weeks.) Spanish is mostly just studying, because we have major quizzes each week, but we cover the material in class so well that additional studying is not necessarily required.</p>
<p>As you can see, none of my classes are not impossible. The way I see it is, if I do the work well, then I should be OK, but I'm afraid college won't be the same. How has your study habits and experiences changed? Any insight would be fantastic!</p>