I don't get why transfers are looked down on

Colleges and Universities A-Z Cornell University
61

<p>Dontno....</p>

<p>Obviously you missed my point. I think your assessment is absurd, especially coming from a brilliant engineer. You have a very high regard of your own intellect, far superior than your peers. I don't know what yardstick you use for your metrics . I wrongly suspected you were a g/t since for three years you did not run into any problems because you were above the masses and at the top of your game. Therefore, I patted you on the back. I aluded in jest that G/t s were superior by your own admission of your talents, presuming you were a g/t. </p>

<p>Oops. I was wrong. You don't belong to that gene pool.</p>

<p>Now...my point vs your point. Cornell , like other highly selective schools, populates it's freshmen class based on a certain mix that fits it's design for it's freshman class. Not by intelligence. It isn't looking for strictly all valedictorians, but somewhat of a mix that can contribute to the school. There are geniuses that can't tie their shoes, and the sum total of their contribution in life is a stellar IQ! It amazes me you can be an authority on intelligence, or make such a blatant statement about the average intelligence of an incoming group. I dare say you have insulted and disenfranchised an entire population of Cornelians by your astute observations and statements. I challenge you to go on record with admissions personell that share your views on g/t average lower intelligence. Like Cuba Gooding Jr. might say " Show me the Data" .</p>

<p>PS. I skipped 7th grade.</p>

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<p>Dontno- I believe you mean the leftism of the American Psychological Association</p>

<p>The funny thing about intelligence is:
those you have a lot of it, rarely use it.</p>

<p>Even if your statement was true, and GT's were "on average" not as bright as regular admits, why is it that the transfers seem to get the amazing jobs? Could personality play a role? Passion, perhaps? Composure? Emotion?
Subjective categories, OH MY GOODNESS! Because that doesn't exist anywhere in society right?</p>

<p>Wake up already. If you really believe someone with a 36 ACT is brighter than someone with a 33 ACT, your mind must be flawed. </p>

<p>Here's a quote from Merriam-Webster to sum up how wrong you really are:</p>

<p>"Intelligence-
(n) (1)the ability to learn or understand or to deal with new or trying situations, the skilled use of reason (2): the ability to apply knowledge to manipulate one's environment or to think abstractly as measured by objective criteria"</p>

<p>Hmmmm, one thought about pure reasoning</p>

<p>and 3 thoughts about learning (not knowing, they are actually different my friend), manipulating an environment, and thinking abstractly.</p>

<p>I seem to find that transfers represent the latter 3, on average, of course</p>

<p>so by the pure application of numbers</p>

<p>3>1
merriam webster would probably define transfers as more intelligent than 4-years</p>

<p>isn't that a sound argument
<em>sarcasm</em></p>

<p>do i believe transfers are brighter than 4-years... no, there is no proof for this.
do i believe 4-years are brighter than transfers... no, there is no proof for this.
do i believe transfers are intelligent... yes
do i believe transfers are also very ambitious and adaptive... yes
do i think you're an idiot... YES!</p>

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<p>Excellent post Grandtorture !! Careful. Your showing 4 year characteristics.</p>

<p>: )</p>

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<p>I have to agree with dontno on one thing - intelligence has nothing to do with passion. There are people who are passionate about music, but simply don't have the talent. There are people who are passionate about business, but won't make AEM, because they're simply not intelligent enough. </p>

<p>I disagree transfers are generally dumber, although I'm sure there's a lot of dumbos too. In order to get into Cornell, a regular student has to do well in HS, and in order to get into Cornell as a transfer, a person has to do well in college. Forget the GPA of the students when they get to Cornell - that it irrelevant. It doesn't matter how well/poorly they do when they get there, I'm talking about admissions only, for non-GT transfers.</p>

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<p>Well, dontno is, once again, living up to his name.</p>

<p>I certainly was not inferior to the regular admits. In fact, I usually excelled beyond them as a GT. I graduated with several honors. </p>

<p>Most other GTs I knew were in the same position. The assertion that "most" are less intelligent or were inferior is ignoring extenuating realities.</p>

<p>Like I said before, there were certainly a whole lot of GTs who came from very modest financial backgrounds. Rather than attacking their intelligence, dontno, wouldn't it make some sense to consider the possibilty that Cornell was making an intelligent financial decision by only paying their way for 2 years instead of 4?</p>

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<p>Star- i meant to say, don't say you won't get in! You seem really bright</p>

<p>also, I believe passion is a component of intelligence. But I can see how opinions differ on this.</p>

<p>and finally, there are a TON of dumb regular admits too. </p>

<p>At MVP I stayed with a regular admit. He was a supersenior. He came out of his room where he and his girlfriend were banging. When he came out of the room, there was "bodily fluid" on his pants. I don't think he was aware of it. Not only was he academically weak, he lacked some common sense as well.</p>

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<p>hmm so many issues happening here. I'll bring this polarized issue into the center a bit just by quickly mentioning 2 things. 1) Admissions is need-blind...as in they don't look at how much money you need until ur admitted (unless ur international) so I don't know how well the financial argument holds up 2) I will agree that the average admitee is smarter on paper than the average transfer who didn't get in freshman year (I mean cmon...this is hardly an arguable point). I also have to throw in that probably 10 times the amount of people admitted into Cornell would do well...so its a matter or being more or less qualified instead of the black and white question of qualified or not. I think everyone at Cornell is initially qualified to be there.</p>

<p>I think the issue arises around what people do once they are there is different. I often see completely contrasting attitudes between some people in the two populations. Many of the regular admits are just used to being at the top of the class and see themselves as having absolutely deserved a position as Cornell (which they often do). The problem with this attitude is that some think they can put themselves on auto pilot and get straight As. They obviously get a rude awakening when grades come out. In contrast, many of my fellow transfers have to work extremely hard to get to Cornell and explicitly focus their energies for an entire year or two at another college for the sole purpose of gaining entry into Cornell. And by God will they work hard once they get to Cornell. They know they got in on their second chance because they worked their butts off so most realize they need to keep doing such. This is what I generally see in the transfer population. </p>

<p>Honestly I feel like this argument isn't about smart vs. dumb, but rather a pretty stupid game of one-upsmanship that won't lead anywhere. Everyone at Cornell deserves to be there (at least in their respective fields). </p>

<p>ps: I'll throw in that I agree that the agreements with the CCs do tarnish our reputation. But I guess I'm fine with the whole matter since they are really usually just for ag transfers anyway (not putting that major down, but just saying it's a totally different field).</p>

<p>Edit: In conclusion, you won't encounter this in real life. This is just another online ivory tower discussion.</p>

68

<p>yeah my HS sends a lot of kids to top schools/Ivies, and every yr, tons of average student laxers from our school get in. My HS had an amazing lax team, and those kids ended up in schools like Duke because of that. Yeah, I know the Ivy league doesn't recruit athletes or whatever, but those kids get a boost in. My friend from HS found out she was basically in Yale before decisions were released, because she was a good student, and the Yale lax coach wanted her on the team. </p>

<p>My HS also gave seniors a packet each yr of the stats of all college applicants, their SAT/GPA and what colleges they were accepted too (no names are mentioned) and I noticed some Cornellians had GPA's around 3.2-3.5. They were definitely laxers.</p>

69

<p>these posts are getting really long to go through, and though interesting... finals are coming up and there is not time to delve into it all!</p>

<p>but- i just wanted to comment on dontno's posts- don't hate on him because he feels a certain way, he's just as entitled to say that transfers are generally inferior as anyone else is to say they are not. i disagree, personally- because as a transfer (non-GT), i find that i am a more than competitive student at cornell just as regular admits are. as a transfer, i spent some time with fellow transfers and the ones that had a hard time were comm. college or state school kids and simply were not used to the workload. it was strictly an issue of academics and not intellect: after a semester or two, they all appear just as 'smart' as everyone else here and are doing quite well. i only have experiences of specific people to live by, however, and i guess i should avoid making stubborn sweeping generalizations.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
I will agree that the average admitee is smarter on paper than the average transfer who didn't get in freshman year <a href="I%20mean%20cmon...this%20is%20hardly%20an%20arguable%20point">B</a>**

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Yea seriously, thank you. I believe we've had previous disagreements, but i appreciate your impartiality in this discussion.</p>

71

<p>"^ well yeah, that's definitely true." 01:24 am</p>

<p>Where was there disagreement?</p>

<p>I'm done with this. I have snow to go admire :D</p>

72

<p>And though I've hardly contributed to this particular thread, I've read it and thought it was interesting, but AP Lit homework beckons.</p>

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<p>It's not politics, so I'm willing to be impartial :) haha. U must be happy about the SOS rumors [as am I] if I am correctly remembering the positions u took a while ago (altho lets not switch the discussion topic)</p>

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<p>As an ILR student who was granted admission to Cornell via ED (Class of 2011), I can honestly say that I do not see a difference in the intellectual capabilities of transfer students (GT or otherwise) v. students admitted in their senior year of high school. If anything, had the GT students that I have class with now not informed me that they were in fact GT students, then I would have never been able to tell them apart from the other students (Their work ethic, from what I can tell, certainly is no different from those accepted RD). I certainly do not treat anybody differently because of their transfer status or lack thereof. What gives me the right to do so? At the end of the day we all end up getting a degree from Cornell University.</p>

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<p>^^ not all</p>

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<p>guys, I'm probably transferring to Binghamton...so I don't really care how cornell treats its transfers anymore. heck, throw snow in their faces and yell at them to go back to trade school if you want :) jk</p>

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<p>Lol, you're seriously not transferring to Cornell anymore?
And isn't NYU a stronger school than Binghamton?</p>

78

<p>oh, I wil probably apply to Cornell, but I'm not counting on it. My chances for Fall '09 transfer are REALLY low, and I don't want to wait til Spring '10/Fall '10, so I'll probably transfer to Bing next fall. And I guess I could apply to Cornell from there...but transferring twice is too much of a hassle for me. It's such a hassle the first time. </p>

<p>NYU isn't "stronger" than Bing (except for philosophy/business/film) it's just pricier. And I'm not willing to spend any more money in a college where I can't pick my own classes, and where all my tuition goes to knocking down old landmarks and replacing them with eyesores, and bulldozing Washington Sq Park, and financing John Sexton's shoe fetish, or wherever else my money goes. And there's a hundred other reasons I want to leave, but I won't go into details cause this is a Cornell forum :)</p>

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<p>Binghamton and Geneseo are both better schools than NYU.</p>

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<p>And that's why I'm applying to both of them RD if I get rejected/deferred from Cornell and not applying to NYU.
I think, unless you're applying for business or film, NYU isn't worth it.
Cornell is always worth it :)</p>

<p>But I would say that NYU is just more "prestigious" than Binghamton or Geneseo, rather than "better".</p>