@ivygirl18 is completely right. I’m a second year in the CoE and although I have had my share of stressful experiences, overall I love Cornell and the atmosphere. From the professors to students, everyone is there to help a fellow peer. The research opportunities and just the opportunities to express yourself and grow as a student are plenty, and I am really proud to be a part of the community.
Re: OP:
I do sometimes read of students who attend: Northwestern, Georgetown, Wellesley, Tufts, Johns Hopkins, Rice, etc. defending their “place” vs. Ivy league schools. But because Cornell happens to play sports with those few schools in the Ivy League, it is constantly being compared with other Ivy league schools. So this comparison is being brought up frequently, on sites like this. While those other schools are much less frequently being targeted with that comparison.
Whether they are “better” or not “better”, it happens to be the case that currently the other schools in the ivy league are more selective, overall, than Cornell is. The other Ivy League schools are also more selective than all those other schools in the first sentence too, but constituents of those schools aren’t constantly called on to justify their existence or place in the world due to mere association on the playing field.
Cornell is certainly “better”, in some respects than many other schools in this great country, and more selective than most of them. But there are certainly a handful of schools that are yet even more selective, and that includes the schools it plays sports with. That is nothing that one needs to justify, simply because some people are throwing it in your face. It’s just a fact.
I, for one, am proud of my alma mater but do not feel the need to proclaim that it is just as “good” as Harvard, on every possible criterion one might use to compare them. It is what it is. One of the nation’s great universities.
It’s true that there are variations in selectivity among the various undergraduate colleges. You can find admission stats by college if you look for them. I’ve posted links to them before. I’m not sure the university has updated them as they used to. But if you find the stats, you’ll see the differences are not as large as one would think, in some cases.
But in any event, each of its colleges has its own excellences, and their students have nothing they need to defend.
IIRC, the most selective program currently- which Is comparably selective to some of those other referenced schools -is Dyson/AEM, which (for the time being anyway) is in the ag school. So one has to be careful about blanket statements about selectivity.
post #4 is correct in that other multi-college universities, with separate admissions by college, are in a similar situation. However, rather than ignoring this, I think it would be more beneficial to applicants to shed light on it. If you are applying to an engineering program you want to know where you stand vs. other engineering programs, not vs. universities as a whole. This is not a novel idea, in fact when I was applying to colleges the college guides routinely broke out the stats
separately for each college of a multi-college university. My guess is it’s US News that changed that, by aggregating all the separate admissions stats for a university. Inappropriately.
it makes more of a difference at Cornell that at some other schools because its various colleges are more different from each other in admissions practices vs. some other universities. And also because its Arts &Sciences college is relatively a much smaller proportion of total than at most other universities, at about 30%. But there are certainly other schools where the practice of aggregation is misleading. (thinking NYU, Carnegie- Mellon,…) That doesn’t mean aggregation is right, or the characteristics (admissions and other) of the actual college being applied to within a multi-college university should be ignored. If you’re applying to:Wharton, Georgetown SFS, etc., you want know what your chances are there, specifically, not the whole university. And if you are applying to Penn Nursing, or Columbia General Studies, you would want to know those stats specifically, not some aggregate that may be meaningless to you.
I am also not disposed to necessarily agree with:
“Being a Cornell grad means having been through some of the hardest classes in the ivies”
My reasons for skepticism are posted in #1 here:
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/20187518#Comment_20187518
Hi, new admit here same EFC, awarded a 2000.00 grant and a Gardner loan for 4000.00 a year so not really what we were expecting. We had been hopeful for a bit more. Unsure we will be able to swing it financially but we are going to try to figure out a way. Visiting soon and we will talk to the financial aid folks. @karenlovely
@monydad Is there a way to drill down to the specific majors within a university with regard to % Admission rates? I thought it was a way applicants could scope out underrepresented majors and apply with that major to improve acceptance odds to their top choice school.
@OP, you’ve posted the truth about Cornell. The truth is out. 
I think it’s because people are too wound up on US News rankings. If you look at other rankings, Cornell is always found above other ivies like Penn, Dartmouth, and Brown! Cornell is a fantastic school
@helloworld4 while Cornell is a fantastic school, it is rather rarely found above Penn in rankings. Especially college rankings. What you are saying is true for Brown and Dartmouth, but not Penn.
Not trying to start anything but lets keep the facts straight.
Case in point:
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/1933948-here-s-a-new-college-ranking-based-entirely-on-other-college-rankings-p1.html
Another case in point:
https://uniranks.com/ranking
Same goes for other rankings showing the most entrepreneurial colleges, colleges with the most billionaires, highest salaries and also if you look at the USNews rankings of Medicine, Law, Business, Social Sciences,Humanities.
Also Penn and Columbia have a considerably higher RD yield rate that Dartmouth, Brown, Conrell which kind of shows desirability amongst admits.
While I applaud OP for their passion for Cornell, I can’t help but notice that there are no similar posts in the forums of any other ivies, justifying why ivy x is not a lower ivy etc etc etc.
I think the OP was posting this in response to something negative already posted about Cornell- I don’t think she was trying to just defend her school because she has an inferiority complex about it. makes a good case though for how unreliable all the raking lists are. You could prove a different case with each one, so in the end it’s really only about where the student fits the best.
No one agrees with me but I think Cornell is like Stanford.
My son will be attending Cornell this Fall. Last night he said to me “Cornell is the easiest Ivy to get into and the hardest Ivy to get out of.”
@Lvillegrad that is definitely true.
By contrast, I for one have no basis to say " that is definitely true". I believe it to be a piece of oft-quoted folklore that is in all likelihood is not true.
The best testament would be someone who has actually attended all eight schools. I know nobody in that position. perhaps Penn95??
I do however personally know someone who did undergrad at Cornell and grad at Penn, where he TA’d undergrad courses. He said the course level/expectations/ grading were essentially the same. And someone else who quite recently took classes at Columbia and Cornell and said that the coursework and expectations were essentially the same.
What I would not dispute is that engineers are often graded somewhat tougher than humanities & social sciences majors, and science majors in general have it tough. At most schools. And Cornell has relatively a lot of engineering students, and a lot of science majors overall. But I have no basis to presume that students in comparable majors, of comparable abilities, have it any tougher at Cornell vs. the other schools. Intellectually comparable students probably have it easier, actually, since Cornell’s lower tail of students is weaker than at the other schools.
@Lvillegrad I recently attended Cornell Days which sealed the deal for me! What an amazing place! Can’t wait to start my journey at Cornell. Trying to decide on housing. Any insight appreciated. Thank you!
Congrats! My freshman son loves it at Cornell. He lives in the Townhouse residences and likes it because there’s so much space yet he’s across the street from Robert Purcell Center (to eat) and the dorms. Plus there’s a bus stop near his Townhouse to ride on cold days. The Townhouse residences have their own social events so there’s a lot of community within the buildings. His roommates have a TV and PlayStation in the living room so it makes for great socializing. They hosted a super bowl party.
@monydad there are those rumors and articles about Harvard’s grading to give students ‘easy As’
Don’t know personally of anyone attending Harvard to confirm this though.
Mary Donlon has always been considered the “social” dorm.
@CALSmom :
First of all, Harvard is one school, of eight.The rumor I’ve read is that the average grade is A-. I did not suggest that there are no schools at all that have easier grading.
Even if this is true though:
Quick check of some comparables for classes entering 2014-5 (reliability not verified) shows average (old) SAT CR+M of 1430 for Cornell, 1505 for Harvard. CR mid band of 650-700 for Cornell, 700-800 for Harvard.
This is “voodoo mathematics” for sure, and is not remotely accurate, but just for illustration:
if it one can imagine that the 2nd lowest quartile at Harvard is getting B+ or B. That same group would be 2nd highest quartile at Cornell. Probably getting the same grade.
Harvard is a liberal arts college, with a very few engineering students tacked on. Only 30% of Cornell students are enrolled in its liberal arts college, College of Arts & Sciences. Back in the day, the grading standards at Cornell CAS were more lenient than some of the others; engineering for sure. I imagine this is still the case. My D2 graduated recently from CAS, and had very high grades. I love her, she is very bright (smarter than I am for sure, at least verbally), but her profile was only trivially higher than the average. Point being, I don’t know how much stricter grading at Cornell CAS specifically is. Though it is probably stricter than an A- average.
The one that is known for grade inflation is Brown. In part because students can take virtually whatever they want, and can drop a class anytime up to the final. IIRC. But based on posts of Norcalguy, a Cornellian and CC poster who served on his med school’s admissions committee, they are aware of this and somewhat discount their grades as a result.
@monydad interesting facts and I’m not surprised. I know that about Brown because my son did an OV visit there and the athletes were very candid. He’s STEM major @ CALS and likes structure so based on what he gathered from Brown (and Harvard visit) is that they weren’t a fit for him. So far, He has taken linear algebra, statistics, biology, genomics and calculus plus two writing seminars (not sure if those are thru CAS) and the grading has been tough. CALS doesn’t grade on a curve. The writing seminars have been somewhat easy for him, just a lot of writing that takes up his study time.