Questions about GPAs in Cornell Engineering College

Colleges and Universities A-Z Cornell University
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<p>Our high school senior is ecstatic to have been accepted into Cornell's College of Engineering. However, we are concerned about a few things that we've read on other boards. First, we have heard about a 2.7 GPA average for school of engineering yet know that many companies have GPA cutoffs of 3.2 or greater to even consider an applicant, which limits the job choices there as well as grad school. Another question is if the environment is one where students are nurtured to improve vs flunk out or switch majors (e.g. to liberal arts!) if they fall in bottom of the bell curve where avg grade is a B-. We've heard that in the other Ivys like Harvard that the number of students on honors is close to 80% while it is 8% in the Cornell engineering school. The "prelims" are said to be a rite of passage which seems archaic given these students have already proved themselves getting in to Cornell.</p>

<p>Finally, with the emphasis on grades at Cornell does this affect the teamwork enviroment which is encouraged more at school reinventing engineering teaching methods such as RPI? There is no question Cornell has a great program but learning engineering should be hard work AND fun and not limit future choices in the job market and graduate schools.</p>

<p>If anyone has insight into these concerns above please let us know.</p>

<p>Thanks in advance,
Caring Parents (EEngs)</p>

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<p>I don't have the answers, but second the questions whole-heartedly. My D has her heart set on Cornell Engineering. Unfortunately, we don't qualify for any financial aid, so we would have to pay full price. With her stats, she has received many generous merit offers from other great engineering schools. Our dilemma is that we know Cornell is ranked extremely high for engineering and that her opportunities upon graduation will be excellent. But what about the next 4 years as sandpit has questioned in his/her post?</p>

<p>Sandpit, you mentioned other boards? care to share?</p>

<p>And any current Cornell Engineering students.... please help and comment on our concerns regarding low GPA, competitiveness, nurturing environment, etc. </p>

<p>Thanks everyone.</p>

3

<p>for the first two years, the average GPA for engineering students is roughly a 2.7-3.0. Most of the intro classes like Math,Phys, etc are curved to a B- and occasionally a B. So yes, I'm not going to lie to you, doing well takes work. There are a few people that breeze by and do well, but they are in the minority.</p>

<p>I'm an ECE sophomore. First semester, I did terrible. I think i got like a 2.6. I've managed to drag my GPA back up to a 3.2 by now, and that's been through pure work. You see, I'm not naturally smart or remarkably bright (aka average) compared to alot of other people, so I need to work extra extra hard to do well.</p>

<p>I'd say that the environment, particularly within the first two years, is "supportive", but also unforgiving if you aren't careful. There are lots of people to help you, everybody from friends to professors to tutors, but in order to affiliate you must meet certain GPA and course requirements. There are plenty of weeder courses too. Most of the large intro classes place the majority (like 75%) of the grades on 2 prelims and a final, so doing poorly on prelims really can destroy your grade. I know several friends who ended up dropping out of engineering because they either couldn't hack it or they didn't want to work.</p>

<p>However, there are plenty of opportunities for internships and research. I for one, am doing co-op next fall.</p>

<p>But then again, if your kid is a genius, disregard everything I just said.</p>

4

<p>The average GPA for SENIORS in engineering is around a 3.4, and it tends to increase over a student's four years here. Honors doesn't really have anything to do with GPA, either - its generally ~2 extra classes and some sort of design/research project your sr. year. And I know one person that may "flunk out" of Cornell engineering into another school here, and that's because he hardly did any work at all last semester.</p>

<p>Really, before I came here (I'm in my second semester now) and even early on in my first semester, I thought the same thing - getting good grades in high school was one thing, how could I manage to do the same at a school with all kids of extremely high intelligence with curves in the B/B- range? It took the first prelim for me to learn that all it took to do well at Cornell was the same things that it took to do well in high school - a reasonable amount of studying, attending class regularly, speaking up when you had questions, etc. </p>

<p>Honestly, curves don't mean much at all. If everyone did very well in some class (let's say the means on all tests were in the 80s, everyone did all their homework), the professors and TAs for that course would use their own discretion in determining grades. I work very similar amounts in classes that curve to B-, B, B+ and even A-, and get very similar grades in all of them.</p>

<p>To get to the point, sandpit - I could go over anecdotal evidence all day long explaining how its not very hard to earn good grades at Cornell, how its not very competitive (I haven't met a SINGLE student who isn't willing to help others...well, ok, a couple of my premed friends insist on working alone - but not a single engineer), all that. I think the best answer for your question is to simply look at how highly Cornell's engineering program is regarded and see that there are very, very few people that make even a slight attempt to build a resume and apply for a job that end up unemployed after graduation. </p>

<p>And honestly, I'm not just saying all of this because Cornell has already beat me into some routine where I spend every waking minute of my life studying or attending classes. I don't know ANYONE who studies regularly on Friday or Saturday nights (maybe one or two weekends a semester getting ready for a prelim) or who never has fun. Hell, I went snowboarding 3 times a week for the first 8 weeks of this semester and didn't come close to falling behind. </p>

<p>And finally, to answer your question about teamwork - I have no idea what RPI does, but classes are pretty normal here I think. I'm not sure how there'd be any more emphasis on grades here than at any other school. It's not competitive at all, if that's what you mean. I personally prefer to do most of my work alone, but tons of my friends regularly work in groups. Some classes even allow you to turn work in as a group or with a partner (CS100, for example). And if ANYONE (it could be my best friend or some random person) asks me a question about a class, I couldn't imagine even thinking about refusing the answer because of some "curve." Nor could I imagine myself asking anyone a question and not getting a friendly/helpful answer. People just don't work that way, and honestly, when I do find myself explaining something to someone, I find that afterwards I am much more comfortable in that subject matter after explaining it out loud, step-by-step to someone else. Competition is literally a 100% non-issue, at least in my experience. And even if one's GPA at Cornell is bound to be lower than if that same person had attended a school where he/she is clearly in the top 5% of students, graduate schools and employers will both recognize that.</p>

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<p>Just one thing, I typed all that without reading any but the OP's post, so don't consider it a reply to anything said my Ameechee or RatedPG.</p>

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<p>And RatedPG - when you refer to "the next 4 years", are you talking about Sandpit saying that college should be "hard work AND fun"? Do you mean social life, in general, or more as in enjoying your studies?</p>

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<p>Oh yea and I should add,</p>

<p>It's not crazy that you will be studying 7 days a week. In my two years here, I have only done that twice.</p>

<p>I am in a fraternity and the cornell wind ensemble (but not this semester due to scheduling problems), so of course it takes some dedication and time management to juggle the engineering workload. But it's certainly doable.</p>

8

<p>I am in second semester and agree 100% with Live's description of the support and academics at Cornell engineering-</p>

<p>There are great research opportunities here and I am a member of a project team, that entails work beyond the class room. I have learnt in my short time here to work as a team member as well as organize my academic schedule with a social life so as to maintain a gpa of 4+ (Time management!!!).</p>

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<p>great insight from all of you! live - yes, by next 4 years I was getting at trying to understand what life would be like academically and socially. There's more to a college education than what job you get at graduation or what grad school you get into.</p>

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<p>Thanks for the detailed and thoughtful replies on the GPA and competitiveness in the engineering school. We're glad to hear the avg GPA tends to rise toward 3.4 once people focus on their specialty courses for their majors. Are their seniors in engineering at Cornell that can comment on job recruiting and graduate school admissions. Is a 3.2 Cornell non-curved GPA curved to be competitive with the other more inflated engineering schools?</p>

<p>Also, is Cornell still wedded to the huge lecture hall format for classes? Some engineering schools, e.g. when we visited RPI, seem to be moving to much smaller hands-on interactive teaching. Are there many hands on engineering classes or is it more theory?</p>

<p>Finally, with many of the big breakthus these days coming from the cross-fertilization of different disciplines, e.g. biotech with electrical, bio with materials engineering, etc., how easy is it to get double majors/minors. At RPI we spoke to many students that were choosing their electives in order to design their own second or third major/minor in emerging fields that have not yet hit the mainstream but could be important in the next few years.</p>

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<p>The intro classes do have that huge lecture hall format, but even then most engineering classes don't have more than 100 people. All of those classes, however, have regular recitations with class sizes of 15 or less (usually). As you go into higher-level classes, the class size diminishes dramatically; my CS class has like 40 people in it and my section has 4.<br>
In general, I'd say we're more theory-oriented. I'd say most top schools are; the hands-on approach seems more common with more vocational schools. That isn't to say that we don't get to see engineering in practice; many upper level classes still have labs where you get to do hands-on work.
Bureaucratically speaking, double majoring within a college isn't hard at all; I think you only need to fill out like one form. The problem is fitting all the required classes into your four years here; if you come in with a lot of AP credit it makes it easier. Similarly, if you choose related disciplines, double majoring will be easy as well. I know of a lot of people doing say CS and ECE together. You can also do an independent major--basically choose your own major and choose classes that you need to fulfill it (with the help of an advisor, of course).</p>

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<p>I have a sophomore son in engineering at Cornell. He is very happy there. I think a big part of his satisfaction is that he can study engineering in a great program with a lot of opportunies (he is now doing research) while still having a traditional undergraduate experience. He was leary of going to a tech-oriented school as he has many many non-techy interests. </p>

<p>re: grades and competition. He has absolutely not found a competitive environment in engineering. I know he has lent his class notes to others, gotten class notes from others, been in study groups, cooperated on homework, etc. He is doing well academically, but he has good time management skills and does his work, attends classes, etc. So it is hard to generalize from one person to another about predicting a gpa. But I do think that a conscientious student who does the work and attends class should be able to graduate with a good gpa and still have time for social/recreational activities. </p>

<p>I also think there is ample support for kids who need help, academically or otherwise, but the kids have to go get the help. Search the Cornell website for the 'Sundial" and look at several back issues if you can. This is an engineering e-mail weekly newsletter. (Parents were invited to subscribe at the engineering orientation meeting.) It always lists help forums for engineering kids, as well as a myriad of special lectures, forums, career info, activies, extracurriculars, etc. The first year the kids have to take an engineering intro seminar which I believe is small group (others may know better than I do). So kids aren't thrown into only large lectures the first year. And an available 1 credit (?) class for first year engineering is some type of extra help workshop, if I remember correctly. Finally, if there is any question about high school preparation for starting engineering, it might be wise to retake a class that a student could place out of based on AP grade.</p>

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<p>I am currently a freshmen in the College of Engineering and I have nothing but good things to say about it. Sure the transition can be tough, I came from an extremely competitive high school, so I felt very well prepared, but the engineering core class(Math, Physics, Computer Science) can be pretty tough. Engineering has it laid out that freshmen don't need to take more than 16-17 credits their first two semesters and there are MANY support programs for students who feel like they are struggling. One of the best things I thought was that for the first semester they made sure there were small math classes (i.e. my multivariable calculus class was taught by a professor and there were only 30 students in it). Engineers tend to have more work than other majors and it is definately harder, but it is in no way impossible!</p>