<p>Hey,</p>
<p>I intend to apply to Cornell for fall 2015. Cornell's Engineering Physics program really fascinates me! I reckon, those who are studying EP must find it amusing. Please, share your academic and research experience in EP if you can.
Also, any advice for applying to Cornell's College of Engineering?</p>
<p>Thank you.</p>
<p>I’m only an old alum, and I didn’t major in Engineering physics. But since nobody more relevant is responding I’ll tell you what I think.</p>
<p>In my day, at least, one did not immediately enroll as an EP (or any other) major within the engineering college, that choice was made after a year or two. Matriculation to the EP major was not a given, one had to have done well enough in the prerequisite courses.Which makes sense, because if one didn’t they probably could not survive the major.</p>
<p>It was regarded as the most intellectually demanding major in the engineering school, and the people I knew who majored in it were brilliant. The physics "core’ courses were essentially interchangable with the comparable courses in the CAS physics major, I think. Which were very high-level courses. But EP offered upper-level electives in various “applied” areas.</p>
<p>It was regarded as a great program.</p>
<p>As for applying to COE, I’m not sure what to tell you. Make sure you look up all the prerequisites and meet them. I’m sure there is some place in the application where you articulate what you want to study, and why. And why you want to do it at Cornell. And why you want to do it at it’s engineering college. Regarding the first, it is probably more than ok to say something like “As of now I’m thinking of x, but I realize that I will learn a whole lot more about the various engineering fields once I get there, so this could change”. If you say you want EP your application might be viewed as expressing most realistic goals if your stats are towards the upper percentiles, statistically, of students who matricuate to the college. Or at least not towards the lower ranges.</p>
<p>Adn since Cornell is just one school, with difficult and not completely predictable admissions standards, you should do the same with a suitable list of other colleges/ universities.</p>
<p>Hope that helps. FWIW.</p>
<p>Thank you @monydad. I truly appreciate your insight.</p>
<p>I thought I wanted to Engineering Physics but I realized that it wasn’t for me. It was fun but I didn’t really want to go into research or grad school. Lasers and Photonics is a really fun intro class though for Engineering Physics, but it is really hard. EP has a heavy workload, which I couldn’t handle. It was very interested but I couldn’t see myself doing it after I graduated. Many of my friends are currently doing it though. Which you would also tend to take the honors physics sequence instead of the regular physics sequence that most engineers take. (Ironically, most of the people I know that are in EP are girls even though EP is very heavily male-dominated)</p>
<p>As for getting into COE, visit the college, make sure they know that you are interested in coming here. That’s what I did and I’m pretty sure if I hadn’t, I might not have gotten in. In your essay about why you want to go into Cornell engineering, make sure you use things that shows that you’ve done your research about the school, make it feel personal instead of a general college essay. Also make sure you mention that you want to be in EP when you apply, it’s very small right now. (And I think it might’ve helped me even though I changed my mind halfway through the year)</p>
<p>Thanks for your reply @DreamingGirl.
I actually want to do EP for keeping my options open for Nuclear Engineering or Nanotechnology in graduate school. Do you think EP would be the right choice for me?</p>
<p>If you do major in AEP (applied engineering physics, as it’s usually called), you won’t even take your first AEP class until Sophomore fall.</p>
<p>Yes, I think it would. There is definitely a lot of research going on with Nanotech in EP if you wanted to to do that. In fact my advisor was researching things with nanotech and intro to nanotech would be a good class to take for your intro to engineering class to get a feel if thats what you want to do.</p>
<p>I appreciate all of the advices.</p>