<p>Can somebody explain how the school system (arts and sciences, engineering, hotel...) at Cornell works. Are they fairly independent? Can I transfer from one to the other at will?</p>
<p>Kind of difficult to explain.</p>
<p>They are separate in that they each award their own degrees, set their own graduation requirements, and are essentially separate colleges.</p>
<p>They are unified in the sense that you can take classes at any of the colleges, and all are unified nicely into the university.</p>
<p>I would not say that you can transfer from one to the other at will. Yes, it is very easy to transfer, and as long as your grades are good, and you prove that the new college would be better for your long term goals, they will let you switch. Cornell is pretty good about letting people change schools within the university.</p>
<p>Cornell University is like a community of 7 different undergraduate colleges/schools (and a few graduate colleges) all on the same campus. The colleges interact seamlessly, cross-list and cross-enroll courses, and all share the same facilities. There are specialized colleges like hotel, architecture, engineering, and more general colleges like CALS or CAS, which is Cornell's liberal arts college.</p>
<p>Each college has different requirements to graduate, but they are all affiliated under cornell university, and you would not know the difference between an engineer and hotelie other than by looking at their schedules. They live in the same dorms, eat in the same dining halls, have the same friends, etc.</p>
<p>The schools are independent in terms of awarding majors but very linked in terms of any student being able to enroll in any course at any college within the university.</p>
<p>Transferring requires an application, but your chances of a successful transfer are in most cases extremely high. If you're academically qualified for one college, you're academically qualified for any college in terms of internal transfers. Only if you lack specialized skills (outgoing personality for hotel, drawing ability for architecture, math ability for engineering, etc., will you have difficulty transferring.</p>
<p>it should be noted that students in some schools (for my example, ilr) have required courses that they need to graduate that are only offered in arts and sciences. </p>
<p>the campus is amazingly unified.</p>
<p>What different types of interdisciplinary programs does Cornell have? I understand they also extend the privledge to top students in the CAS for them to pick their own courses to create a unique major that is not offered to everyone. Can someone explain what Cornell has to offer in this respect? I tried searching the website and the informational booklet, but they seem to be vague (or I'm bad at looking for information)!</p>
<p>BEE between CALS and Engineering is one example of an interdisciplinary program. Another is that any student in CAS can double or triple major without any special permission.</p>
<p>I believe the program you are looking for is called College</a> Scholar.</p>