<p>Hi all.
I am a sophomore in India. I know I still have a lot of time before I have to start thinking about college etc, but I've seen older people in my school struggle because they only started thinking when they had to apply and then ended up not getting in or not being happy with where they go, so I have started thinking about college now.
I have the kind of grades, extracurriculars, and general academic trajectory that will likely make me a competitive candidate when applying for most colleges.
I have spent a few days now, trawling through the forum. Nonetheless, I have a lot of questions about colleges, and specifically Cornell, which is currently my first choice college, and I was hoping the people here at College Confidential could help me out with. So here goes:</p>
<p>1) Is a double major within the same college (e.g. Economics and Psychology in CAS) a realistic proposition? The CAS site says its possible, but is it a realistic aim?
2) How well is the IB regarded in colleges in America? My school makes us do the MYP and the IGCSE (which is not reported for some reason) and then the IBDP. I ask because I have gotten conflicting information on this in the past.
3) How much does financial aid weigh on your decision? I mostly ask out of curiosity, I don't think I would need financial aid when going to college.
4) How are research opportunities at Cornell, particularly in psychology?? Are undergraduates able to do meaningful work with professors? Or are they just there for well, cleaning beakers and writing notes down and getting professors' coffee and so on?
5) Is there any way to accurately convert IB grades into GPA? Because when you add up the grades mathematically and get an average, and when you take the type of GPA where you take a 7 as an A+, a 6 as an A etc, the average is very different.
6) CAS has a foreign language requirement. Can you study a language which you have no prior background in, to meet this requirement?
7) Within Cornell which other colleges offer economics and psychology?
8) Are there opportunities to work abroad straight after graduation? Does the placements office at Cornell help you with that or are you on your own? </p>
<p>Sorry for so many questions. If anyone could please help me out with any of these it would be really, really great.
Have a nice day :D</p>
<p>1) Yes, some people even do triple majors in totally unrelated subjects. Economics is pretty easy to double major with since the core for the major is pretty small.
6) I’m pretty sure internationals automatically qualify out of this since they already speak a different language + english.</p>
<p>Hi I’m a current freshman in CALS, so while I many not be able to perfectly answer all your questions, I’ll give it my best shot.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Yes, double majoring is definitely possible! Many students do it, so no worries there. One of my closest friends is actually an econ/psych double major!</p></li>
<li><p>Personally, I have no experience with the IB Program (my high school was all AP), but from what I’ve heard, it’s very well regarded. The classes seem very rigorous and I have many IB friends who are excelling at Cornell!</p></li>
<li><p>As an international student, financial aid will be a major factor in your application. Cornell is need-blind for American students, but is need aware for international students. There is very limited financial aid for international students, esp. from highly competitive countries such as India. The fact that you do not think you will need fin aid is definitely to your advantage, although you should talk with you parents about finances if you’re not completely sure!</p></li>
<li><p>The research opportunities here are amazing! Undergraduates absolutely do meaningful work with professors, although you may have to start out at the bottom (i.e. cleaning beakers, etc.) and work your way up. I know several freshman who are already involved in very interesting research (one of my good friends has a job cutting open fish brains in a neurobiology lab!), and I know many upperclassmen who have done amazing things. If you want to get involved in research here, you will have absolutely no issue, esp. if you have any previous lab/research experience.</p></li>
<li><p>If you have letter grades, I would just convert them to a regular 4.0 scale, i.e. A=4.0, A-=3.7, B+=3.3, etc. I’m sure there are plenty of GPA calculators online.</p></li>
<li><p>You can study any language you want. I would assume you are fluent in Hindi, so if you wanted to, you could simply bypass this requirement. But if you’re passionate about language you can continue studying a language you have some experience with or start a new language entirely! </p></li>
<li><p>Both econ and psych are offered solely in CAS.</p></li>
<li><p>I’m sure there are plenty of international job opportunities available to you after graduation. I think I read in some article that approx. 10% of Cornell alumni live abroad, many of whom live in Asia. A Cornell degree opens many doors, and if you plant to work abroad, Cornell can help you do that!</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Hope these helped, and if you have any other questions, let me know :)</p>
<p>4) One of my friends worked in a pyschology lab, as an undergraduate he said he didn’t get to work on anything he deemed “meaningful” (mostly tedious work), so he eventually ended up switching labs. However, his notion of meaningful might be completely different from yours</p>
<p>5) Not sure if there are actual statistics on IB scores from India. But fwiw, I have a few friends from India in CAS/Eng whose scores ranged from 43-45.</p>
<p>Wow, I actually did not expect to get all my queries answered. :D<br>
I do have one more, if anyone could help out. From high school to college, how big a jump was it academically? I read all sorts of horror stories about kids who are straight A students all through their life and then suddenly find themselves scraping their asses through Cs and Ds. Does that kind of thing happen a lot?</p>
<p>Petersuu: Haha I did not know that internationals get to bypass the language requirement. I suck at Hindi, even though I am a fluent speaker, so it’s next to pointless for me, but still, it’s nice to know that.
WongTongTong: That’s unfortunate for your friend, hopefully it works out better at the next lab. Hahaha I’m guessing there are lots of Indians in CoE?
Cornellian926:
That’s really cool about your friend!
You dodged a bullet- our stuff is boring. It’s good to know though, if it’s well regarded.<br>
3)Hang on a sec- India is a competitive country in terms of college apps? That’s odd, it seems no one here but the international school students apply outside India, and when they do, it’s either to small LACs, MIT or the UK. Besides, well, from my own experience, there are barely any applicants to the Ivy League outside of Harvard.
Wow, that’s good to know. In India, half the universities don’t have research opportunities at all, and the ones who do actively discourage it. It’s amazing that even undergrads are able to get that kind of work that early, you’d think that’s only for grad students or med students.
IB grades, as far as my own research goes, can be roughly converted to A+ (7), A (6) B(5) etc. The thing is, when I find my grades’ mathematical mean, I get a GPA of 3.7, but when I do it through this conversion, I get 3.89. I don’t want to inflate my hopes, but I still want to get an accurate insight. What would you think would be more accurate?
That’s good to know. It makes applying to the US much easier to think of, since I don’t think I would want to live there or India after graduation.<br>
Thanks for all your help guys! :D</p>
<p>If you take a lot of AP classes in school, does that mean that you can major in more than two? So if I take up to multivariable calc in senior year, would that help?</p>
<p>@mrnephew Taking a lot of AP classes would certainly help, although you can definitely double major without a ton of AP credit. Cornell may not give you credit for multi, but you can get a lot of credit for Calc BC. I got 8 credits of calc for my 5, completely met the CALS math requirement, and will never again take a calculus class!</p>
<p>It’ll vary a lot from person to person. You’ll find a lot of high school valedictorians struggling with introductory courses, while a student who may not have performed that well in high school carries on just fine. However, Cornell tries its best to ensure admitted students are highly capable of excelling here. </p>
<p>I certainly wasn’t near the top of my class in high school (and I went to a pretty subpar high school), so I was quite nervous coming in as a freshman. Looking back as a senior now, I’d say Cornell was much easier than high school, but I attribute that more to personal changes rather than the difficulty of academics here.</p>
<p>^ That question depends on so many variables such as your time management skills, difficulty of high school courses, difficulty of your first year courses, how many credits you’re taking, etc.</p>
<p>^ That is true. I also find college easier than high school, but not in the content per se. There is just a lot more free time in college, but with that free time it boils down to how well you utilize that time.</p>
<p>Basically all of my Indian friends are amazing. Most didn’t take IB or A-levels but a national Indian exam, so it shouldn’t matter too much.They have done something awesome like winning Olympiad medals etc. Get involved and be awesome and you’ll probably get in. And let me correct this, financial aid has nothing to do with your admission. Quite separate offices. And I think Indians have some rich donor- called Tata- so if you get in, and you need aid, you should be fine. But for the non-Indian applicants, the financial aid is very limited and if you get in, it depends largely on your credentials and hence only a few int’l students get aid. Still aid comes after admission.</p>
<p>Hmm, I don’t think so. I’ve taken a normal amount of credits, and an abnormal amount of credits with both easy and not-so-easy classes- it felt pretty much the same.</p>
<p>The free time still depends on some variables, some of us have more credits, jobs, extracurriculars and assignments and just can’t enjoy the same liberty.</p>
