Cutthroats at Cornell?

Colleges & Universities A-Z Cornell University
1

<p>I am head-over-heels, tripping-over-myself smitten with Cornell (CALS, in particular). If Cornell was a woman, I would go gay for her. However, my mother (a veterinarian who visits the Veterinary Medicine post-grad school often for conferences and the like) insists that the atmosphere is extremely dog-eat-dog, and that it's not unusual for students to sabotage one another in order to get ahead.</p>

<p>Is there any truth to that? I know that every Ivy League comes with competitiveness, but is it noticeably worse at Cornell? (not that that would stop me from applying, but I'd like to hear from current students)</p>

2

<p>Cornell isn’t cut-throat competitive, do a search on this board and you will find many threads on the topic</p>

3

<p>my interviewer told me it’s the most competitive of the ivies. however, he also said that such competition is not such a bad thing. coming out of cornell, so he says, you will dominate the job market and graduate school because you are better than others at competition and getting things done</p>

4

<p>yeah, because the other ivies have a reputation as “tough” and “competitive”</p>

5

<p>it’s not cut throat. more like cut wrists, since you’ll want to kill yourself instead of doing so much work ;)</p>

6

<p>it’s generally competitive in a healthy sense..in that everyone wants to do the best work. people do support each other though</p>

7

<p>I agree, everybody is putting forth a strong effort (unlike my high school). In addition, people tend to confuse challenging with competitive.</p>

8

<p>I don’t know where people get this notion that Cornell’s cut-throat. I have not seen any sabotaging. The cut-throat are a very small minority. ^^Cut-wrist definitely reflects the general atmosphere more accurately : P</p>

9

<p>If intense competition exists at Cornell, it would most likely be present in only a few specific schools or programs as opposed to being university wide.</p>

10

<p>not even that, more like just a few specific people</p>

11

<p>The only time Cornell gets cutthroat is when you try to find a seat in the cocktail lounge around the time of orgo/gen bio/gen chem prelims</p>

12

<p>Here’s what Michael Crichton said about premed at Harvard</p>

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13

<p>i always heard that Cornell is collaboratively competitive, from a few people.</p>

14

<p>What about the bio department? Even there, is it collaboratively competitive? With all those pre-meds?</p>

15

<p>can an engineering student comment on the cut-throat nature of the school. i was hoping to be done with the competing and starting the collaboration part of my life.</p>

16

<p>I’m a freshman engineer and it’s not cut-throat. Of course it’s competitive, but we work hard, we don’t sabotage people.</p>

17

<p>^That is good to hear. Points for Cornell..lol</p>

18

<p>Yeah, the engineers I know always seem to work together on problem sets. The work can be difficult, but it seems like engineers work together to get everything done. I don’t know of any engineers sabotaging each other.</p>

19

<p>Yeah, good point^ </p>

<p>I have a problem set buddy for each of my classes, and engineers generally do homeworks together : )</p>

20

<p>thank you…that makes me feel a lot better!</p>