<p>Admissions rates are plummeting and incoming statistics of most top schools are increasing year over year, not to mention people are applying to far more colleges.</p>
<p>My D enjoys her time at Cornell and knows it is an outstanding school.</p>
<p>If Cornell wants to change the way they operate and have class size as small as other ivies, they can boost the ranking right away:</p>
<ol>
<li>cut freshman class size in half - instantly lower admission rate to 8%, lower student/faculty ratio, elevate average SAT/ACT/GPA…etc. </li>
<li>with smaller class size, give full-ride to all students with need - instantly boost yield rate</li>
<li>with expected higher yield rate, they can cut down number of freshman admits - lower down admission rate futher to < 8% </li>
</ol>
<p>This will certainly silent Cornell peer advocates and Cornell will ascend much on ranking. With higher ranking likely comes higher endowment and boost the ranking even more.</p>
<p>But Cornell doesn’t want to do that, they keep bigger class size than other ivies. I rather they have the current class size so that students can enjoy more on diversity of talents.</p>
<p>Cornell is no less prestigious than any other ivies, it is just bigger.</p>
<p>I would like to state that being rejected does not increase a school’s prestige or superiority/ inferiority . By that logic, you could compare cal poly slo to Cornell since I was rejected from slo and will be attending Cornell in the fall. I am one that has no problem stating when a school is good but this post does hold some truth when it comes to world rankings. When will you ever really say one school will not be able to be compared to another if all institutions has some pros and some cons. Can we compare Harvard to university of miami without a fuss? NO!</p>
<p>According to world university rankings Cornell is not the worse ivy. People will say Cornell is the worst ivy based upon rankings but can not call a school like Berkeley inferior to Cornell? Come on now!</p>
<p>As far as fermet, naturally a school that accepts more students would have a broader median test scores and how can you call a school worse for having a bigger class? People’s logic has so many fallacies</p>
<p>^^I agree with 2Daswell</p>
<p>The size of Cornell was part of the reason why I chose to go here in the first place. The sheer amount of people here almost quadruples the amount of possible connections, potential friends, and potential to meet new people who are interested in everything from ancient world classical poetry to intergalactic space travel. Having this kind of immense network blows the other ivies out of the water.</p>
<p>
If you’re referring to my post, you misunderstood. Ezra was very clear that the any person / any study only applied to people who could handle the academic rigor. Its size and diversity, as is often pointed out, makes a big impact on admit rates and strength of what each program seeks. You’re trying to judge a school based on very archaic and simplistic indicators.</p>
<p>The reality is that UPenn and Chicago used to have an acceptance rate around 70% in 1970 and 1995, respectively. Yale was at 20% in 1997. So things are much more competitive now (probably mostly due to the common app). Is the education at Yale that much better today than it was 15 years ago? No.</p>
<p>The idea that Cornell’s on a decline when it has its most applicants, lowest admit rate of all time, and is building a whole new campus to address many of its isolationary shortcomings is absurd, if you’re using those as measurements.</p>
<p>More broadly, the idea of measuring intelligence and capacity in the 21st century by who can take a test best is laughable and useless. Employers of innovation think the education system is a joke, stuck in 19th and 20th century paradigms. Creativity and problem solving are the keys to success in an era of information at our fingertips. </p>
<p>I’d venture that Cornell, with its long-standing focus on practical applications, is actually ahead of the inevitable shake-up in a very dated academic norm.</p>
<p>[Ivy</a> League Universities / Schools Ranking - U.S. College Rankings](<a href=“http://www.uscollegeranking.org/ivy-league/ivy-league-universities-schools-ranking.html]Ivy”>http://www.uscollegeranking.org/ivy-league/ivy-league-universities-schools-ranking.html)</p>
<p>Rankings fluctuate and aren’t particularly accurate across different sources. I’d say outside of HYP, they’re all comparable institutions of different strengths if you are one for rankings. Anyways, Cornell isn’t particularly selective in terms of stats, but RD round for Cornell is pretty surprising for many people. Think about it this way. Do you want to go to college just so you can say that you went to a selective school or because of the opportunities / education that you will get? If selectivity is your primary goal, then go to the LACs - they’re on general very, very selective. “Unfortunately” for cornell, it has a compendium of courses offered and it needs to restrict its selectivity to fill the number of seats it has and to find suitable people for the less represented majors across campus. In some of those majors (say hotel and architecture), SATs aren’t the primary indicators of success (rather - experience / connections in the industry).</p>
<p>I also don’t approve of OP’s comment on Michigan and such. If all you know about a school is its US news rankings, you really don’t know enough to make such abrasive comments like that. Elitism isn’t welcome anywhere, especially in a school that has a motto standing against such ideas. I’d welcome an UMich grad who did well in college and contributed to society over a Cornell student who simply has his school name to rely on any day (as a Cornell student myself), and vice versa for any school.</p>
<p>Yeah, how can we be on the decline? In 2006, Cornell had an acceptance rate of 29.3%. That’s HUGE. Wow. I don’t even know how that’s even possible. So we’ve went down 13% in 6 years. It’s interesting how people never really bash on Chicago and Northwestern despite their rates. This also goes for top LACs such as Williams and Amherst, which were both at 20% last year.</p>
<p>I think a better argument against us is our endowment size. 5.3 billion + state funding is really quite substantial, but it does pale in comparison to Harvard’s 32 billion, Yale’s 19.4 billion, and Princeton/Stanford’s 17 billion. Ours is comparable to those of Columbia, Penn, Brown, and Dartmouth though. Then again, a school like Georgetown is doing okay with a 1.2 billion dollar endowment, so I’m not really sure how much effect it has. Apparently, the endowment is only responsible for 10.4% of our funding, so I’m not really sure what major purpose it has.</p>
<p>I don’t think any non-HYPSM schools really have any business bashing us… And even at HYPSM; it’s not like they’re on a different plane of existence or anything.</p>
<p>I don’t know what mean–my brother is a computer engineering and he did a co-op program at Cornell–he now has lifetime connections with a huge silicon valley company. He’s doing his pHD at Cornell starting next year, and he’s coming back this summer to work at the same company he worked for the co-op for a lot $$$$$ #CornellSWAG</p>
<p>So everything you said is WRONG.</p>
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<p>I have to address this since other posters seem to think the same way. Just because Cornell’s acceptance rate has dropped and selectivity has increased a bit since 10-20 years ago doesn’t mean it’s not on the decline. Just 10-20 years ago, Penn had the highest acceptance rate (I think) and the lowest rank, Brown was known as the doormat Ivy, and Cornell was nearly always considered on par with Columbia. Back then, Cornell’s rank usually hovered around 8-12, peaking at 6 (an anomaly I know), but nowadays it’s shifted to more like 13-15, and who knows if it’ll drop more this year. All these perceptions have changed just within a few decades, and it’s because universities like Penn, Chicago, Wash. U (and like every other top school) have finally realized that they need to play the rankings game and boost their reputation/selectivity/prestige to draw in higher quality students. Building new buildings, lowering admit rate, etc. is great…but you seem to think that other peer schools are just sleeping while Cornell is doing this. They’re all doing it too, and a better job at that. Yes, Cornell did get better from 20 years ago in absolute terms, but if you look at relative terms (comparing it to its peers), it definitely has lost some of its prestige over the years, which is why I’m saying it’s been on the decline.</p>
<p>When Stanford was going for the tech campus, one of the big arguments against it was that having more students with a Stanford degree would dilute the value of it. A lot of Chicago and Yale affiliates argue against expanding the freshman class size, which the respective colleges are thinking of. However, Cornell affiliates seem to welcome accepting more people and increasing enrollment despite having an enormous class size as it is. The tech campus is a nice thing yet a HUGE double-edged sword. The impact on Cornell, good or bad, won’t be seen for some time, and while the news media will probably make Cornell a bit more well known, having an even huger class size is going to have its downsides.</p>
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<p>Chicago did get a lot of flak for having a high acceptance rate before just like a lot of public schools. Why do you think they’re trying so hard to lower it? Chicago professors themselves have said that students in their classes have become much smarter than previously when their acceptance rate was like 40%. Northwestern’s rate has never been that high and close to those of other schools in the 10-15 rank. Also, they don’t have the Ivy League label attached to them, which is why Cornell gets beat on while they don’t. </p>
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<p>I hope this was sarcasm. You could find those kinds of successful people at Podunk state if you looked hard enough; what’s your point?</p>
<p>Re admissions, Cornell was 1 of only 3 Ivies this year which received more applications, and had the largest actual increase in number. Cornell’s 38,000 applications are the most in the Ivies.
Re size of student population, Penn, Columbia, and Harvard have many more graduate/ professional students than Cornell. These 3 schools actually have total student enrollments [including grad students] at least as large as Cornell.
Re rankings, all the rankings are wildly subjective. You focus on one [US News] where Cornell’s rank has essentially been flat for a number of years. You ignore the rankings where Cornell fares particularly well [e.g. Bloomberg Business Week recently ranked Cornell’s undergrad business program #3 in country].</p>
<p>On another point, I heard that Cornell is the most difficult Ivy to graduate from.</p>
<p>The reality is that Cornell’s retention and graduation rates are similar to the other Ivies.</p>
<p>Always the same people who enter these threads complaining about Cornell. Based off some posts I read on the Cornell board, Cornellians have the worse inferiority complexes.</p>
<p>More accurately it’s the same trolls. I view their fixation as Cornell envy.</p>
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<p>You need to go look up the definition of a ■■■■■. A ■■■■■ is not anyone who has differing views or opinions than you. The things wavedasher says isn’t what you would call ■■■■■■■■, no matter how much you disagree. He makes some good points, although some of them are a bit extreme.</p>
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<p>He’s not a ■■■■■. Just someone with a strong opinion on a topic that happens to disagree with your happy-go-lucky-Cornell-can-do-no-wrong opinions.</p>
<p>Cornelliens do not have an inferiority complex, they are just always attacked and have the pride to stand up for their institution</p>
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- Definition</p>
<p>Sound familiar? Someone secure with themselves wouldn’t feel any need to “stand up for their institution.” What exactly is there to stand up for? Cornell is an amazing school. Who cares if people say otherwise. A Princeton student wouldn’t be defending their school so adamantly if a Harvard student said Princeton sucks. He would know that this is clearly false and ignore him rightfully.</p>
<p>This type of thread happens literally every other week. And only on the Cornell board. The rest of the “top universities” and ivies don’t have these kinds of threads.</p>