<p>The West Campus dorms are actually decreasing the number of beds on west campus.</p>
<p>I don't understand why doesn't cornell reduce its class sizes. It's obviously a problem, so why is the administration doing nothing about it?</p>
<p>How exactly is it a problem? People are still getting educated, right? Research is getting done, is it not?</p>
<p>hire more teachers.</p>
<p>
[quote]
How exactly is it a problem? People are still getting educated, right? Research is getting done, is it not?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>The key to a good undergraduate education isn't the research, it's the teaching. Teaching should be first on the list followed by research. Research is primarily of interest to grad. students and of some interest to undergrads.</p>
<p>Put it this way. Research is everything to a grad. student (as a P.H.D. candidate, your not going to sit in a classroom and have someone lecture you for hours everyday - you're going to be out there doing research). As a student; however, it's different.</p>
<p>BTW, towerpumpkin - what other schools did you get acceptance into other than Cornell?</p>
<p>you're supposed to be able to learn on your own, by then. all other things being equal (which they aren't -- see below), there really isn't going to be a whole lot of difference how much coursework you know after 4 years, if you goto a school ranked 10 notches lower.</p>
<p>what's going to make a difference is:
-learning from smart classmates. hopefully smarter than you (even the best-teaching prof doesn't have time to help you with your whole paper/problem set)
-social contacts with classmates at high prestige school (way more important than you think)
-overall prestige of the degree
-chance to do senior year research/thesis
-recommendations from famous profs
-exposure to new and weird things/people</p>
<p>a school's excellence in research correlates strongly with all of these things because excellence in research correlates strongly with the quality of the faculty. </p>
<p>aside from the other students and the faculty, there's nothing. it's just a bunch of old buildings with really expensive landscaping.</p>
<p>I put teaching first in that list. I know what your saying, but Cornell is an university, not a college, so both grad and undergrad functions must be taken into account. Cornell is doing both from what I see; every graduate that I've met is successful and is very competent in their respective fields so in this sense, I see no problem with what Cornell is doing. Teaching and research are the two main functions of a university and as Cornell is fulfulling these functions, I see nothing wrong with how it is. Sure, it may be low on some arbitrary ranking, but in the long run, does it matter?</p>
<p>I applied ED to Cornell. Got into UF Honors and Penn State Honors, both full rides. Judging from the results of my classmates, I most likely would've gotten into schools somewhat more selective than Cornell, but I found Cornell the perfect combination for me. Why do you ask? I hope you aren't trying to mess with my credibility or something...</p>
<p>EDIT: I agree with everything ihaveabunni says. Cornell provides an environment for all of this to occur. That's why nothing needs to be changed; there isn't a problem with producing graduates (or at least it isn't evident from what I've seen).</p>
<p>"you're supposed to be able to learn on your own, by then. all other things being equal (which they aren't -- see below), there really isn't going to be a whole lot of difference how much coursework you know after 4 years, if you goto a school ranked 10 notches lower.</p>
<p>what's going to make a difference is:
-learning from smart classmates. hopefully smarter than you (even the best-teaching prof doesn't have time to help you with your whole paper/problem set)
-social contacts with classmates at high prestige school (way more important than you think)
-overall prestige of the degree
-chance to do senior year research/thesis
-recommendations from famous profs
-exposure to new and weird things/people</p>
<p>a school's excellence in research correlates strongly with all of these things because excellence in research correlates strongly with the quality of the faculty. </p>
<p>aside from the other students and the faculty, there's nothing. it's just a bunch of old buildings with really expensive landscaping."</p>
<p>you obivously do not understand the point of this thread. Teaching is the priority because an increased in the number of teachers will significantly boost cornell's rankings.</p>
<p>It's obvious that increasing the number of teachers would greatly improve Cornell's USNews rank by decreasing student/faculty ratio, decreasing %classes of >50, increasing %classes of <20. These three factors add up to 45% of the Faculty Resource section, which is 20% of the overall score. This increased hiring has to be done correctly, however. Faculty salary (35%) may very well decrease (or not increase as much as cost of living/inflation due to a tighter budget), proportion of faculty with highest degree in field (15%) may decrease (more teachers could mean fewer Ph.Ds and more hired to just teach), and proportion of full time faculty (5%) may also decrease (if Cornell decides to play with numbers to boost student/faculty ratio, or if they can't afford to pay people full time). As you can see, "hiring more teachers" isn't as simple as it seems; a larger endowment or opearting budget would have to precipitate this. I'll agree that more teachers would help, if done correctly. Besides, if it were that simple, don't you think Cornell would have done it earlier?
<a href="http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/college/rankings/about/05rank_brief.php%5B/url%5D">http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/college/rankings/about/05rank_brief.php</a></p>
<p>And BTW, threads evolve. It became a discussion on the purposes of going to an elite school, a topic that ihaveabunni's post relates to. I argue that USNews doesn't matter that much in determining school quality, but I am perfectly willing to discuss the ranking process.</p>
<p>We're falling into the trap of getting obsessed with the rankings. The same rankings we consistantly remind prospective applicants, etc., not to follow like a bible. If Wash U. were to become higher ranked than Cornell, nothing would change about Cornell. Wash U. could be ranked #1 and Princeton #15 and it wouldn't make Wash U. better than Princeton. While this thread brings the entire concept of inaccuracies in the rankings to light, let's not get caught up in obsessing over rectifying those inaccuracies by playing a numbers game.</p>
<p>Cornell would do best to worry about the overall quality of education, rather than trying to push into the top 10, in terms of maintaining and building its already great prestige.</p>
<p>"Cornell would do best to worry about the overall quality of education, rather than trying to push into the top 10, in terms of maintaining and building its already great prestige."</p>
<p>Exactly.</p>
<p>
[quote]
If Wash U. were to become higher ranked than Cornell, nothing would change about Cornell. Wash U. could be ranked #1 and Princeton #15 and it wouldn't make Wash U. better than Princeton.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>It actually depends. If depends for low long WUSTL is ranked above Cornell and how much higher it is. Right now, it's not much higher ranked and it hasn't been higher for too terribly long.</p>
<p>Yeah, sure, WUSTL isn't better or even on par w/ Cornell right now - even though it's slightly ranked higher. But if it's ranking continues on the upward trend, people will hold it to be Cornell's equivalent. </p>
<p>Lookat Duke university. It's been ranked top ten for so many years and now many people consider Cornell and Duke to be on par with each other. Many people rely on USNWR for rankings. It is the leading pundit on rankings database. It really is shaping people's views on things.</p>
<p>Look at Rose-Hulman. It's an excellent example. Ever since Rose was ranked #1 in USNWR for best undergrad. engineering, it's popularity has rose signficantly. Now, people compare Rose with Notredame, Illinois Urbana Champaign - who could have imagined a small school in the middle of nowhere could have risen to such heights? Without the rankings, Rose would be nothing.</p>
<p>True but I think you missed my point, being that the ranking doesn't affect the actual quality of the education, just how others perceive the school relative to its peers. People may consider Cornell and Duke on par with each other (and they very well may be), but regardless, what is considered on par whith either school doesn't affect the actual quality of the school.</p>
<p>As an extended metaphor, let's consider the economy. Just as how the Fed uses indicators from Lightweight Vehicle Sales to Consumer Confidence to predict the economy instead of directly evaluating the economy with some Econo-meter (which would be impossible to posses, and thus the indicators are essential for the analysis), USNRW uses indicators like Middle 50% SAT Score and Student:Teacher Ratio to "predict the quality of education" at a school.</p>
<p>If we were to somehow just increase alot of our indicators somehow, it wouldn't necessarily make our school genuinely any better (or our economy), it might only appear so.</p>
<p>Therefore, I think Cornell, while playing the rankings game to a certain extent to avoid a retarded and unprescedented drop for no good reason, should really focus on the core of it's success, the genuine quality of it's education. While this might truely necessitate hiring more Professors, etc., that is different from hiring a s**tload of part time staff and over paying them to adjust the ranking for S:T ratio and mean salary. One way is improving the education, the other is merely appearing to do so.</p>
<p>It looks like the rankings were leaked: <a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=89519%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=89519</a></p>
<p>If this is true then Cornell moved up one to #13 at the expense of Brown; Cornell moved up one in engineering to #9 at the expense of Purdue.</p>
<p>Why is wustl and nw still above cornell?</p>
<p>Do you want the honest and truthful answer?: The ranking criteria and weighting. :)</p>
<p>There is a post on the Yale discussion boards from someone who claims to have acess to an early publication of the rankings - lloks legit. Cornell moved up one slot.</p>
<p>yeah i saw theres a link a few above. Cornell & JHU = 13 Brown = 14. The real leap will be next year I think, due to the increased alumni donations, extra publicity, and lower acceptance rate for this past year/incoming class.</p>
<p>I'd say for next year 11 or 12; or 13 alone ahead of JHU.</p>
<p>It would be nice if we could surpass WashU and Northwestern...</p>
<p>i think honestly JHU/Cornell/NW should be tied for 12, and WUSTL should be like 15, that's an injustice.</p>