<p>My school's Valedictorian is having a very difficult choice between Princeton, Cornell, and USC for engineering. He's asking us all for advice and I said obviously Cornell. However, everyone else is saying USC (mostly) or Princeton, but totally dissing Cornell.</p>
<p>I can understand somewhat because he's not that interested in cornell, but then I found out he got the Hunter scholarship thing with research all 4 years. I don't think he really understands the enormity of the situation, since the research and faculty interaction will be big come grad school. </p>
<p>In the meanwhile, he's worried that USC won't give him the edge for grad school...</p>
<p>Pretty much it's coming down to people stupid preceptions about cornell. Someone outright told him seriously don't go there, there's some crazy suicide thing going on. </p>
<p>I just don't understand, it's such a simple decision. Cornell - research scholarship, top ivy engineering. At least choose Princeton for god's sake if he turns them down, but USC? Ridiculous. </p>
<p>lol I'm just in awe of my classmates' utter disreguard and misunderstanding of cornell. It's the OBVIOUS choice, but everyone is just ignoring it. </p>
<p>lol im only venting bc everyone is giving me **** about cornell at school, it's really ****ing me off</p>
<p>The Presidential Research Scholars is a cool thing to have certainly, but I don’t think it’s a deal maker if you’re not interested in the school. You can do research at Princeton and USC, you just won’t have some random funding for it. It’s not like you pay for research anyways, almost all of the money comes from the grants of the professors you work with.</p>
<p>While I think that it is a great opportunity, choosing a college should not come down to black and white, this deal is better than this deal, or this college will be better for grad school than this school. I think the truth is that you can be successful (or unsuccessful, for that matter) anywhere you go, and so there are other factors to look at when deciding. He needs to go to the college where he will be the happiest. </p>
<p>That being said, help the poor kid out by making sure he knows all that suicide talk and junk is false lol</p>
<p>I actually am debating the same thing as your valedictorian, except without the Princeton option. The problem I have with Cornell is the grade deflation (something that other ivies do not have). And no matter how many people tell me that prestige overrides the dip in GPA, GPA is still the more important for med school. Cornell also has massive competition among students, especially for premed. The appeal of USC would not be in its subpar academics, but its location, atmosphere, and school spirit. I’ve also heard that faculty at USC is very very welcoming, unlike what I’ve heard about those of Cornell. </p>
<p>If I were him, I’d go with Princeton for the Ivy name, obvious connections and cachet, and plus, no grade deflation. But not sure how good they are at engineering.</p>
<p>Cornell does not have massive competition for pre-meds. Every single premed I have ever met, talked to breifly, or known intimately and spoken with on the competitiveness says that it’s just not true. Everyone tries hard, but they don’t push each other out of the way. </p>
<p>So in the sense pre-med, by nature, like college in general, is competitive in the sense that most people are trying to do there best. However, it is not like some shared hatred atmosphere where people trick each other into not doing assignments or missing classes, etc.</p>
<p>You must live in California. That’s the only place I’ve ever been where USC would even be in the conversation. </p>
<p>I’d say just give him the facts as Cornell definitely battles an image problem from people ignorant about what it really is. Send him to this site or forward him pertinent posts so he makes an informed decision. In engineering, the Princeton name is not inherently superior (not sure what the previous poster meant by “Ivy name” since they’re both Ivy schools).</p>
<p>Says the person who has finished many semesters in Ithaca.</p>
<p>Well, I was just basing my findings on [National</a> Trends in Grade Inflation, American Colleges and Universities](<a href=“http://www.gradeinflation.com/]National”>http://www.gradeinflation.com/) while looking at some schools like Brown. I wasn’t trying to start anything, promise!</p>
<p>Are they saying that the mean grade for each class at Cornell corresponds directly to a student’s GPA? Like, they are saying that if the mean grade giving out in a class is a 3.3 (B+) then the average GPA of a Cornell student is also a 3.3, right? But that doesn’t really make sense to say that. I’m not trying to start an argument, I just don’t get how they can prove that the average GPA at Cornell is the same as the average grade given out in each course, or is it?</p>
<p>How is it mathematically possibly that the average GPA is anything other than the average grade awarded? The only problem I can imagine is that some people drop out after they fail, lowering the average grade awarded but not the average GPA - but this probably doesn’t have a significant impact on the numbers.</p>
<p>
Princeton actually has legit grade deflation - meaning the average grade is decreasing over time (and is now lower than Cornell’s). This is an official policy.</p>
<p>I just feel like there are too many confounding factors or that one of the conditions of the statistics used to describe the GPA based on the mean class grade (central limit theorem?) is not met or something like that.</p>
<p>For example, I think that a lot of the classes that have a high mean or median grade may be really small classes. Wouldn’t the number of students in the class have an impact on this?</p>
<p>I had a friend start at Cornell then transfer to Michigan engineering because he couldn’t handle the ingrained East Coast arrogance in the students. </p>
<p>To each their own. He was very happy with his choice. I’m sure you will be too.</p>
<p>It seems like USC and Cornell actually have a lot of cross admits, I was almost one of them, if I wasn’t ED to Cornell. I think, based on the reasoning, yes the valedictorian is being irrational.</p>
<p>Two of my good friends were in the same situation. One girl ended up choosing Princeton ovr cornell and the boy ended up choosing USC over cornell. we’re from NJ.</p>