<p>by the workload, do you mean they give you tons of homework? or is it just really hard to achieve good grades?</p>
<p>-The hill: Unless you’re athletic it hurts, it hurts a lot. You get over it but some of the worst “work out” pain I’ve had was from making 300+ trips up the slope over a semester with no time for my shins to recover. It really hurts.</p>
<p>-The work: This place will eat you alive. Unless your other options are Caltech and MIT I can all but promise you’d have a higher GPA and a lower workload elsewhere.</p>
<p>-The weather: Last spring it was 7 degrees one day and above 50 the next. The cold is easy to get used to though and the hot is only at the very beginning and end of each year.</p>
<p>-The idiocy: The vast majority of the student body comes from a sheltered and homogeneous upper middle class atmosphere. They have no real world exposure, the closest they have come to poverty was a relief trip to Haiti that they made with other affluent Americans. If you come from that background you’re fine, if you come from the ghetto you need to be prepared to deal with a different environment.</p>
<p>-The idiocy: Some colleges have a lot of good professors, others have a lot of blatantly offensive individuals that do not care about anything but their own self-serving interests. For engineering all that matters is your research as a prof. Some of the profs are unbelievably amazing, the majority are unbelievably revolting in their incompetence at conveying material.</p>
<p>-The idiocy: In many courses you’ll be taught one material, have homework on another, and tested on a third. They either have an advanced or imaginary relationship that only the professor understands but never bothers to convey.</p>
<p>-Cornell is alive: Cornell is an entity. This is good and bad. The bad is not that easy to see but if you do enough digging around campus you can find out at least one story about decisions made by Cornell where they chose to inflict a great deal of suffering on the family of a student who was the victim of a tragedy in order to protect the endowment. The endowment is first and then come students. If a student is injured, or dies tragically, Cornell’s priority is protecting itself from the lawsuit no matter what damage that does to the students reputation or the families emotional health.</p>
<p>But ultimately, it’s Cornell. There’s only a handful of schools that offer as much opportunity as this place…</p>
<p>“…one movie theater…”
At this moment there are 7 movies playing at Cinemapolis, 14 at the Regal (different ones), and six yet different ones, on various days of the upcoming week (with weekend double features), at Cornell Cinema right on campus. Here where I live in Westchester there are many malls, etc, and between all of them one has available pretty much the same set of movies that are currently being shown in Ithaca, or at least it looks that way to me. </p>
<p>“…there is only one mall…”
I assume you mean the place we used to call Pyramid mall, I would agree Ithaca is no shopping mecca by any stretch of the imagination, but FWIW there are some other places besides just that one. IIRC there is a cluster of stores across from it, a few strip malls out on Rt 13, and the little shops around the Commons.</p>
<p>“-The hill:”- is actually good for you, at your age, think how that’s contributed to fitness. If it’s that big an issue for you target housing in North campus or upper collegetown, then no hill.</p>
<p>^
It’s always a tell when people say there’s only “1 movie theatre” or “1 mall”. Such people aren’t big city people - they are suburban people and nothing short of a massive cineplex playing the same 7 movies that are playing everywhere else will do. </p>
<p>Big city people would have found the independent film venues, great local restaurants, movie venues, and independent clothing boutiques on their own, as well as the vast outdoor recreation, realizing quickly that Ithaca offers an experience most big cities can’t. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, a lot of people simply look to recreate what they have known since birth rather than attempt a new experience, and then look down on any experience that doesn’t match their upbringing.</p>
<p>^ Agreed with absolutely everything you said.</p>
<p>Suburban sprawl makes people want oversized shopping complexes, complete with an apple store, ferris wheel, amusement park, car dealership, cineplex, and whole foods.</p>
<p>Those of us from actual big cities enjoy quaint mom-and-pop local eateries, quirky shopping, independent film, and undiscovered nooks.</p>
<p>i’d say it’s a personality thing…</p>
<p>some people are very outgoing and will go and find stuff to do even if they don’t have a car…</p>
<p>for just as many they will prefer the confines of campus and MAYBE venture when there is a car available.</p>
<p>This was more of an issue for my ultraconservative parents, but they found Ithaca to be too liberal. But then again, their definition of liberal is anyone who supports Obama.</p>
<p>Can anyone comment on the car situation at Cornell? My parents are giving me a new car for college, so I would like to know the pros and cons of having one on campus.</p>
<p>having a car means you automatically become popular…</p>
<p>it will be useful for those wegmans trips (make sure you have a wegmans shopper card) as well as late night movie premiere trips…</p>
<p>^Wooo, auto-popularity. Just kidding, I don’t really care about that.<br>
Anyways, I heard that it’s inconvenient for freshman to have a car on campus. Is that true?</p>
<p>I would say the opposite, assuming you can afford to pay an astronomical price for a parking pass. You will be one of the few, if not only people you are good friends with that will have a car on campus, so in that regard, it is nice to have it with you.</p>
<p>You wouldn’t need it most of the time you are on-campus since the most convenient way getting around campus is walking. However, it would be useful during those emergency times or when you want to go somewhere rather far.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t say it’s inconvenient 
but remember, you have to pay parking fee while others don’t :)</p>
<p>Thanks for the info guys! It was really helpful.</p>
<p>Rabbit, I appreciate your honest critique but how does Cornell differ from any other top-tier school? In all the top tier schools you can find snobby kids, difficult courses, and professors too occupied with themselves.</p>
<p>it’s actually more convenient for freshman than people who live off-campus and have to worry about parking on the wrong side of the street…</p>
<p>To be honest, it’s not that cold in Ithaca at all. At least if you’re from New England or so, it doesn’t seem like much at all (or any other northern region of the US). Also, remember that Cornell has one of the longest winter breaks (5+ weeks), so you get to escape then.</p>
<p>A word of advice: make sure you do bring warm clothing in August - don’t bank on waiting to go back home in October or November for them (last year’s late October- it was around freezing point with some wind chill)</p>
<p>Freshmen are generally discouraged from having cars. First year students all live on north campus, and everything is within easy walking distance, including Collegetown. The only time you could possibly need a car is during your upperclassman years, if you decide to live off campus. Also, upperclassmen will appreciate you not taking their parking spots ;)</p>
<p>
Really? All I remember is that it’s always between 4-5 weeks, and never more.</p>
<p>
Unless you are driving, it’s better for you to buy them after you are in Ithaca or buy them online and get them shipped to your Cornell addr, or you can ship them (which I personally don’t recommend).</p>
<p>If money isn’t an issue, definitely bring a car. Having a car will make going to Wegman’s, Turning Stone, the Commons, restaurants far from campus (The Pines, Boatyard, etc.), Beer runs, etc. all easily possible and will win you many friends and admirers.</p>
<p>Dislikes:
For some of the science majors, the professors are there for research. Thus they can absolutely stink at teaching and have an air of superiority about them. There are supplemental courses for big classes, which, from my experience, have been so much better than the lectures. </p>
<p>The weather sucks not because it’s too cold. When you apply to Cornell, you know it’s going to be cold. However, not many people warn you about the bipolar nature of the weather. It is frequent in the spring and fall that when you wake up it’s 18 degrees, and then it warms up to 45. The worst part of winter is not really the cold, but rather, the horrible, piercing winds. You freeze in your jeans then. </p>
<p>Also, housing. They really don’t do a great job with that questionnaire; it’s not based at all on personality or interests. It’s a matter of luck.</p>
<p>Likes: Although some people don’t agree, I think that Cornell’s diversity is great. I have met many students from Asia, Africa, Europe, even some from South America. Though most of the students seem to be from the states of NY, NJ, PA, MD, VA, CT, TX, and CA. Though this is diversity of its own.</p>