<p>“If you want to do law school for example, your GPA is very important, so make sure you pick a major where it will be manageable to get a high GPA.”</p>
<p>This is my point about the median grades on the transcript. If you pick a major with a high median grade, then will it will be confirmed that you picked an easy major to get a high GPA in right on the transcript.</p>
<p>What about picking a major you are interested in? I think people tend to do well on things they are interested in. My older one aced all of her econ and finance courses. I don’t think it would be the case for my younger daughter, but tshe is getting As in her hard humanities courses.</p>
<p>Exactly, Old Fort. Pick a major you are interested in, not one that has been traditionally seen as “an easy A” just so that you will get into a top law school. Now that median grades are sent along with those “easy A’s” these majors may not look the same to these schools. I believe that one will get into a top law school from Cornell if they pick a major that reflects hard work by earning high grades and showing passion for studies through related clubs and activities.</p>
<p>My D is still undecided and I would never want her swayed by some of the philosophies of her fellow classmates who are picking easy majors that they state that they “hate” and trying to avoid pre-recs in majors that could “kill their GPA.” True, her GPA may not be a 4.0 at the moment but she is doing very well and is just about done with those pre-recs so everything will open up to her.</p>
<p>So maybe showing median grades is a good thing. Now students may try to take some hard courses to show rigor of their course load. Students are suppose to stretch themselves in college. If they wanted to get easy As maybe they should go to a smaller pond.</p>
<p>My younger daughter was The Writer in our family. If she just tried in high school, her papers were all As. Her English and History teachers all described her as “best ever…” She did her best work on her first round of papers beginning of semester and she got B - A-. She was very discouraged with her results. She went to see her professors/TAs to go over her papers. They wanted her to elaborate more, go deeper with her analysis. She took in their suggestions and pushed herself further. She recently got a perfect score on her upper level philosophy paper. </p>
<p>I am very proud of her, not because of her grade, but that she is able to rise up to the occassion when pushed and she is not a whiner. I think most Cornell students are like her. I work with many young Cornell graduates. I find them to be great doers and they don’t give up when things get tough.</p>
<p>For top law schools, it’s fairly well-established that a high GPA, regardless of major difficulty is what matters most. Ideally they would control for difficulty, but really all that means if that if you get an A in a hard major, your chances are higher, but a B in that same major won’t be adjusted accordingly because admissions wants A’s. That said, my advice wasn’t to pick an “easy” major, but merely one where it is manageable to get a high GPA. For example, I would not advise someone pursue engineering as a pre-law track because you can be an excellent engineering student, and still have a GPA under 3.5. If you are passionate about both law and engineering, you may have to temper your expectations of the type of law school you will get into, or work extra hard to get A’s in your engineering courses, which for some may cause excessive stress. It’s important to be realistic and weigh the trade-offs between goals. If law school was my priority, I would not also go for engineering. It also means that when you are picking your elective courses, you may want to bias your choices a bit towards ones with higher grades…</p>
<p>I’m glad I didn’t want to do law school and confront those trade-offs. Some of my favorite courses were hard electives where I didn’t put undue stress on myself to get an A. As an example, I took a 300-level music course and got a B yet I probably worked harder in that course than any other at Cornell. I woke up at 7am every weekday and listened/analyzed music for 2 hours. At the beginning of the semester I was completely lost in the subject, at the end, I got an A- on my final paper. The pre-req for the class was the ability to read music, but really music theory should have been necessary. Nonetheless, I learned a lot and I will carry with me for the rest of my life better skills to appreciate a greater variety of music.</p>
<p>^
Yeah, I was wondering why you took 22 credit hours for one semester and bothered to minor in German.</p>
<p>It seems like you could have had a 3.7-3.8 if you had played the GPA game.</p>
<p>I don’t think the median grade report is a bad thing per se, especially since my D is not pursuing law school or med school so the obtaining the highest possible GPA is not the driving motivator for her at Cornell. I was just wondering how law schools or med schools would view 2 Cornell students since they have started placing the median grades on the transcripts both trying for the same spot, for example one student with median grades reflecting an “easier” major and thus a higher GPA vs. another with a slightly lower GPA but lower median grades to balance it. </p>
<p>If it is all GPA driven for top law schools like it has been stated, then my D’s friend is right -pick the easiest major, even if she “hates” it, because the median grades are irrelevant - the students with the passion for their major and the lower GPA and median grades will not get in over these students. </p>
<p>So again, I don’t get the point of median grades on the transcripts then if top law schools disregard them. Is there any recent data to law and med schools since they started posting the median grade reports?</p>
<p>I think it’s Cornell’s <em>hope</em> that publishing median grades shows how high quality its students are and that someone with a 3.0 in Physics is at least on par with someone with a 4.0 in History at XYZ Average University. I don’t know if there’s data, but also I don’t think this is really a secret though. The LSAT already data shows university/major and they know that as well as anyone so I doubt admissions are learning anything they don’t already know by having median grades published (LSAT scores matter a lot too). I think law schools really do value GPAs. Because who is really to say that a 4.0 History student wouldn’t have achieved a 4.0 in Physics? Not all majors are created equal, but just because your major is less challenging, doesn’t mean it’s any less valuable. I think there are enough people with high LSAT scores and high GPAs, that any other aspect of an application be ignored.</p>
<p>I also don’t see there really being any way to take away from the bias that an A is good no matter what and shows a superior student. Everyone know from elementary school that A’s are what indicates high performance. Even if the median grade in a class is an A, where getting an A doesn’t really show a “superior” student, but just that the student is sufficiently competent in the course.</p>
<p>
An engineering major may find history or government course very challenging, likewise a history major may find a STEM course very challenging. Most people tend to do well in subjects they are interested in, therefore I don’t understand why people would pick a major they hate. </p>
<p>Saugus clearly has no interest in economics. Why he would want to major in econ and work in IB is beyond me. It would be 40+ years of doing something he hates.</p>
<p>Statements like that are meant to capture averages. Yes, passion matters. That said, I’ve known many engineers who hate liberal arts take those courses, find them easy, and get A’s. Those same engineers might have a sub 2.8 GPA. But to your point, I’ve met engineers with high GPAs struggle in a Government class. I’ve taken a wide variety of courses at Cornell and am generally interested in many subjects (hence why I was CAS), and some departments are consistently more difficult. Some academic disciplines simply require deeper thinking and synthesis of a greater body of knowledge. What it takes to become what is considered an expert historian is not at the same level as what it takes to be an expert in physics.</p>
<p>The age old “chicken or the egg” debate. Do we have a keener interest in a subject area because it comes easier to us or does it come easier to us because we are interested in it? As far as learning profiles go they are generally three types: 1) Those with moderately to substatially higher verbal as oppossed to nonverbal skills 2) Those with higher nonverbal as oppossed to verbal 3) Those with approximately equal skills. Those in categories 2 & 3 tend to graviate to majors & careers in STEM, those in 1 tend to gravitate towards social sciences, education, law, etc. the most gifted students tend to be in group 3, since they have the ability in both verbal & nonverbal areas to excell in most any subject area. Those in 1 & 2 are “wired” to be more successfull in subjects which match their strengths.</p>
<p>@Oldfort</p>
<p>Because of money, of course. Plus, it’s not like I hate all Econ. Only the super-quantitative type.</p>
<p>These posts have been very interesting and very helpful in understanding this whole life after Cornell process.</p>
<p>@ mikeyc765 and Old Fort, I really appreciate your comments and your thorough responses. </p>
<p>I think it is finally all starting to make sense to me now!!</p>
<p>yes, very interesting.
The only question left is why is Cornell doing so bad in terms of getting students into grad programs that was in the survey in the thread’s first post. Maybe the Wall Street Journal got it wrong, but I know if Cornell did well in the survey we would all agree with it…</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.inpathways.net/top50feeder.pdf[/url]”>http://www.inpathways.net/top50feeder.pdf</a> from the first post.
Upenn has 2785 class size, 153 attending
Cornell has 3565 class size, 115 attending</p>
<p>This survey is only for business, medical and law schools.
Cornell is more of a pre-professional school than most top tier schools. It has 7 schools within Cornell. I would think there is a large percentage of Cornell students who do not go to law or medical schools, just like Penn. There is a lot of diversity within Cornell student body. It is not surprising that a lot more students from HPY that go on to law or medical schools. If you look at CalTech, a top school, has 2.81% attending. Cornell has Hotel and AEM. Penn has nursing and Wharton. Cornell’s medical admittance is around 70%, which is way above national average. Based on the survey, I don’t see how anyone can draw the conclusion that Cornell’s students who want to go to business, medical and law schools do not do as well as other students from top tier schools. My kid is working and she may not go to graduate school some day.</p>
<p>Correction on my previous post…When I said pre-professional I meant more graduates choose to work rather than go to graduate schools, especially for Hotel, AEM students.</p>
<p>From Forbes. Fortune 500 CEOs by college ranked. </p>
<ol>
<li>Harvard 55
<ol>
<li>Stanford 23</li>
<li>Penn 21</li>
<li>Columbia 14</li>
<li>Cornell 11</li>
<li>Dartmouth 11</li>
<li>Michigan-Ann Arbor 11</li>
<li>Notre Dame 10</li>
<li>Princeton 10</li>
<li>Texas-Austin 10</li>
</ol></li>
</ol>
<p>csdad, actually the new Forbes ranking has Cornell at #51
why it is ranked so low … should be much higher, i/m/o
only ivy not in the top colleges on the forbes survey
here is the Forbes article
[America’s</a> Top Colleges - Forbes](<a href=“http://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelnoer/2012/08/01/americas-top-colleges-2/]America’s”>America's Top Colleges)</p>
<p>@frankfrankabc: csdad’s ranking is simply counting where Fortune 500 CEOs graduated from.</p>
<p>Look. Cornell is one of the few schools in the nation that has incredible programs in a wide range of areas. They’re highly ranked in every field they compete in. So don’t pull any of those meaningless CEO rankings or med school BS. Cornell is well respected in essentially every major profession and sends qualified people to those jobs every year. What ****es me off more than anything is people comparing a #8 ranked school to number #11 in one area. The differentiation between those spots is utterly meaningless. You should apply to the school that has the best program and environment for you. Don’t rely on stupid rankings or how many people get into med school. If you apply yourself anywhere you can get into Harvard med or any other top school. I’m a freshman engineer at cornell and love it here and am studying CS. Am I upset that I didn’t get into a #1 program like CMU or Stanford? Hell no. The thought never even crossed my mind. We have every big tech company begging us to apply for jobs. These minor differences in ranking mean nothing. Just choose the place that’s the best fit and the academics will take care of themselves.</p>