<p>Initiative/accomplished? It has to be relative to the context in which you grew up, opportunities available, etc.
But generally: research; awards in academic competitions–not just local comps either; perhaps an academic relationship with a professor at a local uni; plenty of volunteering hours–if you’re into that kind of thing. Basically going outside your comfort zone in order to learn and grow as a scholar. My comment was made not directly towards you as a person, rather your haughty remarks about Cornell, which i felt were unjustified. So, in turn, i too made an unjustified jab at you.</p>
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That’s true. Cal doesn’t have a hotel management school.</p>
<p>“The saddest thing about this individual’s post is that s/he is letting a bunch of high school kids who have never spent time in Ithaca convince him/her that Cornell is boring and cold.”</p>
<p>I don’t know much about Ithaca other than it’s spot on the map, but I have a lot of questions and I’ll need to find answers in case
Cornell becomes one of my top choices.</p>
<p>The third suicide in a month is depressing. May be Cornell offers a unique combination of factors that lead to depression and suicides. It may be not just the stress in academics and social
life that one faces everywhere, but all the external factors.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>We are spoiled in Cal with 300+ days of sunshine, how many sunny days does Cornell get? BTW, how does it compare with Ann Arbor?</p></li>
<li><p>How many days of cold, windy, dreary, wintry weather?</p></li>
<li><p>Do students feel locked-in, trapped? Can they escape somewhere? How far is the closest big city and how does one get there?</p></li>
<li><p>What do kids do during weekends? Is there a lot of binge drinking? How about drug use? Does peer pressure drive kids to more beer and more drugs compared to other schools?</p></li>
<li><p>Are there a lot more males on campus than females? Does this cause kids to get all strung up and not unwind?</p></li>
</ol>
<p>That’s the reputation that needs to get transformed …
or I’ll pick U of M over Cornell any day.</p>
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<p>Not as many as you get in California, but a hell of a lot less earthquakes, forest fires, and mud slides.</p>
<p>Ann Arbor is generally colder and grayer than Ithaca.</p>
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<p>This year the cold didn’t set in until the first week of December. November was beautiful. We had a small thaw in early February, and by the first week of March it was sunny with temps in the 60s. </p>
<p>All said, there are maybe ten weeks of ‘winter weather’ when you will be on campus. But some students come back for winter break, etc.</p>
<p>And winter weather isn’t necessarily dreary, especially for somebody who likes to snowshoe, ski, or look at pretty ice formations along gorges.</p>
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<p>If you’re from a big city, you will definitely note that Cornell and Ithaca is on the smaller side. But there are more than enough ways to keep you occupied in Ithaca, and most seniors graduate wishing that they could spend more time at Cornell. </p>
<p>As for close cities, it depends on your definition of ‘big’. Syracuse is an hour away. You can drive or take a bus. Farther afield, Toronto, Montreal, and NYC are all around four and a half hour away by car or bus. There is frequent bus service between Cornell and NYC – buses depart multiple times a day.</p>
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<p>Students do what they do at any other school on weekends. They attend sporting events. Go see movies. Work out. Go to parties, fraternity or otherwise. Study. Attend lectures or special events put on by the university. See concerts. Road trip to Montreal. Do community service. Go out to brunch.</p>
<p>Drug use is probably less than your average school. Drinking is probably a little bit higher. Plenty of students never touch drugs or alcohol.</p>
<p>I’ve also studied at Oxford and Harvard, as well as spent considerable amount of time at Georgetown. There is no considerable difference in the daily life of students. Your average Harvard or Georgetown students might leave the campus environment once a month, if that. </p>
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<p>Nope. Gender ratio is pretty much even.</p>
<p>actually, this thread has become even more interesting than I had initially intended; I had gotten into michigan a week before i found out about my cornell ED acceptance, and it wasn’t the easiest thing to have to say “no” to Mich. i still debate the two in my mind (ann arbor vs ithaca, etc), but think i will be very happy at cornell :)</p>
<p>CayugaRed2005: Thank you so much for your straight answers,
from your own experience!</p>
<p>Just one more thought about the weather: If you’re from New England, Canada, or the Midwest and used to being outside during the winter, the weather won’t phase you at all. I’ve only spent one winter in a moderate climate (England, and even that was pretty dreary due to the lac of sunlight), so I don’t really know what it’s like not to have differentiable seasons.</p>
<p>However, if you’re from the South or California, you might have some difficulty adjusting. The tricks that are used (water proof shoes/boots, always carrying hat/gloves, wind-resistant jacket) aren’t exactly taught in first-semester calculus. </p>
<p>I had two pretty good friends from SoCal who attended Cornell. They complained bitterly their first year, but they actually ended up staying in Ithaca after graduating to work for the university.So obviously they adjusted to the weather. Humans are pretty resilient, and we can adjust to most things.</p>
<p>The one thing I could never understand was the complaining about the weather. 1) It’s not like we’re in Chicago or Minneapolis where the wind/cold are almost unbearable. 2) It’s not like you didn’t know what you were getting into when you signed up.</p>
<p>Yes, in general, hiring managers in Southern California are more familiar with UCB than Cornell, and in general would consider Berkeley more prestigious. But if you run across alumni connections that would easily take care of that preconception.</p>
<p>I know when taking my pets to the local animal hospital I prefer the UC Davis, Michigan, or Texas A&M veterinarians over the Cornell vets, to the point of having it put in my animals records I won’t deal with the Cornell vets.</p>
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<p>Well that’s just odd. Especially considering Michigan doesn’t have a vet school.</p>
<p>to whoever said banks don’t follow b-week rankings, you couldn’t be more wrong. I was just at Goldman’s and JP, and they are loving Cornell’s rise in the rankings. What they love even more are Cornell science majors who are also taking AEM courses, it’s a “killer combo” according to a PMD. </p>
<p>and Cornell as the lowest ivy? first off- it’s so arbitrary to rank the ivies. when it comes down to it, it all comes down to your study. I’ll just throw in for kicks that no other ivy, no UC, Stanford, or Berk have my major…</p>
<p>I worked as an intern at IBank and worked at one of the top real estate consulting firms as a undergraduate from UCLA. While my comment may not reflect the most accurate picture of the recruiting process or prestige factor, I think I can add some pretty good insights to this whole discussion.</p>
<p>First, it should be regarded as a fact of life that it is much easier to get a IB/consulting job coming from Cal, Stanford, and UCLA in Southern California than from Cornell University, not because of prestige factor, but because of location factor.</p>
<p>Most of the recruting process for these jobs start as early as January of their senior year, and often on-campus interview is the best way to go. While many prestigious companies do obviously recruit at Cornell, most of the companies come to campus to recruit people willing to work in the east coast area (e.g. NYC and Boston, I presume). Granted, you can do some leg work with the recruiting staff so that you can interview with people on the west coast offices, but it is extremely hard to work around the circumstance. First, they have to LIKE you a lot to put some legwork for you, as to ensure that there would be a seamless process for you to interview over the phone or have the rep to interview you in person for the west coast position.</p>
<p>It is my empirical observation that I saw many Berkeley and Stanford (to a less extent, UCLA grads) working as financial analysts at many IB’s in Southern California. I also saw many liberal arts background grads as well, surpringly far more than what I had previously anticipated. Again, this should not be considered a knock on the prestige factor or caliber of Cornell graduates. This is in a way a fact of life, as most of the regional offices handle their recruting duties on a branch basis, with the exception tha the first sorting of resumes may be assigned to headquarter human resource department. But in the end, it is the people at local office that conduct a bulk of personal interviews, by far the most important phrase of the recruiting process. As such, you will have to make sure to arrange some special accommodation so that you can interview with specific people at local office.</p>
<p>On a side note, I feel a bit uneasy that many people here seem to criticize Cornell for cold weather, bleak atmosphere, and isolated and desolate environment/location. </p>
<p>These are not the most important factors in guiding your college experience, fellas. Thus, you should not really criticize Cornell for what it is. After all, it is the individual experience of each and every student that makes up the whole college experience, and simply dismissing Cornell for its less than favorable environment is to minimize the degree of personal and individual experience impacting on the overall college experience.</p>
<p>Think about it.</p>
<p>While Cornell may not be the most comfortable or even romantic environment for youngsterers to study, you may have the time of your life, as long as you meet a group of people who will remain your lifelong friends, perhaps find a girl who suits your romantic needs, and engage extensively in many research and club activities.</p>
<p>Sure, you might say, “But wouldn’t going to UCLA with so many gorgeous girls typical of Southern California scene give you a better chance of hooking up with a girl, dramatically improving your college experience? On chance factor, your life would be better off at least, right?”</p>
<p>Well, that was one of the main factors for me in having chosen UCLA over NYU and Berkeley back then, but I learned the hard way that the overall statistical data does not apply to and should never be applied to each individual. </p>
<p>Trust me, I have carefully researched into the dating scene at UCLA before entering the school, but it was no use, as I ended up being a lonely solo throughout my stay at UCLA : )</p>
<p>It was only after graduation from UCLA that I was able to dramatically expand my “clientele” base… I mean, my dating base.</p>
<p>Selecting a school based on general findings is probably the worst way to gauge your future college experience, and I have found relying on the “gut feeling” the most important indicator of your true happiness over a long run.</p>
<p>As for me, coming from a public school system to a large public school of UCLA, I have carefully and specifically tailored my second, third, and fourth year curriculum so that I could have a close and personal relationship with my classmates and professors. As a result, I took many classes whose class size was on average 15-20 students. So as you can see, you cannot really criticize UCLA for “a large classroom size” in general, because each and every individual’s personal experience greatly supplements or compensates for such general findings.</p>
<p>good points brought up ^ i was focusing on the NY area finance industry, primarily</p>
<p>and I agree 100% about the atmosphere…does it get depressing,sometimes… but really are you always happy in sunny skies? friends are what warm the heart, not temperature. Trust me, I’m a meteorologist ;)</p>
<p>about the atmosphere, on the otherhand though sometimes its awesome. This winter, we had a day where is snowed 20 inches in 12 hours, and the next day it was bright and sunny. Everyone went sledding/skiing whatever and we even had an enormous snowball fight on the arts quad (probably around 750+ people). Fall here is also beautiful. We weather is a nice 64 degrees, and the changing of the leaves is AMAZING.</p>
<p>I was living on the West Coast when I was admitted to Cornell. I can guarantee you that people were WAY more impressed with Cornell than any UC schools. Not that those aren’t terrific schools, but people practically drool over Cornell and its Ivy status. I’ve attended what I see as much better schools than Cornell, but none of them has the prestige (at least on the west coast) that Cornell has. On the East coast, it’s not even close. People are MUCH more aware of colleges, and education is a big deal. On the east coast Cornell is viewed as a great school, but often not in the same league as some of the top LAC’s. However, it’s still viewed as better than ANY state school (fairly or not).</p>
<p>Most people are idiots, let’s face it. Berkeley and Cornell are similar places. Geographically, as large science (especially Biology) and engineering research institutions, they are only rivaled or bested by Stanford and MIT respectively. (Cal Tech is just too small to compare). They are both big enough that you will have to put forth the effort to take advantage of the resources there. No one is going to hand them to you. They are both packed with super bright kids at the top of their spectrum of admits. Unlike Harvard, Stanford and MIT, where your degree becomes the union card of an elite social order, you may still have to prove yourself along the way. Berkeley has got some of the smartest faculty on the planet, if you have the tenacity to swim upstream to get to them, you will position yourself among the giants. If you care that much about status, worry about your grad school opportunities. I come from a family of Harvard and Stanford grads and they are not all wildly successful-we run a little eccentric in our clan- My kid had better scores and stats than most all of them, but didn’t get into MIT or Stanford this year, with near perfect SATs (at one and only one sitting) and straight As at a great private school. What do you think the admit rate is for white suburban boys at these places? 5%? if that? He got in everywhere else, with a Regents Scholar offer at Berkeley,… think of all the other kids like him at Berkeley and Cornell…can you really write these places off so easily!?! They are what you make of them.</p>
<p>^Statistics indicated Harvard, Yale, Princeton, MIT admission rate was 21 -27% in the 80s and 90s. This year they are all dropped under 10%. Many who were admitted 20 years ago may be rejected in recent years. (They were lucky to be able to apply back then)</p>
<p>The reason for the low admission rate is that more Asian descents are in their high school age these years and their parents are mostly top of their countries (parents are both Ph.D.s mostly) these are genetically selected ones. It is extremely competitive in recent years. Actually it is even harder for Asian kids to get in to top schools. If all deserving ones would be selected by adcoms I suspect there will be more than 50% Asian in each of the top schools. (It is 20 30 % in all these schools currently) </p>
<p>This year, about 75% were rejected by HPYSM with near perfect test scroes or are valedictorians. (info from MIT but I think other top schools are similar) College admission is tougher than ever these years and this year is the record so far.</p>
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<p>First time I’ve heard this assumption. Based on the numbers that I’m familiar with, the reason for low admission rate is more applicants from the kids of the baby boomer generation coupled with the propensity to apply to far more colleges than prior decades (seems like everybody has 3 reaches, 3 mid-reaches, 4 matches, 2 low-matches, and 2 safeties)</p>
<p>That’s why I like the ED system. One college, apply if you’re interested.</p>
<p>If you’re a California resident, being admitted to Berkley is not nearly as difficult as being admitted to Cornell. </p>
<p>And employers WILL know that Cornell is an Ivy League school. </p>
<p>California employers eat up Ivy League students because there’s not a lot of them in the West.</p>
<p>I was raised in Japan, went to a high school in Hawaii, and chose Cornell over Berkeley.</p>