Non-Myths About Cornell

Colleges and Universities A-Z Cornell University
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<p>I just read the post in the sticky that “debunked” “myths” about Cornell. Some of them are actually true. This post is for those considering Cornell and comparing it to other Ivy League universities.</p>

<li><p>It IS snowy. That may be good or bad to you. Ithaca averages 116 inches of snow per year. New York averages 25/year, Boston averages 42/year, Philadelphia averages 21/year, and Providence 36/year.</p></li>
<li><p>It IS in a small town. That may be good or bad to you. The Ithaca metro area is population 100,000. It’s not New York (Columbia), Boston (Harvard), or Philadelphia (Penn), all of which are in the many millions of residents in their metro areas. Social life at Cornell doesn’t connect as much to the city outside of campus as it does in many other Ivies. Compare Cornell more to a place like Dartmouth.</p></li>
<li><p>It DOES have a large undergraduate population. Cornell has 14,000 undergrads, Harvard and Columbia have 7,000, Yale and Princeton 5,000.</p></li>
<li><p>It DOES have a very large Greek influence in its social scene. Cornell has 42 fraternities. Columbia has 13. Harvard and Princeton don’t have any, and Yale only recently started having them.</p></li>
<li><p>It IS heavily dominated by New York State residents (which are NOT necessarily the same thing as “New Yorkers” or denizens of NYC). That may be good or bad to you.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>In many respects, like workload and academic competitiveness, Cornell is very similar to all the other Ivies. But Cornell does have some aspects that make it unique, for good or for ill, and some of them are listed above. If you’re considering Cornell, it’s a unique and special place, but recognize it for what it is.</p>

2

<p>lots of frats/sororities but less than 30% of the student body participates? So that means there are alternative lifestyles no?</p>

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<p>Where'd you get 116 inches? This cornell site says it average 67.3 inches:
CALS</a> International Exchange: About Ithaca</p>

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<p>
[quote]
5. It DOES have a very large Greek influence in its social scene. Cornell has 42 fraternities. Columbia has 13. Harvard and Princeton don't have any, and Yale only recently started having them.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Wrong.
Harvard, Princeton and Yale all have Greek Life.
Sources:
The</a> Harvard Crimson :: News :: Underground Groups Make Headway
Princeton's</a> Fraternities Growing - New York Times
Yale</a> Daily News - DKE & YPU: Filling precedential shoes</p>

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<p><strong>Cornell has 58 fraternities</strong></p>

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<p>it's not 116 inches. I'm a atmospheric science major. Don't feel like digging up the data right now, but I would venture to say in the ball park from 65-lower 70s. Of course some winters are snowier than others, but 116 is a HUGE overestimation</p>

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<p>once again ffhrea making posts without having all of the information.</p>

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<p>according to another Cornell site, the all-time record for Ithaca was 122 inches....</p>

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<p>Syracuse, NY (the closest major city to Ithaca) has an annual snowfall of 116" according to multiple sources I see on the web. Check it out. So could Ithaca, only 1 hour away, be 67"? Come on. We've all spent winters in Ithaca, haven't we? And have been to other cities on the East Coast in winter to have at least some basis of comparison?</p>

<p>If you've never been to Ithaca before, make no mistake - Ithaca is one snowy b*tch. It's a hell of a lot snowier than NYC, Boston, and Philadelphia, whatever numbers you're looking at.</p>

<p>The fraternities at Harvard and Princeton don't have houses, do they? So they're not what many folks think of as fraternities in the traditional sense. The fraternities at Dartmouth are a better comparison to the ones at Cornell. And that's not to say that the other Ivies don't have their elitist clubs and houses. It's just that Cornell's take the form of the traditional Greek system, and it's quite big on campus.</p>

<p>Are there social alternatives to the Greek system at Cornell? Absolutely. But do any of them they get the attention that the Greeks do? Hardly. The Greek system is called the "center of social life at Cornell" by many people, whether right or wrong.</p>

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<p>The</a> Climate of Ithaca, NY</p>

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<p>("once again making posts without having all of the information.")</p>

<p>I'll be the first to stand corrected when I'm completely missing the boat, which happens plenty. But if you're going to try to convince us that Cornell isn't one of the snowier schools in the Ivy League, or that Cornell doesn't have one of the bigger and more active Greek systems in the Ivy League, then you're going to have to come up with a lot more facts than what we've seen so far. You can win every "battle" and correct all my numbers by whatever percentages, but I'm still going to win the "war" on the big premises, which was the whole point of my post. Cornell is in a small town, snowy as hell, big Greek system, lots of folks from NY state, big undergrad population - at least compared to most of the other Ivies. That's great for some folks, bad for others. Some love it. Some hate it. It is what it is. That's Cornell. This is for the high school applicants who know little about it. The kind of people who ask: "is Cornell near New York City?" The kind of people who are applying to all 8 Ivies, hoping to get into any of them.</p>

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<p>Well ffhrea, some of the facts you post are a little misleading. 116 inches of snow per year is absolutely absurd. Juneau, Alaska averages about 100 inches of snow.</p>

<p>Fun</a> Facts - Juneau Empire</p>

<p>Clearly, the weather in Ithaca is not as bad as the weather in Alaska. </p>

<p>Additionally, as a current Cornellian I've been able to effectively avoid the Greek System, as have many others. 30%, or 4200 students join the Greek system, but remember that this leaves 9800 students that aren't members of the Greek system. Thus, for those who wish to avoid the Greek system, the large number of students compensates for the large number of fraternities. Penn has a very similar Greek situation. If you want to avoid the Greek system, you can.</p>

<p>At Dartmouth, about 50% of students go Greek. That means that 2,000 students on campus are Greek, whereas 2,000 are not. Talk about an oppressive Greek scene.</p>

<p>Furthermore, there are other top schools that are moreso dominated by in-state residents; Stanford is about 50% in-state.</p>

<p>Finally, the total population of Ithaca is about 30,000 and Ithaca's population doubles when Cornell and Ithaca College are in session, and your comments in your original post about this issue are pretty accurate.</p>

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<p>Such a very odd post.</p>

<p>1) Ithaca does feature a northeast climate. I'm not certain if this is news to anyone. But thanks for informing us and pulling those snowfall numbers out of nowhere. Ithaca winters are no worse than Boston winters, save for the fact that spring breaks two weeks earlier in Boston, and the ice storms in Boston are awful. Everything shuts down. Coincidentally, Ithaca winters are no worse than Chicago winters, save for the fact that it gets ridiculously cold in Chicago and the winds off the prairie are nasty.</p>

<p>"Snowy as hell?" No. Not by a long shot. Come to Buffalo. I'll show you snow.</p>

<p>2) Ithaca is an urban oasis compared to Hanover, NH. Ithaca isn't a small town, it's a small city, with a lot of the urban amenities that only cities 4-5 times its size offer. It's not quite Ann Arbor, but it is altogether enjoyable for anybody not looking to be in a dynamic urban area. If you want a small town please try Clarkson, Colgate, Hamilton, Williams, Middlebury, etc.</p>

<p>3) You forgot three.</p>

<p>4) Yep. But each of the undergraduate colleges at Cornell have less than 4,000 students, and many programs feature very close-knit communities. And it also has a favorable undergraduate to graduate ratio, meaning that professors can allocate more of their time for undergraduate teaching. At Harvard and Columbia, there are twice as many graduate students as undergrads.</p>

<p>5) There are probably 8,000 students at Cornell not affiliated with the Greek system. That's more than twice the total number of students at a school like Dartmouth or Princeton, both of which feature social institutions with a much stronger lock on the undergraduate social scene. Cornell's mix of social options for undergraduates is very good.</p>

<p>6) I'm not certain what you mean by "heavily dominated", but fair enough, a full third of Cornell students are NYS residents. But keep in mind New York State is the third largest state in the country, Cornell is the land-grant institution for New York State, and several colleges at Cornell implicitly seek to enroll 50 percent of their students from New York. </p>

<p>Lumping all of these students from New York is also a bit disingenuous. New York is a very diverse state; somebody from Upstate most likely has nothing in common with downstate, and vice versa. God knows that I have nothing in common with somebody from Long Island.</p>

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<ol>
<li><p>Typical Northeast weather. Your data was way off. No need to rehash that. It's been beaten to death.</p></li>
<li><p>This I'll agree with. Not much to do off campus. Campus life is great though, thankfully.</p></li>
<li><p>I agree. Cornell is relatively large compared with other elite private schools.</p></li>
<li><p>The Greek scene is sizable but when you have 8000 undergrads who are not Greek, the non-Greek scene is sizable as well. You can have a good social life whether you're Greek or not.</p></li>
<li><p>There's a fair amount of New Yorkers. I don't really care.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>
[quote]
In many respects, like workload and academic competitiveness, Cornell is very similar to all the other Ivies.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Yes. Not harder. Not more grade-deflated. This is absolutely true.</p>

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<p>I'm from Long Island, and I agree with everything you just said Cayuga, so now we have something in common. And you love Cornell, so you have even more in common with Long Islanders, since it's a very popular choice down here :D islanders are too diverse to stereotype...we have japs and poor people and everyone inbetween, some of us are from farms and others wealthy suburbs. </p>

<p>I love snow, I love rural towns, I love big schools, I want a Greek system, I love NYers cause we're the best. This Now, if I could only pick a major to apply to, I'd be all set...</p>

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<p>"God knows that I have nothing in common with somebody from Long Island."</p>

<p>Hey! Not everyone is THAT bad from Long Island! Aha, I'm just kidding. I must admit, sometimes, I cringe whenever I come back home. Then again, Long Island is probably one of the most diverse, socioeconomically and ethnically, places in New York State (not NYC). We have the some of the richest and poorest areas in NYS. :(</p>

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<p>and there are a lot of things to do off campus! just as a freshman, i've been to shows at the state theater, at castaways, at the haunt.. you'll have no shortage of decent music too.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
So could Ithaca, only 1 hour away, be 67"? Come on.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Annual snow fall can vary significantly; Syracuse gets a lot of lake effect snow. I've spent a couple years in the Syracuse area, and a winter in Buffalo and in the Rochester area. Ithaca does have a northeastern winter climate, but snow fall is not nearly as significant as in other parts of New York state. </p>

<p>[Sorry, I didn't see the above posts until I finished posting mine.]</p>

<p>Ithaca admittedly is small, but it is still technically a city. You can't really call it a small town, because it is large for a town (and I know small towns!). </p>

<p>I don't think anyone would contest that Cornell has a large undergraduate student body. I would say that the undergraduate focus is still good in each department, though, owing to the numerous smaller undergraduate colleges. </p>

<p>I would agree, Greek life is pretty significant, like at many large universities. </p>

<p>Large population of New Yorkers isn't surprising; after all we are in New York! Most of the New Yorkers I know are from Long Island, which I don't find surprising either. I think the geographic diversity here is still pretty good.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
Then again, Long Island is probably one of the most diverse, socioeconomically and ethnically

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I agree. (And wouldn't it be grand if Cornell's Long Island contingent reflected that diversity?) </p>

<p>Besides, I never said that there was anything bad about Long Island. It's just that I have trouble relating.</p>

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<p>Coincidentally, only seven percent of Cornell is from Long Island. And only 1 in 5 New Yorker's at Cornell is from Long Island.</p>

<p>They are just more... visible... for some reason.</p>

<p>MetaEzra</a> -- Cornell’s Upstate-Downstate Divide</p>