<p>I have been recently accepted ED to CAS and fully intend to enroll at Cornell. But I was wondering how elite Cornell is seen alongside Harvard, Yale, or MIT? Please try to be as unbiased as you can. I know the engineering is tough, but how does the outside world react when you say, "I'm at Cornell for astronomy [or some other major]"? I know CU's acceptance rate is much higher than other Ivys, and from what I've seen of the average income of graduates, Cornell's degree appears to carry less weight than other Ivys. Am I misinformed?</p>
<p>Carl Sagan, Richard Feynman, and others taught at the school, but the people at my school only know, "Dude, Jodie Foster when to Yale!" when I tell them about CU.</p>
<p>So, truly and candidly, is CU seen as an outsider among the Ivy League schools?</p>
<p>I don't think it's seen as an outsider. I think most people give it more credit for most majors than Brown, Dartmouth, or Penn, and for engineering there is no comparison in the Ivy league.</p>
<p>I think this is a silly question. Build your own prestige, don't wonder if you can coast on that of a school. I'm got into CAS ED too, but I could care less what other people think about my dedication to Cornell or the school itself.</p>
<p>Anyways, I'd imagine a Cornell degree carries a great deal of weight, considering it's known that we are worked harder than the students at the other Ivy Leauge schools. I think Cornell's reputation is better than its US News ranking. It's hard for such a large school to have a very low acceptance rate, considering there are over 3,000 spots to fill in each incoming class. I also don't think you should be so concerned with what your pretentious classmates think :).</p>
<p>cornell carries less prestige in the layman's eyes than the schools you mentioned. There you have it, less prestigious. On the whole though, or even look in the USNEWS top 50 universities, cornell is d*** elite and carries a lot of weight when the name gets dropped.</p>
<p>The "outside world," as one may call it, upon finding out I attend cornell, in general usually gives me the "wow, smart guy" or "daaaaamn" or, if they know i grew up in princeton, sometimes a "why did you pick it over princeton?" (i.e. putting the two schools in close company) I was actually thinking about how going to harvard immediately labels you as an intellectual snob for the rest of your life (though it's certainly not true), simply because of the name of the school. SIDETRACK DONE, haha.</p>
<p>Anyway, cornell is a very well known name, carries a lot of weight, and you should not experience any "Corwhaaa University?" at a job interview. I wouldn't call it an ousider in the ivies, but it certainly isn't at the top of them, overall prestige wise. However, the bottom half of the "elite eight" isn't so bad now, is it?</p>
<p>Here's a list to recite to your friends, if you are feeling really insecure. It includes 8 nasa astronauts, which i found to be pretty cool. The link is directly to the entertainment/sports</a> section where some of the household names are. The list continues in both directions.</p>
<p>Cornell is very well renowned in the U.S. and, i would say, even more so outside the country. If you are a rank-nazi, you can reference those often-cited London Times rankings that put cornell higher in the world than U.S. news does in the country.</p>
<p>Hold it, now! Reiteration: I <em>fully</em> intend to enroll at Cornell. Does that not prove that I'm above all that pretentious stuff of my peers? I was asking a question based on simply curiosity. I chose Cornell for precisely the reason that students and overall attitude are not snobbish. What a pity that the outside world doesn't know how snobby Hahvahd is. (I did in fact visit the campus, and expectations were not really met, even though, oh no, Natalie Portman attended!.) But, in the end, the laymen's eyes are what matter when trying to find a job. And EVERYONE knows Harvard.</p>
<p>And, did everyone wake up on the wrong side of the bed today? Geez!</p>
<p>I'm well beyond graduation...Cornell has more than sufficent "wow" factor in looking for jobs and networking...for reference, I'm married to a Princetonian...while we joke about the "lower ivies," its just in jest...after a few years out of school, its all about what you're doing then, not where you went to college...there are just as many Yale and Harvard grads in second rate jobs...the diploma is a gateway (all top schools provide it)...whether you go through it is up to you...the myth that HYP guarantees something is in fact a myth...</p>
<p>Over and out.</p>
<p>PS - in reference to another thread...there were PLENTY of hot girls at Cornell in my day, but I must say I did have to look carefully to find one at the vaunted Pton...fortunately she said "yes" - LOL</p>
<p>to the OP: we're not waking up on the wrong side of the bed, we're just used to people giving us crap either about cornell being "unprestious" which is obviously crap, or people ranting about how their schools are more prestigious than cornell, for no good reason.</p>
<p>We all (probably) noticed that you said you fully intend to enroll, but for some reason, the wording of your post made you apper to be worried that cornell might not be prestigious enough to impress people.</p>
<p>Zemekis: Wrong. The Layman's eyes don't really have much to do with getting a job. For the kind of job where a good college degree matters, your interviewer/review board will not be made up of laymen. A coal-miner, fast-food restaurant worker, or daycare person might not have heard of cornell, but you don't interd to be working under them, do you? Those people probably haven't heard of any other top 30 USNEWS US college unless it's top ivy like Harvard/Princeton/Yale, has extreme prestige in a field like MIT, or has a well known sports reputation like Duke.</p>
<p>if it is, it's a significant notch below HYP in terms of name recognition in the blue collar world (obviously the proximity to northeast posters also affects name recognition in the northeast for all the northeast schools)</p>
<p>Let's not all forget that the London Times ranked Cornell as #14 in the world and placed it right after HYP in terms of the ivies. (Just being a little more specific about the London times report than one of the posts above) ;) ....None of these rankings really matter though. Cornell is a great school, period.</p>
<p>the hotel and engineering college are at the top of their areas more than the other colleges, though the other colleges are in general near the top. I've probably overlooked something important like no other ILR school existing anywhere or something like that though haha.</p>