<p>Why do people keep comparing cornell to schools like Berkeley, Michigan and Rice? We are an ivy league school. Our peers are Penn, Chicago, Duke, Columbia, Brown and Dartmouth. We are ranked in the top 20 schools in the world. We have some of the best hard sciences programs in the ivy league. We are not a state school! Give us the credit we deserve. With the opening of the new york campus Cornell will begin to rise to its rightful spot in the rankings, the top 10. Just wait for it. We'll see how many of you compare us to rice and emory after a few years!</p>
<p>Smh…have you lost your mind? I love Cornell, which is why I’m going there, but all the schools you mentioned are all amazing and for some people could definitely be a better fit than Cornell. Cornell is a great school, as are berkeley, Michigan, and rice. The ivy label does not automatically qualify something as better.</p>
<p>And on my own personal experience, I was rejected from Berkeley and wait listed at rice. They are not inferior to cornell.</p>
<p>I think you underestimate the other schools you mentioned. Michigan, Berkeley, Chapel-Hill, etc are top schools, albeit public. Chicago, Rice, Stanford, etc are also top schools. All of these schools are comparable to Cornell. </p>
<p>The difference in “prestige” is marginal and any differences are regional. If you live in Texas, for example, Rice is more prestigious than Cornell easily.</p>
<p>Your comments about other schools may not be viewed in good taste! College selection is a complex process and the decision is not based om “Ivy League” tag only. Students who intend to join the engineering profession, do consider Berkeley, Michigan as better choice. Similarly those who are pretty confident of themselves, will join Michigan and Berkeley, if they intend to do the undergrad business programs either at Ross or at Haas. Similarly, Rice is one of the finest institution for pursuing undergraduate education. Finally, Cornell is a great institution and is not inferior to any of the institutions you mentioned in your post. If you are a Cornell admit, feel proud about it!</p>
<p>People don’t always compare to peer institutions. Finances and convenience also have to be taken into account. I would list a comparison to my state school regardless of whether it is a peer institution because you need to know whether it is worth it to go to an Ivy League school.</p>
<p>@radishes</p>
<p>Were you out of state for Berkeley?</p>
<p>Because those schools are cheaper</p>
<p>I guess I’m just so frustrated with Cornell repeatedly being called the worst ivy that I really needed to vent. People definitely underestimate our school, and I just feel so bad that people view Cornell as being substandard or less prestigious than its ivy peers. The state school rant is also getting to me. I really love Cornell and have a deep emotional bond with the school. I take it personally when people make it seem as though we are the ‘joke’ ivy.</p>
<p>When I visited Cornell after being admitted and heard that freshman classes have 1500 students, I was instantly turned away, perhaps even more so when the junior level chem class I sat in had a whopping 50 students.</p>
<p>Something about that simply felt wrong to me. Only other ivy I have personally seen is Dartmouth, but as far as I know the other 6 don’t have such a “problem” (if you consider it a problem).</p>
<p>The comparisons are ignorant. Granted. But so is your insecurity and defending Cornell versus these other schools. I’m an HYP alum but would never speak poorly about Cornell or the others you mentioned. In the real world, I’ve learned not to underestimate anyone based on the school that granted them a diploma.</p>
<p>Tired of people calling Cornell the “worst Ivy”? Get real. </p>
<p>Dial 9-1-1 for your Wahhhhhmbulance.</p>
<p>I feel compelled to point out that, in the same ranking where Cornell is placed 15th in the world, University of Michigan is placed 14th, Berkeley is placed 21st, Duke is 19th, and Brown is 39th. </p>
<p>I think you might have more of an issue with public schools and what you mistakenly perceive as their inherent inferiority. Michigan, for example, receives very little money from the state and has actually considered going private at various points. </p>
<p>I agree that Cornell has a branding problem and doesn’t get due credit, but once you get beyond school you realize the differences betweeen all of these schools - from Harvard to Berkeley - in terms of the quality of student they churn out / education they provide is minimal. </p>
<p>Keep in mind that Cornell was built to be an egalitarian counter point to what became the other Ivy schools. It will always be perceived differently because it was built to be different.</p>
<p>Akimbo - small liberal arts schools also have massive, impersonal freshman classes. I eventually had very close relationships with professors and very small classes at Cornell. While I think efforts can be made to shrink class size, that should not have turned you off to any school.</p>
<p>Insecurity Police…We have a pickup.</p>
<p>Let me get this right… you are posting at 2:17am becuase you think other people are crazy, not respecting your school?</p>
<p>…Cornell’s mission statement of “…any person…any study…” sets it apart from the other Ivies & opens the door for the “worst Ivy” talk. It shouldn’t be compared to the other Ivies because it never intended to be.</p>
<p>stuckintx- It’s probably a difference in time zone. For me it shows 11:17 PM.</p>
<p>This is the only post I’ll be making in this thread unless someone directly calls me out.</p>
<p>The fact that so many of you are okay with this is part of the reason why Cornell has been on the decline for so long. Collegechica7 has it right. I don’t care what those avid Michigan supporters say, on the undergrad level, a 40% acceptance rate huge public school with much lower average stats of students is in no way on the level of Cornell. I don’t care if they’re a few ranks above Cornell in engineering, Cornell is still a no-brainer unless it was a full-ride vs. full pay situation, just like how most people would choose Princeton even though Cornell is a few ranks above it in engineering. </p>
<p>It’s sickening how bad Cornell has gotten; I recently saw some 3.7 cc kid with 1800 SATs and poor HS record get in to CALS as a transfer…an applicant whose application would’ve gone straight in the trash at any other Ivy. And yet so many of you so-called Cornell affiliates/enthusiasts are saying everything is fine and dandy and Cornell wasn’t founded upon being selective. Well, times have changed. It doesn’t matter what motto Cornell was founded upon, it needs to adapt to the quickly changing college admissions world, even if it means playing the rankings game. Don’t dwell in the past, cause the future is what’s more important.</p>
<p>"I guess I’m just so frustrated with Cornell repeatedly being called the worst ivy that I really needed to vent. People definitely underestimate our school, and I just feel so bad that people view Cornell as being substandard or less prestigious than its ivy peers. The state school rant is also getting to me. I really love Cornell and have a deep emotional bond with the school. I take it personally when people make it seem as though we are the ‘joke’ ivy. "</p>
<p>It’s interesting that every person that has ever said something like that is a “supposed” Cornell prefrosh. Once you come to Cornell, you’ll realize that it’s anything but a joke. I’m not even sure if you will have enough time to worry about petty things like this once you start school. Not in anyone’s eyes - Cornellian or not. If anything, that post shows that when you applied for Cornell you had the wrong motivations to begin with. That is your problem, not anyone else’s and not Cornell’s.</p>
<p>Also, realize that your prowess as an individual >>>> the name of your school. You’ll come to realize how many students that the ivy league institutions churn out every year and how many of them are incompetent (and that the world knows that as well). Your trials aren’t over. You will need to differentiate yourself from the herd. And yes, that goes for every school. Seeing a person who goes to Harvard and get a 3.0 isn’t as impressive at all. Seeing a person going to Harvard and actually doing something significant with his life is impressive. This is the power of the individual, not the institution. Cornell really gives you all the opportunities you can think of to succeed as an individual and is one of the best schools in the entire world. All you need to do is reach out for it. What more can you ask for?</p>
<p>Oh, the petty insecurity of prefrosh. I’ll admit sometimes I would feel that way after going on CC (where people simply “care” way too much - so much so that your life value is pretty much counted in numbers) as a high school senior (and I had pretty darn decent “numbers” mind you), I truly realize how wrong/foolish those feelings were now. Those “people” are just projections of your prefroshy insecurities.</p>
<p>(By the way, you definitely need some less academically competent individuals here. Otherwise, your life will be absolute hell. It works well that having a diverse and vibrant class also brings in the existence of a not-too- harsh curve - which is definitely needed in context of the difficulty of material that is covered in many classes in Cornell. Though, I agree Cornell needs to change its admissions policy a bit in how some of its schools handle transfer admissions, but that’s not on topic. What matters is that selectivity doesn’t correspond to educational quality, as schools like John Hopkins and Georgetown have shown.)</p>
<p>I cannot speak on the educational or overall quality of Cornell; I had no interest, did not apply, and know little outside of where it lies on the ranking. The real source of your frustration is admission statistics. Come to face facts. Cornell’s admission statistics cannot compete with those of the other Ivies. It has the highest acceptance rate, the lowest test scores, etc. These are the things people use to judge a school, and whether that is fair or not, it is just how it is. Cornell being bashed is the same reason why Harvard is endlessly praised. In terms of stats, Cornell IS at the bottom of the Ivy League, and it is much more comparable to Johns Hopkins, Rice, etc. in terms of selectivity than Columbia or another Ivy. In terms of an education and overall experience, it may be better than some of those schools, but that perspective can really only be obtained by an attending student, and there is really never a definite answer. To the one poster who started bashing Michigan for being public and having lower stats–I advise you not to take part in the same kind of nonsense that is being used against Cornell. And the fact that a Cornell student has to so vehemently try to assert his/her own school above several great institutions does not reflect positively on the university, either.</p>
<p>I’d argue Cornell is ascending. A record admissions year [38,000 applications, 16% admit rate, median SATs of admits 710 verbal, 740 math]. Ahead of schedule on the current $4.75 billion Capital Campaign, with almost $4 billion already banked. Winner of the NYC Tech Campus competition, which gives the university a much-needed urban base in addition to the gorgeous Ithaca campus. And Cornell football is even on the way back!</p>