<p>HR266 is no longer being offered for a letter grade starting this spring ;) </p>
<p>the PHd statistic is interesting...but what i meant is that the majority of students are interested in the best job/internship they can get...</p>
<p>not sure if it's family pressure or cornell pressure...</p>
<p>... or the best grad school.</p>
<p>It's socio-economic background pressure. Cornell students are more likely to be middle class vis-a-vis their peers at other schools, so they feel as if there is more riding on doing well. Of course, it doesn't help that Cornell's noted for being strenuous in the sciences.</p>
<p>"Right. That's why Cornell has one of the highest percentage of students going on for PhDs in the country, and higher than Columbia, Brown, and Dartmouth."</p>
<p>Where is the statistic coming from? Just curious</p>
<p>The Survey of Earned Doctorates</p>
<p>Survey</a> of Doctorate Recipients</p>
<p>webcaspar.nsf.gov</a> – WebCASPAR|Home – US National Science Foundation (NSF)</p>
<p>Here are the percentages for the Ivy League taken from 1996 to 2006:</p>
<pre><code> STEM Life Sciences Social Sciences Humanities Other Total
</code></pre>
<p>University of Pennsylvania 1.4% 1.5% 1.8% 1.1% 0.9% 6.7%
Columbia University 1.7% 1.2% 1.9% 2.5% 0.6% 7.8%
Dartmouth College 1.9% 1.7% 2.2% 1.9% 0.7% 8.4%
Cornell University, 2.7% 2.9% 1.8% 0.8% 0.8% 9.0%
Brown University 2.2% 2.2% 2.9% 2.4% 1.0% 10.7%
Princeton University 4.3% 2.5% 2.4% 3.0% 0.6% 12.9%
Yale University 2.4% 2.6% 3.3% 5.0% 0.8% 14.0%
Harvard University 3.7% 3.4% 3.8% 3.7% 1.1% 15.7%</p>
<p>The Survey of Earned Doctorates</p>
<p>Survey</a> of Doctorate Recipients</p>
<p>webcaspar.nsf.gov</a> – WebCASPAR|Home – US National Science Foundation (NSF)</p>
<p>Here are the percentages for the Ivy League taken from 1996 to 2006:</p>
<pre><code> STEM Life Sciences Social Sciences Humanities Other Total
</code></pre>
<p>University of Pennsylvania 1.4% 1.5% 1.8% 1.1% 0.9% 6.7%
Columbia University 1.7% 1.2% 1.9% 2.5% 0.6% 7.8%
Dartmouth College 1.9% 1.7% 2.2% 1.9% 0.7% 8.4%
Cornell University, 2.7% 2.9% 1.8% 0.8% 0.8% 9.0%
Brown University 2.2% 2.2% 2.9% 2.4% 1.0% 10.7%
Princeton University 4.3% 2.5% 2.4% 3.0% 0.6% 12.9%
Yale University 2.4% 2.6% 3.3% 5.0% 0.8% 14.0%
Harvard University 3.7% 3.4% 3.8% 3.7% 1.1% 15.7%</p>
<p>
[quote]
I just don't get this. What's wrong with pre-professional and vocational majors like Engineering, Business and Nursing? Not everyone plans to get a Ph.d and become a professor. And if you're a NYS resident interested in Econ, AEM might just be a better way to go than CAS, because it costs less, and you can still get the same education (taking classes in CALS and CAS). It's pretty rude of you to say that people in those majors don't learn how to think, merely learn a trade.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Who said that econ or bio leads to academia? </p>
<p>What the professional fields (medicine, law, and business) are looking for are people who know how to solve problems, not trained monkeys. They'll train you on the job. That's why business, med, and law schools don't require any specific major. Knowledge is not important to them. In fact, the group that has by far the lowest acceptance rate (lower than bio, humanties, physics, whatever major) to med school are the health science majors (nursing, kinesiology, etc.). They also do by far the worst on the MCAT, a largely critical thinking based test. They'll teach you how to be a doctor in med school. They'll teach you how to be a lawyer in law school. They'll teach you business at your IB job and in business school. </p>
<p>I'm not anti-pre-professional. I'm in med school for godsakes. That's $70,000 a year for trade school. My point is that, in my opinion, for college an academic pursuit is more worthwhile because you will use those skills the rest of your life (and you have the rest of your life to engage in a professional pursuit).</p>
<p>Cayuga, I believe those are doctorates given. I thought the statistic is that more Cornell undergrads go on to earn Ph.D.s than any other undergraduate institution.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Cayuga, I believe those are doctorates given.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Nah. Trust me on this. The statistics I reported show the percentage of students who go on to earn a PhD by location of undergraduate degree. </p>
<p>
[quote]
I thought the statistic is that more Cornell undergrads go on to earn Ph.D.s than any other undergraduate institution.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Berkeley beats Cornell out. I think that statistic holds when you only limit yourself to the life sciences.</p>
<p>But here of all individuals who earned a PhD in 2006, here are the top twenty undergraduate institutions of those individuals:</p>
<p>University of California−Berkeley 427
Cornell University, All Campuses 309
University of Michigan at Ann Arbor 272
University of Texas at Austin 267
Brigham Young University, Main Campus 259
University of California−Los Angeles 248
University of Florida 243
University of Illinois at Urbana−Champaign 243
Harvard University 241
University of Wisconsin−Madison 241
Pennsylvania State U, Main Campus 236
Massachusetts Institute of Technology 197
Rutgers the State Univ of NJ New Brunswick 190
Ohio State University, Main Campus 182
University of Virginia, Main Campus 180
University of California−Davis 177
Texas A&M University Main Campus 175
University of Minnesota − Twin Cities 169
University of Maryland at College Park 167
Stanford University 166</p>
<p>Norcal guy, i'm not saying you're anti-preprofessional, but you did ask why someone would want to spend $50,000 getting vocational training instead of getting "an actual education that teaches you how to think". I don't get it - you can't get an actual education that teaches you how to think in AEM? they're merely trained monkeys? Not everyone plans on grad school, some people plan to go directly into the workforce after graduating. I'm honestly just curious why you think this, cause I'm an applicant. </p>
<p>I'm an Econ major in college who might end up in Law school, but now that I'm applying to Cornell, I'm considering AEM. Why not? I can still study Econ, take classes in CALS and CAS, and as an in-stater, AEM could save me from taking out loans to finance my education.</p>
<p>"Norcal guy, i'm not saying you're anti-preprofessional, but you did ask why someone would want to spend $50,000 getting vocational training instead of getting "an actual education that teaches you how to think". I don't get it - you can't get an actual education that teaches you how to think in AEM? they're merely trained monkeys? Not everyone plans on grad school, some people plan to go directly into the workforce after graduating. I'm honestly just curious why you think this, cause I'm an applicant.</p>
<p>I'm an Econ major in college who might end up in Law school, but now that I'm applying to Cornell, I'm considering AEM. Why not? I can still study Econ, take classes in CALS and CAS, and as an in-stater, AEM could save me from taking out loans to finance my education."</p>
<p>AEM is definitely the right way to go for you. There's a lot of AEM bashing on these threads because AEM is widely known as the easiest major at Cornell, but econ is probably almost as easy. And I don't think either major is so rigorous that you'll be "taught to think."</p>
<p>thanks for the advice...aem is def an option i'm considering. do you happen to be an engineering major, btw?</p>
<p>i'm an engineering major, aem minor</p>
<p>I do feel like I've learned useful things in my AEM classes, most notably accounting and finance, AEM 221 and AEM 324 respectively. People at Cornell may look down upon AEM because of its easiness, but I can assure you that employers won't.</p>
<p>hah yeah I can tell...the people who find econ super-easy are generally math/engineering majors. in my college, most people in CAS major in humanities and struggle through basic econ classes...lol :D and our business school is considered the difficult, elite school on campus, but AEM seems to be a joke at Cornell. I'd personally rather do Econ than Business, but hey, less debt means more money for Law school...</p>
<p>i'm an AEM major and here's a heads up on the actual curriculum. if you want to do anything with your life that DOESN'T involve wall street, banks, M&As, stuff like that, you'll be in the gross minority. if at least one of your specializations ISN'T finance, marketing, or management, you'll get people who look at you and go... "huh, why!?" but then again, it's like that at most business schools too.</p>
<p>sometimes i get really disappointed in my classmates/peers because, from class discussions, all they care about are big businesses and achieving their goal of having a six-figure income.</p>
<p>
[quote]
sometimes i get really disappointed in my classmates/peers because, from class discussions, all they care about are big businesses and achieving their goal of having a six-figure income.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Well, frankly, what did you expect? You are in AEM. The funny thing is that when I hire people, I could care less what major they were, as long as they have the skillset I am looking for. I can teach them how to read a balance sheet in a matter of a couple of hours -- but you can't teach good, strong analytical thinking like a place like Cornell can.</p>
<p>I have one good friend who was in AEM as an applied economics major interested in going on for a PhD. (He's now at a top five econ PhD.) He liked to draw and took a lot of courses in drawing, so he just told people he was a fine art major.</p>
<p>ahah yeah whenever i tell people my major, i leave out AEM and just tell people that i'm an international trade & development major and that i'm going into the peace corps post-graduation.</p>
<p>Makes sense. Honestly, I wish more kids in AEM were interested in that line of topics. It's really what the department is all about. And somehow I suspect that you will end up much more successful than all of those gunners as well.</p>
<p>cc102, that's what turns me off about a business major. nice to know not everyone in AEM only cares about $$$...of course I understand students who go into debt trying to afford an expensive education need to pay it back somehow. Are pre-law students a minority in AEM?</p>
<p>In my college, I picked econ over business and public policy, but I feel compelled to choose pam or aem over econ at cornell just cause I can study econ with those majors for less at a contract school and won't need loans...don't wanna make the decision over tuition costs though.</p>
<p>i don't think there's a problem with wanting to get a decent job to pay off college loans. there is, however, a problem, in my eyes, at least, when you want to get a job where you get paid six-figures for sitting in an air-conditioned skyscraper and doing "work" when the average median income in the US is around $45,000 and there are people who bust their as$es earning minimum wage, only to find that they can't even pay for health insurance for their kids. (i also have a problem with paying $30,000/yr for college, but that's a whole different story) and, on top of that, you think that you DESERVE that six-figure income any more than the single mother who's working 3 jobs just to put food on the table. sorry, i've had so many "discussions" with people in AEM where i end up leaving disgusted at the mindsets of my peers. </p>
<p>there are many people who are pre-law in AEM. from my experience, most who are pre-law and have an interest in economics tend to go for ILR (which is also a contract college).</p>
<p>yeah, some business majors are like that here, too - worse, Stern is the "elite" school at NYU, and they're so full of themselves...some have asked me if I chose econ cause I was too dumb for Stern :rolleyes:</p>
<p>I'm just so confused about what Cornell school to apply to. I like Econ, PAM, AEM, and ILR. I recently picked my major and have a very vague idea of what I want...i mean, my college has Public policy and Business, but I picked Econ cause I prefer it, but I feel compelled to apply for pam/aem just to save money. I think I've ruled out ILR though, cause it's not as Econ-related, and I'm not that interested in HR/labor relations. I know it's very flexible and allow for econ classes, but i'm just not interested in taking classes about the history of American labor and such...lotsa thinking to do.</p>