<p>I hear a lot of people say Cornell is the easier Ivy to get into and the hardest to get out. Is this actually true objectively?</p>
<p>For example, people say Harvard is one of the hardest Ivies to get into but the easiest to get out of. Is this because the classes are easier there, or simply because most people are "smarter" and thus have easier times with their courses?</p>
<p>In no way am I saying that people in Cornell are any less smarter than people in Harvard. I just realize that compared to schools like Harvard ("easy to get out,") Cornell has a lower % of people from the top 10% of their high school classes or have SAT scores in the high 700s. Is Cornell's "hard to get out" reputation also affected partly because the people are "less talented" than people in, for example, Harvard?</p>
<p>PS I don't really mean to say Cornellians are "less talented" at all!! Please forgive me for using such words. I just can't really find a way to show my meaning across. I apologize to anyone who may be offended by such terms...</p>
<p>Alright, I have to jump in on this. I went to Cornell for undergrad and Harvard for law school. I also took classes at Harvard College while in law school. I found no difference between the Arts college students at Cornell and the undergrads at Harvard. My law school classmates, culled from the top applicants in the country, would have all done well at Cornell as undergrads but the mean was about the same as mean at Cornell. Harvard gives cum laude status to as much as 90% of its undergrads and the average grade is a high B/A-. Cornell's average is a B, hardly the stuff of failure. The primary difference is that the standard to graduate with honors from Cornell is higher. The attrition rate is higher in the contract colleges but almost everyone in Cornell Arts graduates in 6 years, and the overwhelming majority in 4 years. Again, statistically, the profile of those admitted to Cornell Arts is nearly congruent with Harvard College's.</p>
<p>Cornell's engineering and A&S have scores pretty close to Harvard and other top schools, so I doubt its the quality of students. Besides, by that logic, Caltech and MIT would be known as two of the easiest schools in the country.</p>
<p>Thanks for the explainations:) So can it be interpreted that Harvard has a somewhat easier curriculum compared to other top schools, or Cornell has a harder one? I mean, is Cornell harder than the average colleges, or Harvard easier, or both?</p>
<p>sorry >< I shouldn't have used that term. I meant to say the average/normal difficulty of colleges that are at about the same caliber ar Cornell, Harvard, and the other Ivy League schools.</p>
<p>Like one of the above posters, I went to Cornell undergrad and then an Ivy Law school (Columbia). Comparisons are always hard and you are (successfully) bending over backwards to not be offensive, but with those two caveats, I can say that based on talks with my law school classmates, we just plain old worked harder at Cornell. The reading assignments were intense and constant. Maybe, though, they are that way everywhere and at other schools people didn't do them that much; maybe, at some schools, they are so much smarter that they didn't HAVE to do them; but what I can say is that when we talked to our law school classmates, it seemed like the Cornell grads worked much harder as undergrads than those from similarly ranked schools.</p>
<p>my experiences, i think that cornell is largely overrated as a place that is so hard to do well at</p>
<p>this is prob b/c it was true once upon a time. Cornell A/S has inflation in it. The reason why ppl get this impression of Cornell b/c its a myth that keeps be perpetuated by students. The fact is that the engineers are the only ones and perhaps, science/math majors that really have it hard. I am sorry, but i have taken comparable classes at Cornell and Northwestern, and they are just so similar in intensity. And they have the same type of students. In fact, Northwestern on average has higher caliber students. Even, Cornell's A/S College is around the same average of all of Northwestern, which is brought down by speciality schools as well (education, journalism, communications, etc.)</p>
<p>that's because you don't do anything besides what's required for classes and your major doesn't have a reputation for being very challenging (in fact, I hear more of the opposite). Most Cornell students are in numerous clubs and so forth, so this takes up a significant chunck of time. I guess if you take the bball/simbajune approach Cornell shouldn't be very hard at all, but I suggest you get involved around campus - it'll take away from time that could be spent huddled around books in your room, but it'll make for a much more satisfying college experience.</p>
<p>well, sametwochords, you are wrong on so many levels here...</p>
<p>% of students in top 10% of class:</p>
<p>Northwestern: 86%
Cornell: 85%</p>
<p>please do your research before you make stupid claims like CU's student body is equal to NU's. Dolt! Anybody who can read can see the difference. Pwned!!!</p>
<p>PS: bball - are you the guy who has only 14 facebook friends at northwestern despite being a student there?</p>
<p>Actually gomestar, you should probably do your own research: the numbers are in fact Northwestern 82%, Cornell 81% (USNews).</p>
<p>So, oh wow excuse me...1% of the student body equals around 100 or so kids (13500 vs 8000)...I guess that really DOES mean that Northwestern is clearly better!!! My stupid claim is debunked!! I cannot read and I was wrong on so many levels. My apologies.</p>
<p>And if you're going by these statistics, I guess that Cornell's outranking of Northwestern doesn't mean anything to you...</p>
<p>Look, Northwestern is absolutely amazing and unique, but all I was trying to point out was that its student body is not "in fact, of a higher caliber," because NU and CU are pretty much on the same level, of course a very elevated level. I was not implying that Northwestern sucks or that Cornell is better.</p>
<p>But hey, if you want to trash Cornell on the Cornell board, be my guest man.</p>
<p>P.S. - I don't know what "Pwned" means, but I'm sure that it was a zinger to someone else.</p>
<p>well, my point was to be sacastic. I knew the difference in the two student bodies for top 10% was only 1%, but i forgot which % the data was based on ... this year's CU class was 85%. Though, I was simply mocking those here on CC who would see that 1% and think "oh yeah, clear and obvious difference." The student bodies are as close to equal as you can get, really. </p>
<p>" I was not implying that Northwestern sucks or that Cornell is better."</p>
<p>i know, it's just a running joke ... one of the kids on the NU boards (eldl-something) claimed that this 81% vs. 82% is a clear indication that one school has a stronger student body than the other - and called me a moron for saying it's too negligible of a difference to really matter.</p>
<p>As someone who got into both Northwestern and Cornell, I find it pretty funny that people actually go to such efforts to compare the schools. They're both great, top tier schools. Also, NU has a reputation similar to Cornell. Both are known as difficult schools that are strict in terms of grading, especially with NU's quarter system.</p>
<p>"The student bodies are as close to equal as you can get, really."</p>
<p>I couldn't agree more, gomestar.</p>
<p>and as for calling you a moron, he obviously didn't know who he was talking to ;)</p>
<p>but yea bottom line, they're both awesome schools that are comparable to each other</p>
<p>"They're both great, top tier schools. "</p>
<p>exactly, that's what gomestar (evidently) and I were trying to say, dohincdohinc, we were not trying to claim that one is better than the other, but rather that they are quite equal</p>
<p>caveat: this is weird...getting into colleges is supposed to be more competitive now than ever, with the surge in applications every year and all...what are Cornell and Northwestern doing putting together classes with, albeit slightly, lower top 10% of HS figures? i mean i guess it's just a tiny bit so maybe it fluctuates every year but still that's strange no??</p>
<p>the only difference that may come in to play between the schools is location - rural vs. suburban next to city. Otherwise, they're dead even. It's sort of like MIT vs. Caltech (in a way). The rest is just negligible. </p>
<p>Note: this is excluding obvious differences like the fact that some majors at CU aren't offered at NU (like hotel or ILR) and so forth (also vice versa with journalism and such at NU)</p>