So Emory is definitely one of my top choice schools, although I have some concerns about the social life there (I already know the academics are amazing).
How rigorous is the workload (specifically for a business major) and does this leave time for partying, going to bars/clubs with friends, etc.? Also, can you describe in further detail the party/bar/club scene at Emory?
Do Emory students ever go to Georgia Tech football games? Coming from a northeast high school where football was HUGE, I always had so much fun watching the games and marching bands with my friends. I know Emory doesn’t have a football team, so I was wondering if attending GA Tech football games is a “thing.” Also, how is the school spirit at Emory?
I am a huge adventure seeker and the Atlanta weather seems perfect for an outdoor lover. Are there any fun adventure activities, like hiking, mountain biking, river tubing, white water rafting, etc. near Atlanta (or in the Georgia mountains)?
Thanks in advance for helping me answer those questions!
In regards to the workload, there is plenty of time for partying – especially for business students. I went out every weekend last semester and managed to get nearly all A’s. It can be a lot of work sometimes but I always had time for going out.
I don’t think many students go to the GT games, although you could certainly go with your friends. To be honest, school spirit is pretty non-existent here at Emory. If this is a big deal for you, I’d recommend looking somewhere else. That being said, it isn’t a huge problem for me. Students are more “spirited” about things they are involved in (greek life, clubs etc).
There is a club called Outdoor Emory that would be perfect for you. They do weekend outdoors trips all the time and is subsidized by the school (I think). Definitely check them out its a great organization.
Lastly, in my opinion Greek life is a pretty big deal at Emory if you like to “go out” in a traditional sense. So make sure you’re alright with that before coming here, if that the experience you’re looking for. I don’t mean this in a negative sense, I really like the Greeks here I’m just putting it out there.
I feel like Greeklife influence declines after sophomore year because house parties at places like C-mont become more popular. The first 2 years, definitely so.
Workload: Yes, it may be that way in the business school where many classes are based on quizzes and exams and maybe group projects (and at worst, like 1/3 of students are granted A’s), but in sciences with labs and/or difficult exams or social science courses with high reading and writing load (IE, lots of independent work), then it gets intense. B-school classes may sometimes be hard depending on the primary area depth I guess. The workload shouldn’t really be discussed because it pretty much varies from person to person and varies a lot by department. Some students may more often end up needing to spend a weekend in the library and forgo going out. But Emory is like most other elites. You can find pathways to coasting to accommodate whatever, though you would be wasting your money.
*Also, may I add that as a freshman, maybe shouldn’t comment on the b-school workload as even a GBS scholar would not have a representative class schedule that they would have if in the b-school. The workload for pre-business freshman and sophomores is indeed usually MUCH easier than when they are fully enrolled in it because most are simply just padding their transcripts and resumes until they are admitted, so you basically take your b-school pre-reqs (which you may have gotten AP credit in) such as econ (intro. econ at Emory is a joke…Business econ. is apparently harder, but still isn’t particularly challenging), calc (joke at Emory), fin. accounting (many won’t take till sophomore year and it honestly doesn’t look as hard as students claim it is) and DSci (may or may not be challenging depending on teacher) on top of what are usually the easiest GER courses possible. The actual b-school courses are typically a bit more stressful even if only because they make students take 5 courses/semester. Most of my pre-business friends pretty much coaster their first two years through Emory and then had to start working harder to do remotely as well. Many pulled it off, some not so much.
School pride is definitely not traditional D-1 type of pride. It’s more about events affiliated with clubs and various orgs.(especially multicultural ones) and what folks are doing (projects, intellectual endeavors) on their own time. It isn’t unified by a sports fervor so go elsewhere if you feel you’d be missing out without it.
Freshman here as well. I’m taking 19 credit hours this semester and while this is probably due to luck, I don’t feel as though my schedule takes up much time AT ALL. Seriously! I am pre business and I have heard that the business program is quite rigorous, however they don’t have classes on Friday, which leaves a lot of time for the weekend to get whatever you need to do done and to have whatever fun you’d like. In terms of going out frat houses generally throw down on the weekends, there are 18 plus club events that usually happen on Thursday. The list goes on. Druid Hills may be a very boring(yet beautiful) neighborhood, as long as you’re taking part in emory activities you’ll have a great time.
Why the heck is everybody here pre-business? lol. And no, it is not luck that your classes (despite 19 hours) don’t take up that much time (even business schools are known for low workloads at most colleges, but Emory’s is a bit above average as are the other top b-schools). The business school’s pre-reqs are not that challenging to accommodate and don’t involve many particularly rigorous courses (http://goizueta.emory.edu/degree/undergraduate/admissions/academic_requirements.html : I mean, a normal college student in other major would likely end up taking most of these classes for fun or as major requirements minus the ones hosted by the b-school. By time many ECAS people hit sophomore year, they may have already started important intermediate, advanced, or special topics courses in their field of interest while pre-nursing and pre-bus. students are still fullfilling pre-reqs and mixing it in with easy GER courses). T
The b-school doesn’t require students to challenge themselves (nor particularly encourages it. They define “rigor” by the amount of hours more so than the actual nature of the courses (they “think” they are enhancing rigor by encouraging a CWR in a humanities but they aren’t. Perhaps they should encourage calc. 2 and/or higher level math instead if they want a more prepared group of incoming students) and it shows as their entering GPA is like a mean of 3.6 (or higher), a bit higher than the average of an Emory student by then (end of sophomore year). Most students would have had to face more “bullets” by then course work wise. Again, not representative if outside of pre-business. But regardless, Emory’s workload in general for most students is not abnormally low or high for an elite school. Many classes that require more effort are moreso known for difficult exams more so than anything else (so you just have to study more frequently, as in not right before the exam…maybe like a week or 2). These classes don’t attempt to drown students in graded work so much as set the bar really high to let students know how deeply they should study and engage the material independently. I would say that for many majors or tracks, 19 hours could end up quite challenging, like if one was pre-health or was doing some major and QSS combo.
True, true. However the bus pre reqs have probably been my least favorite courses ie. bus stat, bus econ
I’m not a math person at all, I’m more of a presenter, salesmen type which is why I’d hope to do marketing and real estate or something of the like. Is it true that they make it seem way harder to get in than it actually is?
After reading some other reviews of Emory, it seems as if some of the students, particularly among the fraternities, can be “cliquey.” Is that true or just myth, and if true, is it hard to make friends if you’re not in a fraternity?
Also, if you are a current Emory student, can you describe what your typical weekend is like? I understand this will be different for everyone, but if you can provide some of your own experiences, that would be great!
I’m not at Emory yet, but I will be attending in the fall! In response to your question about GT games, although most students dont go to those, my friends at Emory say they do go to a lot of parties at Tech, so you could meet people at those and go to games. Also, it’d probably be easier to go to football games if you meet students who are from around the area. I only live about an hour south of Emory, so I have friends that are going to Tech, UGA, and Auburn that I’ll probably go visit at football games in the fall. I was kind of upset at first that Emory didn’t have a football atmosphere, but it’s kind of nice now, because I can go visit my friends at schools with huge football events (even if Emory had a team, the conference would be a smaller one and it wouldn’t feel like an SEC game), but I still get to go back to a smaller, more academic focused school when football is over which is what’s more important at the end of the day.
@Spongebob777 : They are frats and sororities…the whole purpose is to be cliquey and clingy (not intended to offend) and somewhat special/exclusive. Which school would be an exception. I feel without that element, they need not and would not exist. They are supposed to be a special network with a special culture. Also, it is a medium sized private school which would explain some cliquishness among non-Greeks. When some students are drawn from the same metro areas and perhaps the same schools, it is only natural. Non-Greek cliques aren’t particularly impenetrable though.
And a significant amount of people go out on weekends if they can…I mean you do what you want with it. Sampling CC isn’t useful. What you should know is that a significant amount of parties and “going out” also happens on Thursday.
And yes, the schools exchange parties. You’ll sometimes see AUC, Agnes Scott, and Tech folks at Emory and many students will also go to Tech to party. They aren’t that far away.
@Oliea98 I think the football school vibe is attractive (being from the south myself, let’s be honest, we grew up with it and the type of traditional school pride it brings. However, in HS, for the most part, I was focused on grades and eventually building an app. for college. If academics came easily I didn’t mind putting it in the background so long as I could make good grades because at my public HS, there wasn’t going to be much non-resume padding intellectual opps outside of class anyway. College is different and is an opportunity to seriously engage and explore while also doing other neat things that need not be the traditional “fun” associated with HS and college. You can basically redefine “fun” or create other traditions, which schools like Emory, kind of have done because of the lack of Division 1 sports. The traditions are perhaps even more quirky than other D-3 research universities) but ultimately over-rated if you are more academically and especially if you’re intellectually inclined. For this sort of person, a combination of strong Greek Scene plus a serious football vibe can damage the intellectual climate more than it would otherwise. Places like Duke don’t have that problem as bad because basketball is the main attraction which, in the south, is not anywhere near as intense as football fervor. But even the best ranked football and Greek oriented schools seem to have issues creating a solid intellectual climate. Emory could perhaps drum up more alumni support and applications if it had it, but it already does better than or as well as the other privates that do have it. Emory would also start attracting a completely different type of student which I don’t think would end up being a change for the better, even if those students had high scores or GPAs. The mindset would be much different and the atmosphere would be affected. Tech is another school kind of impervious, but that is because it is a STEM school so academics can’t just go to the background as easily
@bernie12 yeah, I totally agree. My family consists of all huge Auburn fans (most of my family went there) and I always grew up going to the games every weekend and imagining college like that, but as I got older, even though I still loved Auburn, I could kind of tell that it wasn’t my best “fit” and that that kind of atmosphere might seem tiring to me after a while. Not to mention, being in the city became increasingly more important to me, not only for the social scene but networking as well, and I think Atlanta is perfect for both of those aspects. Also- in reference to your previous post, which social sciences do you feel are the most time consuming? I’m planning on doing History and International Studies right now (not that I would change bc of that, but I’m not really sure how the social sciences compare from highschool to college)
@Oliea98 Social Sciences in college are typically less work intensive than HS. They are mainly about you keeping up with reading or doing a decent amount of or doing good writing. There are less assignments but more care is expected. For example, you may have to more often do research papers that require you to read several books and primary articles to make it good whereas HS was often about review of and engagement with a single or a couple of sources. College (at least good classes with decent profs) is more about angle and analysis than it is length of essay and mechanics and grammar (a teacher won’t be impressed if an essay goes over the suggested length, in fact, they may grade more harshly). College Social Science = context and perspective whereas HS is mostly content and only does the former to a limited extent (AP classes encourage it to a certain level via say, the DBQ style questions on the Euro exam…but that is more so on spot source interpretation than it is gathering and understanding data and evidence). Evidence based argumentation is also more important in college. You typically use a variety of sources to develop your own thesis and angle on something as opposed to just parroting the thesis of the sources you choose. Often you are ask to engage with sources and authors with opposing opinions and put them in conversation with each other. It can take lots of time and reading in between the lines if you want to both do well and get something from it.
However, on average, I believe those two majors are just average, except that in history, they want all students to do one major research paper and because of that, two colloquia level classes are required, meaning that if you intend to cruise most of the time, there will be at least a couple of classes that make you seriously discuss and write. The regular political science major is more intensive than International Studies because it basically requires similar things to history (a research class requirement). The only thing that could end up surprisingly intensive are the 5 core requirements of International Studies. The rest of the categories, you can pretty much choose whatever and generally, from my own experience, it seemed that most pure (as in not cross-listed) political science courses were often less work intensive than history courses and classes cross-listed with history. May be because history had smaller classes quicker (as in an earlier year. Political science courses seem to offer many more large courses which of course will stray more toward a lower workload).
With that said: Note that political science at Emory is for some reason known for being more rigorous than normal by many. That reputation may come from the introductory courses which often have surprisingly hard grading TA’s on things like papers. And some teachers apparently write more challenging than expected exams (typically exams in social sciences are just “check-ups” to ensure you’re keeping up with the material so they are usually very easy. Nothing like, say, an AP exam. Again, most serious classes focus on writing and discussion when possible, so when any instructor gives exams that are more than memorization based essays and some basic short-answer and multiple choice questions, folks are surprised).
@will97 : No, if anything a bit too easy (I’m not saying the admit rate should be lower, I’m just saying that students should be more academically challenged before showing up). To me, bus.econ with someone like Smith (I honestly recommend over regular econ. as the class makes students actually think) seems more conceptually rigorous. Financial Accounting is over-rated in difficulty even by those who are not math people. Other than those 3 classes already mentioned and calculus (which appears intentionally watered down at Emory), there aren’t many hurdles. And of course pre-reqs are not generally revered as they aren’t elective. Just get what you can out of them I suppose.
@bernie12 Is there similar variation like that in the business school (for example, does finance major have much more work than marketing major), or are the workloads relatively the same?
@bernie12 Ah, I remember AP Euro DBQs haha, and thank you for that advice, it all very helpful! And you said the 5 core requirements for IS were intensive? I was planning on trying to knock most of those out my freshman year, but is that a bad idea?
@Oliea98 Not sure if you can as I don’t know which ones are offered each semester. Also college is very professor dependent so ideally you want to take the best ones for such classes. In addition, many advanced and special topics political science and history courses require no hard per-requisites so no need to rush. Likely for you, courses like 110 and 120 will be most important to complete ASAP as those are the recommendations for many upper-levels and special topics majors in international studies may want to pursue. Also, definitely take Lancaster’s freshman section of 120 if you can. Maybe also consider the voluntary core if you want a more serious liberal arts experience in the social sciences/humanities (the program is directly affiliated with the polisci dept). The cool thing about history and political science is that they aren’t majors so intrinsically hard that you need to constantly think about instructor difficulty (and then maybe trade off quality based on it). You can pretty much just choose the best instructors, and even if they are more intense than other professors, an A is still more than doable. Also, better instructors typically make for better mentors for any major (you may want to do a senior project or honors thesis or apply for a serious scholarship or fellowship opp. for example).
@Spongebob777 : Not sure, but I know that finance is “harder” to most students. It is more mathematically intensive and exams seem to be very important to success in those classes. Furthermore exams tend to be more challenging in finance. Those who are double majoring in math or CS or are naturally strong in those areas tend to have a natural advantage.
It could be different kinds of hard (like group projects in things like marketing can get stressful and annoying especially since those classes still mark on the curve). Kind of like comparing similar departments at say Georgia Tech and Emory. I know chemistry best, so I’ll stick with that. Georgia Tech is, in introductory and intermediate chemistry courses is known for assigning students more graded work in lab and lecture, but Emory is more known for instructors that give much harder exams and a lower graded workloads (you are expected to keep up with recommendations on your own and to kind of figure out what level they want you to learn it) in lab and lecture. It is kind of like picking your poison. You can either deal with a higher workload and easier exams or you may be better at challenging exams and being independent. Most students coming from HS are more acclimated to work counting as a higher percentage of the grade and then being given midterms with a solid share of easier/lower level prompts (and also more plentiful examinations).
Yes. IDK how to describe it other than it exists like any other college. In the BSchool, you'll probably want to do things like that in order to mingle and interact with others.
Not really. You can support the Falcons or UGA or GTech. But don't expect a crowd from Emory to head over to Tech every Saturday. I'd say students have more school spirit in that they support their classmates but not necessary the school itself. It's tough to explain, but I mean our allegiance is more to each other than to our institution.
Yes, but you'll need a car or you'll need to join a club like Outdoor Emory. Stone Mountain is worth checking out, but not a place you want to go more than like once every 6-12 months.
Outdoor Emory is cool. Tightknit group of people. About 8 Emory grads flew in to ATL last weekend and went on a hike together. Which was cool, considering they all made time to see each other and go for a hike even though they've graduated and moved on.