<p>There are only a few days left for me to decide, but it's come down to Emory and Cornell for me. I intend to be a history major and to take some business courses too. I like both schools, but many people i talk to where I live (northeast) say go to cornell because it's ivy. I don't know what people in the south would say. Is Emory similar in what it provides after college? They're both great schools and i don't mean to be the guy who's pointing out the whole ivy thing, but this is the only thing I can't form my own opinion on when it comes down to it and I don't want to give up my chance at an ivy league school not knowing what I'm getting into. please understand that this isn't the only factor in my decision, but it's important and I don't know enough about emory from a southern perspective. Almost noone goes there from my area.</p>
<p>Can anyone give me a comparison? thanks in advance!</p>
<p>I live in Atlanta so everyone I know, knows about Emory. But if I was in your spot and told people that it was between Emory and Cornell, they would most certainly tell me Cornell. I think people in the south (or GA at least) take advantage of the fact that the school is right here in our backyard. I mean we all know it’s a great school…it’s just different.</p>
<p>Also, lots of employers in the south know the school. I have heard that the branding is different in the North and out West…not absoloutely positive though.</p>
<p>If you love them both dead-equally, go to Cornell because of the prestige (I mean, isn’t that the only thing left to distinguish between the two at this point)? If not, then go to Emory, because Emory rocks and the professors are awesome.</p>
<p>If you like them equally, I’d go to Cornell, just because of the prestige and it is an ivy. The only thing that would concern me is the fa. But if they’re the same, I’d go to Cornell.</p>
<p>^if you all (some being current/future Emory students) won’t at least put in one good word for Emory, then don’t bother posting. The difference between Cornell and Emory is pretty small in my opinion. Do NOT let other people, other than parents, dictate or affect the college chocie you make. Seriously. High School student, myself included, know very little about the real world. If you plan to go to grad school, your “Ivy” label will not matter much. The most important question right now that you have to answer is “Which school do I like best?”… forget what people say and figure out which school YOU like and make a decision based on that. I say this because the difference in academic quality between these schools is insignificant. They are peers.</p>
<p>Just so you know, I am turning down U Chicago (better than Cornell) to attend Emory, mostly because of fit reasons. If given the choice, I would choose Emory in a second. Unlike the above posters and a lot of current Emory students (hopefully its different this year), I am not a prestige whore. I never applied to one Ivy because none of them interest me in anyway. </p>
<p>You say you are interested in business… Emory’s UG business is one of the best in the nation and its ranked top 10 in the nation consistantly. I believe Emory’s history program is top 25 in the nation as well so both are very strong at Emory. Once again, do not go to Cornell just because it is an Ivy. Being smart enough to get into these great schools, you should know better than that. Also, if it matters, Emory is unofficially considered an “Ivy of the South” so take that for what its worth. Lastly, I can gaurentee you that plenty of people at Emory will have turned down Ivy acceptances and you won’t be the only one. How do I know? Well, first of all, there are the Emory Scholars, some of whom turn down HYPS to come to Emory… and even some non Emory Scholars who turn down schoole like Cornell and Brown.</p>
<p>I am aware of the similarity in academic quality of these two schools. I am aware that Emory has a great business school However, Cornell’s is ranked just as well, if not better. Both have great history programs, but this im not as sure on. I talked to a family friend who I reagrd highly in that topic and he said Cornell was a great program and that “Emory would take good care of you too”. Basically I’m planning on going to either graduate business school or to the military as an officer in something like intelligence (where this source said Cornell matters). I made this topic knowing that they are truly “peer” schools academically while not knowing much about their prestige which, as beretta said and after much thought myself, is really the only thing I have left to consider. While i know emory would be just as rigorous, I see it as being a bit more fun due to the better weather. In that side of the “fit” department it wins. I see Cornell, as a northern school I’m familiar with and as a large university where anyone can fit in, a great fit as well but maybe a little less fun due to the weather around here. Again, am I passing anything up by going to Emory when I’m somewhere further down the road? and as a northerner does that make a difference? Business recruiting?</p>
<p>Oh and I might wanna live in the south after college, but not deep south. Mid atlantic down to Atlanta maybe. But im by no means saying I wouldnt live in a northern city or something.</p>
<p>Dude, I’m pretty sure you will be fine in any arena if you do well at Emory. As long as you do well here, the difference in prestige does not matter. Not to mention, lots of places in the mid-Atlantic (which I believe only excludes New England, but I am not sure) should know about Emory given the fact that about 20%+ of Emory students hail from there. Point is, if you want to work in some major city up there, you will be fine after doing well here. Try to dig up some more dirt on both schools, and then make a decision. Don’t make a decision based on the prestige factor.</p>
<p>vball, no you will not be giving up anything significant if you choose Emory over Cornell. In fact, when and if you come here, you will presumably attain amazing experiences and you won’t even give a second thought about Cornell. Remember that currently Emory and Cornell are ranked fairly similarly BUT Emory and Rice are the only school on USnews’s “Schools on the Rise” ranking… so look for it to soar even higher in the next couple of months. The Ivy name brand is mattering less and less if you ask me. People now realize that there are schools just as good as the Ivy league. Newsweek published names of 25 new schools and dubbed them the “New Ivy League”… Emory is part of this group.</p>
<p>There is one major difference between Emory and Cornell - real professors. Emory uses a ton of lecture track faculty (people with Ph.D.s that don’t do research) to teach at the undergraduate level. They say these people specialize in education - but very few of them have actually published. At Cornell you’ll interact with real faculty not adjuncts. It will make a big difference in the long run. You want to be educated by people working at the front edge of their respective fields.</p>
<p>^ So Cornell has “real” faculty and Emory doesn’t? I have a question… are you proud of your ignorance? </p>
<p>Just because profs don’t focus on research does not mean they aren’t perfectly capable in their respective fields. I actually want profs who focus on their undergrad education rather than doing research all the time. If I wanted research-oriented professors who did not care about the undergrad population, I would go to a Canadian university. By your standards, LACs such as Amherst, Swarthmore, Davidson do not have “real” professors.</p>
<p>No, quite the opposite. Professors at schools like Swarthmore and Davidson are REQUIRED to do research, publish in peer reviewed journals, and stay active in scholarship activities related to their fields if they want tenure. That is part of the tenure process at these schools (LACs). These schools do a fantastic job of educating undergraduate students because the faculty at these institutions get undergraduate students involved in research instead of using graduate students. That is why these primarily undergraduate institutions (like Davidson) have such a great track record of sending students onto top tier graduate institutions & professional schools. By real professors I mean tenured faculty that participate in research. I am sorry if you thought my reply was ignorant. Of course Emory has real professors. It is just that very few of them teach introductory courses (first and 2nd year courses). You can get tenured and research active faculty if you take upper level (junior and senior year or 300+) courses at Emory.</p>
<p>Actually, that doesn’t seem true for the sciences here (seems like almost all of them are tenure/involved in research and strongly encourage undergraduate research). And those who are not involved in a specific research field are excellent lecturers. Like Dr. Weinschenk (fail at spelling), and Mulford (perhaps others). Many of the lecturers in the chem. dept. are pretty good (Weaver, Mulford, Morkin in particular). I don’t know about the humanities (there seems to be an increased amount of effort in this department). My orgo. professor (freshman section) is a researcher and awesome professor (I am very close to him, and he is actually in the process of helping me get into an amazing lab this summer). So it’s kind of like you are saying one thing, but I am experiencing something else. Maybe I am lucky. I am quite content with the situation here because I have made strong connections to many of my professors and even some people I have never had before. It seems so easy, given that we are somewhat small.</p>
<p>Bernie2012: It seems your experiences with the lecturers (I checked out the home page) highlights what I was trying to point out. Each person you’ve mentioned is lecture track faculty not tenured faculty. I am only trying to be helpful-not bash Emory. Emory is great school (they have Rushdie!!!) My niece was looking at colleges last year. She was very excited about Emory but very disappointed by the lack of professors actually teaching classes. When she visited science departments elsewhere, the faculty would show her their research labs, talk about the courses they taught, and the research that they do. When she visited Emory she said if felt like high school science club. She didn’t see any research labs and only met with lecture track faculty. She noticed a difference when she visited other schools (Cornell & Berkeley). No doubt - if you want personalized attention from non-permanent faculty- Emory is a great place.</p>
<p>Now I will admit that you may have a point as the fact that you are mentioning may affect the course offerings within each department. For example, chemistry does not really have diverse course offerings. Biology is pretty darned good, but you can wonder if more special topics courses (or regular ones targeting specialized areas of biology) would be offered if more of the researchers taught. Researchers tend to lecture better in classes emphasizing their field of research, which is probably why many of the Bio 141/142 professors are mediocre at best. But when you have them in upper level courses, they are generally a lot better (some exceptions). Perhaps if we did it like the schools you mention, the course offerings would be more diverse. Who knows?</p>
<p>First of all, although Cornell has the “Ivy” title, a lot of people deride it as the “Ivy that doesn’t belong.” It’s the lowest ranked Ivy and has the least competitive admissions of any of the Ivies.</p>
<p>That being said, Cornell is an excellent school. But the distinguishing factor between Emory and Cornell should not be prestige or rankings. Emory has smaller class sizes (my class sizes Spring '09 were 5, 14, 15, and 65 and Fall '10 were 6, 35, 40, and 60) and most of those are intro-level courses. The largest sections are the intro-level pre-med sections and those have no more than 120. Emory has smaller class sizes and more personalized attention than most Ivies, even Harvard.</p>
<p>The other big difference is the teaching quality. A lot of the Ivies bring in faculty for their research and publications. Emory has very well acclaimed faculty in their area of expertise, but Emory really focuses on teacher quality. This means that a full professor heads every class (you will only ever have TAs for discussion or lab sections). And in all of my classes, my professors have known all of the students by name.</p>
<p>wait, the profs know the students in the 100 size classes by name? There are 1200 or so incoming freshman and profs know all by name? Sounds really, really difficult to do. But if so, that would be awesome! I really want that student-prof connection. Also, icfire, can you tell me if its easy to get to know your profs… like doing research with them and even more informal. I hear some students at some schools have lunch/dinner with some profs for whatever reason.</p>
<p>Emory’s professors are really accessible. The profs don’t know the whole incoming freshman class, but almost all professors will know all of the students in the classes they teach. I don’t know about research opportunities (I’m in business), but there are definitely plenty of opportunities to get to know your professors outside of the classroom. For example, I’ve grabbed a bagel and coffee with a professor after class before. And another one of my friends had a class where the professor invited all of the students in the class to dinner.</p>
<p>Yeah, my religion professor is paying for our dinner at Magiannos (fail at spelling again) tonight :). I and members of INSPIRE was at a professor’s house (it was amazing) last Friday, and I was at Brio on Monday with several faculty members that are P.Is of the labs in which INSPIRE members do work. That type of stuff is very common. And yes, it is very common for science professors to learn the names of all of the students, like Dr. Soria (my orgo. prof.) and Weinschenk (notorious upper classmen orgo. prof.). Soria has between 60-70 students, while Weinschenk has about 200 between the 2 sections he teaches. Last year, I even ate at the house of the undergraduate science dean (she now also heads pre-health advising). Don’t know why we didn’t do it this year, but either way, it’s awesome.</p>