Lehigh v. Cornell engineering

<p>Thanks! Incredibly useful information, esp. w/ regards to women. They told us this year’s admitted class is 40% female which is extremely high.</p>

<p>If your interest in this is from a social perspective you should be more concerned with the # for the whole undergrad university, not just the engineering students alone. Because, as I said, socially engineers do not just hang out with engineers. They hang out with whoever they want to. All the undergrad colleges are represented in the dorms.</p>

<p>I’m sure the aggregate U stats are around someplace.</p>

<p>Asian-Americans overall for the Cornell class of 2012 = 17.8%
Asian-Americans overall for the Cornell class of 2013 = 16.1%
So the university aggregate figure = roughly 17%</p>

<p>Again, you need to add a few more percentage points for Asian internationals; maybe there are about 20% Asians overall. The male/female ratio = 50/50 university wide.</p>

<p>Colm did you see what is happening with the UC schools in Calfornia?</p>

<p>% Asian-Americans</p>

<p>UC Berkeley - 42%
UCLA - 40%
UCSD - 50%
UCIrvine - 58%</p>

<p>Lehigh and Cornell are completely different in terms of on-campus “feel.” You can’t go wrong with either education, but you neglect to factor in more personal reasons for attending. Those reasons could make all the difference in your undergraduate experience.</p>

<p>Cornell is huge and vibrant. Lehigh is more self-contained and intimate. If you’re going to compare numbers, then you should compare apples to apples: Cornell’s engineering school to Lehigh’s engineering school (and not the whole university). Also, you cannot ignore the overall numbers of how large a university is since they determine the overall scope of the campus and its students. Some students love large schools, while others prefer the mid-size or small ones. Choose what’s best for you on a personal level.</p>

<p>@Momwaitingfornew, I’m largely in agreement with what you say above. My only slight adjustments in evaluation would be to suggest that both the relatively distinct engineering school – and the broader university – at Cornell should be understood as a synergistic whole (with a focus at the engineering school); and that the medium-sized Lehigh, while more self-contained, doesn’t quite make the “intimate” grade as a school like Harvey Mudd does (738 students).</p>

<p>No, Lehigh is not as intimate as Harvey Mudd. But it is more so than Cornell. I would liken the campus community at Lehigh as being closer to Dartmouth’s than Cornell’s.</p>

<p>You are of course free to understand 4,800 people as intimate – for me intimate regarding a college resides somewhere under 1,200 students. People’s senses for non-technical discourse can evolve differently. From my perspective the prominent intimate engineering college will always be Mudd. Caltech for me is near-intimate at 2,130 students.</p>

<p>Colm: operative word = “more.” Lehigh is considered mid-size, not small. Intimacy can be achieved through means other than size, however: faculty accessibility and attention, the social scene, class size, the size of the campus itself. At Lehigh, students walk to most classes, and they interact with students from the schools other than their own. </p>

<p>The campus community at Lehigh is incredibly strong. It’s not perfect, mind you – the fact that Lehigh students get college credit for many extracurricular activities rankles with me, primarily because it discourages extracurriculars for their own sake – but, by the time students graduate, they have an intense loyalty to the university. This stems from many factors, including but not limited to athletics, the Greek scene, and class size. Cornell does not have the same level of alumni loyalty that Lehigh does, which tells one a lot about how connected the students are to their undergraduate experience.</p>

<p>I’m NOT saying that Cornell isn’t a good choice. It has an excellent engineering school. If I were interested in engineering, I’d rather go to Lehigh undergrad and Cornell graduate school, but that would be a personal choice.</p>

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<p>A majority of students walk to most classes at Cornell as well. The beautiful campus on the hill in Ithaca may be a bit more accessible than you realize.</p>

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<p>On what do you base your opinion that Lehigh alumni are more loyal than Cornellians? I strongly disagree with this belief—I know many (including a wife and child); they and their Cornell friends/associates tend to be fiercely loyal to their alma mater. There is a Cornell-versus-Columbia thread currently in the Columbia forum. Just check out the intense loyalty demonstrated by the posts of Monydad, and Cayugared2005, in that thread—and this is the norm for Cornellians, not the exception.</p>

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<p>Likewise, I am not saying that Lehigh isn’t the better fit for some students. It has a very good engineering school. If, however, I were interested in engineering (and I am), it wouldn’t take me long to opt for Cornell as a prospective student. Finally, proximity to Cornell’s exceptional graduate engineering programs would only powerfully augment the progress of my undergraduate engineering education.</p>

<p>I’m not liking how this thread has turned into a *****fest about which school is better, but here’s my input on the ‘intimate’ thing:</p>

<p>Just because a school has a larger number of students doesn’t mean it’s less intimate than one with a smaller student body. I think individual college/class sizes make that. For instance, my INTRO to electrical and computer engineering classes only have about 20 kids in each section, and as you go up in class difficulty and focus on classes for your major, class sizes decrease. Eventually you get to the point where you know a lot of people in your major and a lot of faculty. To me, that’s where the ‘intimacy’ gets important. I think both Lehigh and Cornell are at about the same level of intimacy when you get to that point.</p>

<p>Consider yourself lucky if you have both Cornell and Lehigh to choose from, it is a win-win.</p>

<p>“A majority of students walk to most classes at Cornell …”</p>

<p>More like, most everybody walks. They have buses running around campus that can take you out to the furthest reaches of the ag quad or the vet school, but the typical engineering student wouldn’t be using them, unless they wanted to. Pick up some ice cream from The dairy barn, maybe then. Aggies have the longest treks, freshman year anyway, but they usually figure out where to live to minimize it afterwards, I think.</p>

<p>That’s one thing people don’t understand, they see this huge campus, but it is heavily functionally divided into quads. Mostly engineers tend to stay in the engineering quad and the arts & sciences buildings. The functional portion of the campus that is relevant to them is actually not that big, is mastered in short order, and is most certainly navigated on foot.</p>

<p>“On what do you base your opinion that Lehigh alumni are more loyal than Cornellians?”</p>

<p>Yeah, what’s up with that. BTW you wouldn’t believe the number of alumni activities Cornell has in the metro NYC area; it dwarfs my other alma maters. Everywhere I’ve lived there’s been a Cornell alumni club, which has been useful to me, but the scope of what they have around NYC is on a whole other level.</p>

<p>This is current schedule of local events:
[Events</a> in Metro New York](<a href=“Constant Contact : Unexpected Error”>Constant Contact : Unexpected Error)</p>

<p>This is where there are alumni clubs, the three I’ve been in all sponored social activities, lectures, etc.</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.alumni.cornell.edu/participate/clubs.cfm[/url]”>http://www.alumni.cornell.edu/participate/clubs.cfm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>It was nice to be an alum when D2 got to use legacy status as a boost to her admissions chances there. Given the diversity of programs offered at Cornell, the chances that one of my kids would benefit from this might have been higher than at some other places. Several of my friends from there also had kids who attended, in various of its colleges.</p>

<p>Another benefit is that people who don’t really know me presume that I might be smart, once my college comes up somehow. How wrong could they be, but there it is.</p>

<p>It’s good to be a cornell alum.</p>

<p>Colm, thanks for underscoring that the Rossin College of Engineering and Applied Science at Lehigh, with 1,400 students, would be considered “intimate” in your book.</p>

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<p>ha!..</p>

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<p>Alumni Giving Rates:</p>

<p>Lehigh = 33%
Cornell =34%</p>

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<p>1) Nice try John. I was referencing the university wide demographic. Please check.
2) Nevertheless, even if you distort what was written in the post you cite above (and you clearly did shamelessly spin it), and address solely the college alone, it only ranked as near-intimate from my point of view. At any rate, that is neither here-nor-there, as I was in fact referencing the 4,800 figure. </p>

<p>By the way, regarding your comment on Monydad’s tongue-in-cheek line, I’ll assume that your “ha” was a recognition of the wry self-deprecation in what he wrote.</p>

<p>@Post #57</p>

<p>[Top</a> 20 Alumni Giving to Universities in 2009](<a href=“http://blogs.wsj.com/financial-adviser/2010/02/05/alumni-giving-to-higher-education-dropped-sharply-in-2009/tab/article/]Top”>http://blogs.wsj.com/financial-adviser/2010/02/05/alumni-giving-to-higher-education-dropped-sharply-in-2009/tab/article/)</p>

<p>For 2009 Cornell alums gave $446,749,553 in a tough recession, and they are number 3 on the list.</p>

<p>Colm, huh?</p>

<p>I just copy/pasted your post.</p>

<p>how can I distort when I provided your EXACT words</p>

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