Is Cornell overrated?

College Search & Selection
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<p>Patlees,
I think your claims on Rice have some validity when you get past baseball. In national terms, their football and basketball are poor though I’d argue that their quality of competition is certainly higher than is found in the Ivies. Northwestern, however, has a stronger record than you might realize with three Big Ten football championships since 1996 and 6-7 bowl appearances. </p>

<p>I can comment on the others if you like, but that might be taking the discussion further away from the topic. </p>

<p>Please note also that my frequent comments about athletic life have less to do with actual wins and losses in the major sports than with the social environment that surrounds these functions and the large and positive impact that these sporting events have on a college’s campus. I like to win, but I like even more to have a good time and that is why I focus more on athletic life as a social experience. </p>

<p>Compared to what is available at Cornell and other Ivies, I’d argue that the scene leading up to and at a Duke basketball game is pretty unique. Same for Vanderbilt where they have SEC football and were drawing 14,000+ to their men’s basketball games last season. Likewise for a ND football game where, despite a lousy season, they put 80,000+ in the stands for every home game last fall. These are major campus events and, for many students, they can be very attractive differentiators from the experience of attending a Ivy League football or basketball game.</p>

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<p>First of all, I think that all of this, concering the story that your family member is bossing the graduates of Cornell engineers, are bs. Even if it is true, I can assure that it is not bc of his degree from Cal rather than Cornell, it must’ve been his ability or impressive career. Going to ‘better’ engineering program won’t get you much farther than others from ‘lesser’ engineering programs, in the job market. Even engineers from MIT won’t be given the luxury of getting more prestigious jobs compared to Cornell graduates in engineering sectors purely bc of their more prestigious degree…I hope you have an even slight idea of the reality.</p>

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<p>What an irony that you or your friend think that Cornell people are stupid while Cal people are smart…You would have a very hard time convincing most people of this. As a point of reference, I am a Cornell student, btw, and I am pretty smart.</p>

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LOL, keep telling yourself that. And in the engineering world in Silicon Valley, it doesn’t take much convincing.</p>

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<p>While I will be the first to admit that Division I hockey does not grip the American public and media in the same way that football or basketball does, I do feel the need to defend the tradition and history that surrounds Cornell’s hockey program. </p>

<p>The uniqueness of the Lynah experience certainly places the Cornell athletic experience a notch above a school like Northwestern, which despite it’s Big 10 affiliation, doesn’t have a lot of school spirit going for it. (Maybe if it makes it back to the Rose Bowl?) The Cornell hockey program has enough tradition and alumni support to merit a lot of mentions in the popular media, and hockey writers across the continent generally agree that Lynah is the most hostile arena to play in American college hockey, and it’s been pretty well documented that most of the more creative cheers in college hockey originated in Ithaca. And new cheers get created every year.</p>

<p>If you go over to one of the Cornell hockey message boards (elf.elynah.com), you will find a whole bunch of alumni really excited about the fact that Cornell has scheduled an out of conference series with this year’s national runner-up, North Dakota. This was just announced yesterday, but there’s a pretty long thread of alumni, townies, and students already planning their trip to Grand Forks, North Dakota next year for the games. There’s even a Cornell alum, currently a graduate student at Oxford, planning on making an international flight for the trip. How many Dukies would do that for a team that didn’t even make the NCAA playoffs this year?</p>

<p>I’ll also add that Cornell easily sold out Madison Square Garden this year, and students and alums alike travel with the team throughout the ECAC. At any Ivy League away game, the crowd is typically a majority Cornell fans. Hell, Cornell had more fans cheering Princeton on against Harvard for the Ivy title this year in Albany than Princeton did.</p>

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<p>I don’t need to tell myself this at all. My accomplishments are pretty solid and they speak for themselves. I really would rather stay away from getting involved in sounding like snobby or arrogant, but since you say that Cornell people are stupid…My Cum gpa at Cornell, by the end of this term looking at my grades so far, will be around 3.92. Besides, I scored 34 ACT and was ranked top 3% of my class at hs. I am far from being stupid, as you clearly see.</p>

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<p>Maybe Cal is more prestigious than cornell in the west coast, and understandably so. But, saying that Cornell students are stupid and saying that Cal is better than Cornell are quite different. I would strongly advise you to stay away from making highly insulting remarks on this public forum, calling students from other schools ‘stupid’…of course you are entitled to your opinion, but writing this kind of ad hominem attacks won’t really serve you well. I really hope that you aren’t an a-hole as you appear to be here in real life.</p>

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<p>Rice’s stadium holds 70,000 no joke.</p>

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Your GPA at Cornell is very good, but your ACT and your ranking in high school is nothing to brag about.

Silicon Valley is the place to be for engineers, so of course this is where it counts the most. When did I call all Cornell students stupid? Read my posts again. It’s just an opinion from a family member on the few people he interacts with personally.</p>

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No, but you essentially called patlees88 stupid, and repeated a comment from your family member that the Cornell grads he works with are stupid…even calling Cornell “the stupidest Ivy”. </p>

<p>Don’t put down the guy…if anything, it’s making you look very stupid.</p>

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<p>So, what’s better? 14,000 in a stadium meant to hold 70,000 in a large city or 8500 in a stadium meant to hold 25,000 in a small town. <em>shrug</em> Both seem lackluster to me. </p>

<p>middsmith is clearly a ■■■■■. But, I do think there are others who share his sentiments on CC (although their comments are usually more cleverly disguised). Hence, why I said Cornell’s underrated on CC.</p>

<p>As for real life, I think Cornell’s rated right where it should be. In real life, people care about results and about academic quality. People judge Cornell based on the Cornellians they’ve met and their job performance. No one’s going to give a crap about what the average SAT scores of Cornell students were when they entered Cornell. Honestly, the only people willing to split hairs over SAT scores or dissect acceptance and yield rates are neurotic high schoolers and people on CC.</p>

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<p>middsmith is what we call a “■■■■■■” here in the northeast.</p>

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<p>^ Haha…living in Socal, I think we have the highest per capita rate of douchebaggery anywhere.</p>

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<p>Whether or not Cornell is overrated depends on one’s definition of the word. To a certain degree, all top universities are overrated. Relatively speaking, compared to other Ivies, Cornell is underrated on this forum and rated fairly in the real world. Cornell is one of 15-20 universities that can make a legitimate for top 10 honors. However, it is not quite good enough to be a top 5 university (this honor goes to HMPSY). </p>

<p>In that regard, Cornell is the same league as Cal, Chicago, Columbia, Duke, Johns Hopkins and a handful of other universities.</p>

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<p>I see I ruffled a few feathers. Feel free to call me anything to make you feel better about yourself and your Cornell ivy league debauchery.
For the record, I’m not a ■■■■■■. A douchette, maybe.</p>

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<p>I dunno, I went to CMU way out in Pittsburgh and we had a pretty good share of recruiters from that area. Of course, we also had ones from Boston, New York, and just about every other major metropolitan area in the country. I imagine Cornell is able to swing the same sorts of opportunities.</p>

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<p>Cornell is surely not overrated, in fact, in many academic areas, I’d even go far as saying it is very underrated in the court of public opinion, especially here on CC.</p>

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<p>middsmith, how does a university qualify as the “stupidest” Ivy? Statistically speaking, Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth and Penn have pretty similar student bodies, when comparing apples to apples. </p>

<p>Also, I am not sure how Cal “easily trumps” Cornell in Engineering. Cal is indeed awesome (anywhere between 2 and 4 in the nation), but Cornell is not far behind (anywhere between 5 and 9 in the nation).</p>

<p>Your trying to belittle Cornell doesn’t impress me. Educated and informed people tend to recognize Cornell for the great university that it is.</p>

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fine, weakest ivy. like countless threads already devoted to this topic. </p>

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several professors from Cal said that for EECS, once you step out of the top tier (MIT, Cal, Stanford), the rest are just blah. There you have it, educated and informed people.</p>

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<p>middsmith, Cornell is not the weakest Ivy. Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth and Penn are all roughly equal. Their overall undergraduate rankings are way too close to each other to differentiate. Their peer assessment scores are also very close, and you seem to think very highly of what professors think, so you obviously are a firm believer in the Peer Assessment score. </p>

<p>Columbia University: 4.6/5.0
Cornell University: 4.6/5.0
University of Pennsylvania: 4.5/5.0
Brown University: 4.4/5.0
Dartmouth College: 4.3/5.0</p>

<p>I don’t see how cornell is the weakest Ivy. HYP are admittedly stronger, but the remaining Ivies are all roughly equal. </p>

<p>Furthermore, I am surprised at what the profs at Cal told you. Sounds like an awefully limited view. According to them, only three Engineering programs are considered top tier? Wow. What happened to Caltech, Carnegie Mellon, Cornell, Georgia Tech, Michigan and UIUC? I guess those are just “blah”. LOL!</p>

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<p>Alexandre, I have the feeling that this poster is quite possibly a ■■■■■. Besides, this person’s highly insulting remarks and rude tone are making this a uncivilized discussion and really provocative in a really bad way…searching the previous posts indicate that this person is merely a hs senior, presumably entering Cal this fall. yet, this person said:</p>

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<p>Yeh, you surely would know these professors who would remark these ignorant, uneducated statements like you. UC Berkeley Engineering profs are insanely smart and they’re in no way in the same league as you in making these ignorant, outrageous assumptions as you make. Plus, if your family member is truly high up at his job and ‘manages’ other ‘lower’ engineers, he should be smart enough to realize that Cornell engineers aren’t stupid. Actually, rather close to being very smart. You are a complete joke and your language makes it inevitable for me to assume that you are a mere ■■■■■ or a really *<strong><em>ed off hs senior rumbling like you know s</em></strong>. Just be careful who you talk to, it is quite possible that you are saying all these crap to someone much smarter and much more accomplished than you. Your arrogant and highly d-bag like tone makes you stand out as one of the worst and most outrageous posters I’ve come across at CC.</p>

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<p>Norcalguy,
Rice’s football history dates back to the old Southwestern conference and their stadium was built for a different era. The seating capacity is presently about 47,000 although it has the flexibility to be expanded well beyond that. Rice’s 5 home football games last year drew in between 11,000 and 21,000 fans. Cornell also had 5 home games with attendance ranging from 3300 to 12,000. </p>

<p>Just to provide a little more context for the athletic life for football and the campus impact of these at Cornell and at some of its peer institutions, here are the facts from the latest seasons for each:</p>

<p>Average home Football attendance, College</p>

<p>8647 fans, Cornell (13,565 undergrads)</p>

<p>14,314 fans, Rice (3049 undergrads)</p>

<p>25,446 fans, Northwestern (8153 undergrads)</p>

<p>35,626 fans, Vanderbilt (6378 undergrads)</p>

<p>80,795 fans, Notre Dame (8352 undergrads)</p>

<p>Northwestern’s numbers are a little inflated by the U Michigan game which drew 46,000+ . Otherwise, they were between 16-30,000. Vanderbilt was near capacity of 40,000 for each game and ND was at capacity. </p>

<p>For men’s basketball, Cornell was the Ivy champion and averaged under 4000 per game. Vanderbilt and Notre Dame were both very strong nationally and their campuses were significantly aroused for their home basketball games with consistent turnouts of 14,000+ and 11,000+. </p>

<p>Cornell’s women’s basketball was also Ivy champs and drew top crowds of under 600 fans. Vanderbilt and ND had strong national showings in women’s basketball and drew quite well with top crowds of over 14,000 at Vanderbilt and over 11,000 at ND. </p>

<p>I think that these numbers accurately reflect the differences in the athletic scene at these colleges. Not everybody will necessarily want a campus that has this type of environment, but for those that do, the differences are stark and establish real differences in the nature of the undergraduate social experience at these colleges.</p>