<p>Okay... I know that I shouldn't rely on rankings and random quotes from past students, but from what I hear, Cornell's courseload is one of the toughest out there. Will someone who goes to Cornell or already attended Cornell elaborate on this? </p>
<p>Exactly how many hours do you spend on an average school day studying? </p>
<p>How many times a month do you spend all-nighters? </p>
<p>What do you do on weekends? </p>
<p>I plan to major in biology, and all the reviews I hear from past students are making me reconsider ED to Cornell (I want at least some type of social life). Also, if one works hard, will one be able to get a decent GPA (like a 2.9-3.2) or is everyone there so super-genii that my best will not be good enough? Please respond.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Not too many (it doesn't feel rediculous) It depends more on the number of classes the following day so a better question would be hours per lecture or hours per class meeting.</p></li>
<li><p>None yet, and all-nighters are usually a product of procrastination, anyway. Stay on top of your work and you should only have them rarely.</p></li>
<li><p>Party and sleep until midday sunday.</p></li>
<li><p>The median is curved to a B/B- usually, so a B is not hard for a good student to get. It's the As in the highly competitive (read: not necessarily cutthroat--I said COMPETITIVE) courses that are elusive.</p></li>
</ol>
<ol>
<li><p>It varies, I usually take it easy until the night before something is due :)...bad idea, but I'll never learn.</p></li>
<li><p>The only all-nighters I've pulled were due to continuous partying with some of my friends into the AM. I can't function on no sleep. I've been up until 4 a few nights, but that's because I chose to learn a subject the night/morning before a prelim. </p></li>
<li><p>Same as sparticus.</p></li>
<li><p>You won't have trouble getting over 3.2 if you put in a decent amount of effort and do all your work. I'm a bio major, it's not awful and I still have ample time for a social life. I'm sure your best won't always be good enough, but that's life.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>I'm a bio major and can probably address the exagerrations you've been hearing.</p>
<p>"Exactly how many hours do you spend on an average school day studying?"</p>
<p>Probably around 5 hours a night. </p>
<p>"How many times a month do you spend all-nighters?"
LMAO I've pulled 0 all-nighters since coming to Cornell two years ago. I did come close once. </p>
<p>"What do you do on weekends?"
Occasional party (I'm not a big party person), hanging out with the gf, watching movies, SLEEPING </p>
<p>"if one works hard, will one be able to get a decent GPA (like a 2.9-3.2) or is everyone there so super-genii that my best will not be good enough?"</p>
<p>I wouldn't call a 3.0 a decent GPA. It's average. 3.0 is pretty easy to attain as are B's at Cornell. It's getting A's that's the problem.</p>
<p>Hours a day studying:
Sunday: 5-6 hours, depending on how much I want to get done
Monday Through Wednesday: 4 hours is about average
Thursday: Depending on how much I have accomplished between Sunday and Wednesday, it could be as little as 1-2 hours to finish up some Chem, or as much as 4 hours to finish up a lot of Chem.</p>
<p>All nighters:
I have done none, and am not planning on it, as long as you do some work every day and do not procrastinate there is no need for them.</p>
<p>Weekends:
Friday afternoon to Sunday early afternoon: Hang out with friends, movies, video games, maybe go out somewhere, various no work and relaxing activities.</p>
<p>GPA:
I would say as long as you study for your tests you should be able to get the mean on every one, which depending on the class would be a B- or B, so if you study and do homework it should be "easy" to get at least a 2.7 (B-) gpa.</p>
<p>I have a friend who went to cornell undergrad (for OR & CS) and has been here since 1997, and he said that there were plenty of his friends that transferred to M.I.T. and the undergrad courses there, they claim, were considerably easier than Cornell, they were really surprised. Caltech on the other is just as difficult. </p>
<p>Lastly, I remember one of my chem grad TAs say that Stanford's gen chem or something chemistry was taught by a Cornell grad who modeled the class after his class at cornell, and most stanford students complain that it is one of the hardest classes at stanford. is this true? i dunno, I haven't check it up yet, so i'll take that with a grain of salt.</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Look at courseload this way: You need about 128 credits to graduate. That's 16 credits per semester which works out to about 4 classes. Sometimes you'll take more, but if you have 4 classes the first couple of semesters you are doing fine.</p></li>
<li><p>How many hours per day you need to study depends on you and your program. Engineers and pre-meds typically study more. Hotelies or history majors typically study less; but those are all generalizations. Someone who's really into history might spend alot of time in the library because he/she likes it - not because it's required work.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Engineers or bio/science/math majors also have more "real work" than humanities students. "Real work" means deliverables, like homework problems. For freshman math/science expect 1-2 hours per day to take out the homework (per class). Then there is reading - another hour per day to keep up. Remember your four classes are staggered, so you probably only need to keep up with 2 classes on any given day. So I'd assume 2-4 hours per class per week will TYPICALLY keep you up to date.</p>
<ul>
<li><p>All nighters: Never did one as an undergrad. Technically never did one as a grad, but I came close (hey the sun wasn't up). It's not typical to stay up late, but you can look at the calander and identify weeks that will be trouble (prelims and projects all due the same week - it always happens). These weeks are bad, and there's nothing you can do. Expect to stay up until around midnight - 2AM on some weeks toward the end of the semester. Humanities people have it much easier if they budget their time well.</p></li>
<li><p>Weekends: There's always a party somewhere. Freshman tend to congregate at frats because that's where the action logically is. Upperclassment live in Collegetown, so they might go to a resturant and then a bar later. Sometimes it seems like there are only two classes of people: drunks and people that study way too much. You just need to find the normal people. They do exist.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>The other side of weekends is you will spend alot of time studying. Maybe 10% of weekends are relativly work free, 70% have a fair amount of work, and for 20% there is alot to do.</p>
<ul>
<li>Usually it's not hard to get a B in a large class, but it depends on the curve. Departments like math or physics are terrible with curves, and a B+ is actually a good grade. Anything above an A- is tough because you need to nail every assignment and test to get it (about a std. dev above the mean).</li>
</ul>
<p>Don't worry about it too much. You don't need an A or A- in everything. If you are bio and going to med school a 3.4 and a good MCAT will give you a good shot. Anything under 3.2 is pushing it for med school admissions.</p>
<p>Would you say Cornell is significantly more difficult than other schools in comparison to (1) the Ivies and (2) University of California Berkeley or Los Angeles? What I've been hearing from my counselor and advisors is that I don't have to go to such a difficult school like Cornell in order to get into a good medical school. </p>
<p>So I guess what my question comes down to is: Is the difference of difficulty worth the benefits from a Cornell education (such as connections/more opportunities for graduate school/good times in general)? Please respond. Thanks.</p>
<p>I don't mean to preach but it seems more like your question should be more along the lines of "is the cornell experience should I hypothetically like the school more than the others worth this rumored extra work?"</p>
<p>I don't think cornell cuts you short on good times at all; I party here much more and much better than in HS. I don't think cornell would give you particularly more or less hookups than any other ivy. go to the school you like best. you WILL be able to handle the workload if you can get in.</p>
<p>I understand that this is tough for someone like you because you have limited information to make a decision.</p>
<p>1) Unless your guidance counselor rescently graduated from Cornell/Berkley/UCLA anything they tell you about relative difficulty is heresay; that is, they are just repeating generaizations based on anecdotal evidence of "difficulty."</p>
<p>Cornell will be competitive becuase there are alot of other smart people in your class. You will work very hard in pre-med. It's also true that the university in general holds you to a higher standard than many other universities. You will probably have a lower GPA at Cornell than at a school with fewer smart students. Cal and UCLA are also good schools, and I won't speculate on where you will have the highest GPA.</p>
<p>2) Graduate school admissions people are smart. They understand that Cornell has alot of bright students. A 3.4 at Cornell gives you a good shot at med school, and you might need a 3.7 from Bob Jones University to compete with that 3.4 from Cornell.</p>
<p>Just visit all the schools and pick the one that appeals to you most. If people didn't have fun at Cornell nobody would go there.</p>