<p>"wicked" true? where are you from, Maine? :)
hahah I don't know what The Hills or The City is but I can imagine...I know what Gossip Girl is, and I've met people who showed up at nyu imagining that their lives would be somewhat like an episode of the show :rolleyes:</p>
<p>No I am from florida, but it was supposed to be a joke. The people I've known from boston say wicked about 5 times per 1 minute conversation.</p>
<p>I always thought that Ithaca was just somehow outside of the "snow belt" that included Syracuse & Rochester.</p>
<p>When I was there it always seemed like the first snowfall occurred right during finals week Fall semester. Then the worst of it occurred while I was on break for winter vacation; when we came back there was snow that hadn't been there previously. During Jan-Feb we got a few decent blasts, but nothing so terrible. The weather was far, far worse when I lived in Chicago.</p>
<p>There are certainly tons of New Yorkers, but probably a smaller % in Arts & Engineering, vs. the "contract colleges". Not that people can necessarily be defined by where they happen to have been raised, anyway.</p>
<p>The fraternities were a minority of people; they did influence freshman year parties, but after that I never even thought about them. Still, I think the people that liked that sort of thing were glad to have these options.</p>
<p>Small city it may be, but not an ordinary one, due to the college influence in part. I really liked Ithaca. And I found plenty to do there too, once I had a car.</p>
<p>First of all, I'm glad to see people addressing all of my points, and while having lively debates about the nuances of them, seem to be agreeing with most of them in principle, at least to some degree. If you know anything about Cornell and the other Ivies, these aren't particularly bold assertions at all. I'm glad I could kick off such a good discussion. And I hope this thread educates some of the high school kids considering Cornell who can't yet accurately differentiate it from the other Ivies.</p>
<p>I retract the 115" of snow number. 67" seems to be the best number we have now. But let's still compare that to New York City's 25", Philadelphia's 21", and Providence's 36". Cornell is one of the snowiest Ivies. Which was my point. Not as snowy as I first portrayed. But it's still pretty snowy. If any kid from California or Delaware or wherever presumes the snowfall is the same in Ithaca as anywhere else in the Ivy league, he would be mistaken. Personally, I love snow. And it's a special aspect of Cornell to me. But it freaked a lot of people out when I was there.</p>
<p>And while I love the town of Ithaca dearly, it's still small compared to most of the other cities of the Ivy League. We keep seeing all these posts in various threads pointing out all the wonderful cultural attractions of the greater Ithaca area. And that's nice. And I love all those places, too. But Ithaca is still one of the smallest towns of the Ivy League. People who go to Penn, Harvard, Columbia and so on have their social activities connected a lot more to their surrounding cities than Cornellians do. I personally enjoyed the pastoral beauty of Tompkins County over smog, traffic, and panhandlers, but that's me. Some people want to go to different Bulgarian restaurants every night for a month.</p>
<p>As for the New York thing, it's true that Cornellians from New York do have a great deal of diversity. So it doesn't mean as much if you're from New Jersey or Connecticut or some other nearby state, because the differences will be small. But if you're from Iowa or Alabama or Idaho, and especially if you apply to one of the state-contract schools (ILR, Ag, Hum Ec), you may feel more like a fish out of water compared to what you would have felt at another Ivy.</p>
<p>As for the larger undergraduate size, it's a fair point that Cornell's compartmentalized colleges neutralizes this to a great extent. So I step back from saying that this is a big difference between Cornell and the other Ivies. Cornell is still a big Ivy, but it doesn't have to feel that way, and many people won't notice a lot of difference anyways.</p>
<p>While the numbers of "Long Islanders" (which I've noticed are often heavily padded with people from Westchester, Queens, etc.), aren't large compared to the population of Cornell as a whole, they certainly do seem to make quite noticeable "clusters" on campus, for whatever reasons. I don't know that any other Ivy has this. Everyone calls them the "Long Islanders", but they're really more of a "suburban New York City" contingent. And maybe it's more of an image than an actual geographic location. Many folks point out that these groups seem to be a much more tight-knit and internally-homogenous contingent than any other group of New York Staters or even Cornellians as a whole. I don't know if this is actually true or just a perception. Or even if it makes a whole lot of difference. As one person said, there are people from Long Island who running around in all sorts of different social circles on campus, and you never know it until you actually ask them where they're from. And to make matters worse, and I'm glad no one has mentioned this, there's often a hazy cloud of a perceived religious dividing line (Christian vs. Jewish) associated with the New York City suburbanites. Which isn't fair, because Cornell is very diverse religiously. Not to mention that religion should be a private matter for the most part.</p>
<p>The only fair thing to say is that Cornell has a lot of people from New York State, at least compared to the other Ivies, because of the state-supported colleges, and that this may intensify some of the regional differences for students from other parts of the country. Especially if they're in one of the state-supported colleges themselves.</p>
<p>I don't know, one of my best friends there was from Ohio, he married a girl from Long Island he met there. Their other friends were from : Wisconsin, Southern New Jersey, Seattle and Westchester. I don't think these individuals, in the end, had a big issue with these intensified regional differences.</p>
<p>My experience is that people are not all the same, even if they graduated from high school within 550 miles of each other, or even within 100 miles of each other. I think most people who come to Cornell come to that conclusion as well; perhaps after a period of uncertainty about it.</p>
<p>Probably most of the "Ivies" have a Northeast bias, though perhaps less specifically New York State; your Alabama applicant may not have any reason to feel appreciably more comfortable at many of the other colleges located in the Northeast. Cornell is not, after all, a SUNY; I met people there from all over the world.</p>
<p>As for the rest: there are obvious differences between attending college located in a major city vs. a small city upstate. Versus the various other settings colleges have located themselves in. Individuals may evaluate the pros and cons of each situation differently, based on their personal priorities. But I doubt that many applicants actually are confused about whether Ithaca, NY and Manhattan are identical environments, whatever this thread you referenced may say. Which environment is "better" for them to attend college in is a matter of taste. For example, I know of a number of people who attended school in the urban environments and became quickly dissillusioned with the nature of the college experience there and the lack of a true campus life.</p>
<p>I truly believe Ithaca is a highly atypical small city. I had a wonderful time there, and had a lot of interaction with the city and the area, once I had a car. Some people probably confine themselves more to the campus than I did; I think that's a shame.</p>
<p>Yes there is more snow there than some places, and less snow than other places. It actually doesn't matter how much snow there is in the urban areas, to an extent, it will be quickly gone regardless. So again, the important difference is more urban vs. other, which is obvious. I suggest all of you take advantage, and hit Greek Peak more than I did when I was there.</p>
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because of the state-supported colleges, and that this may intensify some of the regional differences for students from other parts of the country. Especially if they're in one of the state-supported colleges themselves.
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<p>I can definitely appreciate this, but I think it is only a problem if you want to make it into a problem. I was in ILR, and of my ILR friends, four were from Upstate (Rochester, Albany, Hudson Valley, and myself), one was from Long Island, one was from Brooklyn, one was from Chicago, one from Tennessee, two from Southern California, and one from Alaska.</p>
<p>That said, I definitely didn't live up to the ILR stereotype, and I tried to stay away from the kids who did, even if a couple of my close friends in ILR were good friends with such types.</p>
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I don't know that any other Ivy has this.
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<p>It's even more visible at Penn, and Dartmouth has an East Coast prep school contingent thing going on.</p>
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That said, I definitely didn't live up to the ILR stereotype, and I tried to stay away from the kids who did
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and what stereotype is that? are you saying you tried to avoid law school and reading? :D</p>
<p>Mostly, yes. But there was a certain contingent in ILR known for being loud, self-serving, only interested in a good grade for the sake of a good grade, and sometimes unbeholden to their professors or their fellow classmates. It probably didn't help that most of these students were in the same Greek organizations and from... downstate. </p>
<p>Their behavior wasn't atrocious by any stretch of the imagination, there was nothing inertly <em>wrong</em> about it -- and I'm certain that they didn't think anything was wrong. But it certainly came as a culture shock to some of us. After freshmen year I didn't really run into them all that much again. But as I mentioned, I had a bunch of friends who were friends with these students, so it was more of a thin cultural divide than anything else.</p>
<p>Of course, goodness knows what they would say about me. They would probably say they that I was pretentious, self-serving, and had a knack for wearing ugly flannel and asking annoying questions in class.</p>
<p>.. and, in contrast, I don't recall many people being like that at all. But I wasn't in ILR.</p>
<p>As far as geographic location and the big city vs small city debate, I grew up on long island, and was afraid that Cornell would be too isolated and rural for me. However, I loved everything about the open space and beautiful scenery and nature, and yes, even the snow. Cornell isn't just a small city, it's a true college town, and I would much rather live in a town where 95% of the people walking next to me are affiliated with the university than a huge crowded city.</p>
<p>I'm at Columbia for grad school and I definitely prefer Cornell.</p>