Ask away, no “chance me” questions please.
are the people uptight / intense?
Depends on which school, I would say generally yes. Cornellians, myself included, have a lot to prove and we work hard to do so.
I took 3 SATs. Since Cornell requires all scores to be sent, I will send those 3 official scores in through collegeboard. However, on the Common App, I will only have my highest score reported. Is that okay? Will Cornell admission officers see this as a bad thing? I am doing this because the other Ivies I’m applying to allow score choice. Therefore, I don’t want to self-report all of my scores on the common application.
Also, what’s the difference between majoring in biology at CALS and CAS? What’s the environment like in each college? Which is more competitive/harder to get into? Students from which college tend to pursue more extracurricular activities? Thanks!
@LazyRay The Cornell admissions board will not attribute much weight to haven taken the SAT 3 times. They will look at your highest score to determine in their deliberations of what your academic propensity for success is. I wouldn’t worry about only having your highest score on the common app at all. In terms of biology at CALS v CAS, the differences I can speak to is the difference in college requirement. The Cornell College of Arts and Sciences has a very strict set of distributional requirements that forces you to interact with a wide array of academic disciplines. It is my understanding the CALS school has a curriculum more focused on agriculture and life sciences and is less concerned with the breadth of your education. In terms of reputation, people tend to bash on Human Ecology, CALS, and ILR for being the state funded schools but all truly are a part of the Cornell community. I would go on the respective schools website and see what their curriculums and majors require.
How “cold” is the community of students there in terms of social personalities (kinda like me lmao)
Adding onto the topic, how ignorant are people there in terms of “trying to outdo others without compassion”.
I’m sure people there aren’t like that, but just would like to know if there are indeed such individuals.
@Bohseon At Cornell you will find a diverse selection of student personalities with a majority of people being fairly sociable. That being said, there definitely are cold people in terms of social personalities. Cornell is a highly competitive school, arguably more so than its peer institutions and people will do what they need to do to succeed, including not sharing notes, etc. It isn’t the norm but it does happen. I wouldn’t limit this analysis to Cornell though; any similarly prestigious institution is going to have these types of personalities because it is these types of personalities that get you in in the first place.
Cornell is no different than its peer schools when it comes to rigor and expectation of its students. It is not necessary competitiveness of those students (personalities) that got them into the school, it is probably their work ethics that got them in.
Cornell is a work hard and play hard school. Students would work very hard during the week and blow off some steams on weekends. I’ve had 2 kids and 2 nephews who went through Cornell. They were all involved with the Greek life and had jobs/ECs. At the same time, they partied quite a bit and made many good friends. My older daughter is out of college 5+ years now and she still sees her college friends regularly.
Cornell has a very diverse student body because of the size and number of colleges. Most students make friends outside of their school, so they do not try to outdo each other when they socialize. I know when my kids were interviewing and had to miss some classes, other students were happy to share their class notes and she also did the same for them.
It’s hard to accurately generalize about characteristics that are really validly applicable to 13,000 students, studying in all those different fields/colleges, coming from different backgrounds, etc.
At some point it becomes almost like saying , “I’m going to Virginia, what are people in Virginia like??”
I know my D2 was there, and is not “intense/uptight” at all. Nor did she feel she “had a lot to prove”.Though she was nevertheless a serious student and did quite well there- academically, extracurricularly and socially.
There are a lot of myths out there, some of which current students are keen to accept to make themselves feel better about themselves. D2 transferred into there, from a decent school, and her prior school was not any less academically competitive, according to her.
In any pool of 13,000 students one can expect that some people there will behave in a selfish manner and others will be inclusive/collaborative. Depending on their individual natures, which are not explicitly selected for.
I attended there myself. The number of different “types” of people I encountered there was mind-boggling. The number of fellow students I really knew well enough to generalize about was not a highly statistically-significant sample of the entire student body. And it was highly influenced by who happened to be on my freshman dorm floor, and the people in my college/major who I interacted with the most. Maybe a pre-med biology major might answer the question very differently than an Art major in the architecture college. etc. Or maybe not. I really don’t know. And I went there.
I’m a freshman in high school and I am planning on applying to Cornell. I am currently in all honors classes with straight A’s. I received 98 percentile on the PSAT 8/9 without preparation and I am already taking a Kaplan SAT class now. I plan to be in band (marching band, concert band, wind ensemble) and take a few clubs all 4 years along with volunteering at a hospital. For my next few years of high school, how else should I prepare to increase my chances of getting in?
@awesomedrummer28 I would take it easy and try to explore your academic and extra curricular interests. Now, more than ever, the college admissions process is truly a game of chance. Make sure you have stats on par with the student body but beyond that, the most valuable think you can do is prove that you are a unique person with defined passions and values.
My D is very anxious about the possibility of attending Cornell. We visited the school last year and met with a student from our area. He was very stressed out. My D is a very hard working kid who I think would do well anywhere she goes, but the idea of cutthroat peers who sabotage each other is really repugnant to her. We have visited other top tier schools that did not give her that vibe. We really want her attend Cornell (if she gets in of course) but we don’t want to pressure her into a place where she will be miserable. If she gets in, we will plan another visit, but we are struggling with how to properly guide her to a school we think she should attend without pushing her into a place where she will be unhappy. I guess what I’m asking, is Cornell the type of place where a student can find happiness and fulfillment in such a highly competitive environment?
@quadaces : Cornell is a great school. But any school is not for everyone. More than half of undergraduates sought mental health care from Yale during their time there (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/26/nyregion/at-yale-class-on-happiness-draws-huge-crowd-laurie-santos.html). The Daily Princetonian article also quoted someone saying “this place is a freaking pressure cooker”. (school has removed the article… see http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/1497933/the-daily-princetonian-survey-finds-almost-half-of-students-report-feeling-depressed/) But at least they did not jump (https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/02/education/edlife/stress-social-media-and-suicide-on-campus.html). If you are concerned your DD might not be a good fit for Cornell, don’t force it. No one can answer your question of " is Cornell the type of place where a student can find happiness and fulfillment in such a highly competitive environment? ". I am sure a lot of people can do that but not everyone can do that. It all depends on the individuals.
My goal is to get a JD/MBA at a t14 school. I am just a high school senior at the moment and was wondering about that process
- Is the school I go to important for that path? I am getting a good offer financially from one school that isn't too well know (utd) but could do a program that would allow me you graduate from a better know school (cap at UT Austin). Would an undergrad degree from UT Austin make it more likely for me to get into a jd/mba program? (I know for law school it usually doesn't matter but not sure about mba part)
- Did you take lsat and gmat? I know that some business and law schools are now accepting gre instead of lsat/gmat so would you recommend gre prep and trying to get a great score on that instead of studying for both lsat and gmat? (I'm planning on taking all 3 in case I do really great on one of them for scholarships/If I don't do great on the other)
- Yes, going to a good undergrad school matters and will only help you, not hurt you, for anything in life, including your grad school admissions outlook. The way MBA admissions works is that they look at your whole package: undergrad, gpa, GMAT, work experience (name of company, job function, promotion history, etc). To get that good first job out of college, having gone to a strong school that places well into the careers of your interest will be beneficial.
Or, assuming you get a pretty sweet job out of college, you may not even need / want to grad school at all.
- Yeah, took both lsat and gmat. Initially I just went for law school, but later got interested business topics / careers, so I went for the JD/ MBA. At many top schools, if you get into a top law school, getting into the MBA program is very easy compared to regular MBA admssions. (ex: Penn law student getting into Wharton, etc.)
I would spend your college years doing internships and finding what type of person you are, and what type of career you’d enjoy. And then make an informed decision as to do MBA or JD, or both. If you want to do just business related career (finance, consulting, etc) an MBA would suffice. No need for JD / MBA.
Is there much social life freshman and sophomore year besides squeezing yourself into crowded drunken fraternity parties?
How is the weather in winter, is it really cold and depressing?
@jewishkidaz : Thank you for this thread. You write well.
I would like to ask a question about you in hope of understanding your perception of Cornell University.
To which colleges & universities did you apply ? To which were you admitted ? Why did you select Cornell over the other colleges & universities to which you were admitted ?
Thank you in advance for your response.
How bad is a 1450 on the SAT for getting into CS at CoE?