<p>For Freshman entry, statistics show that ILR is just as competitive as the rest of Cornell's Undergraduate schools are, but after the freshman year, the numbers suddenly plummet, leaving room for a bunch of GTs and a few regular transfers. Why is this so? </p>
<p>There must be some cut and dry reason. Random thought: the ILR school is so specialized that only a few teachers teach the subject matter, leaving only a few timeslots and a handful of professors who have tenure and can do as they please. Hoping someone can disprove that as well because it seems viable.</p>
<p>The program looks really interesting but I fear that there's something I don't know about the school and I'm about to bind myself to it for two years.</p>
<p>I’m not certain what numbers you are looking at, but not that many students transfer out of ILR. A fair number of additional students do transfer in, as reflected in the GT numbers.</p>
<p>The main reason why the contract colleges (Ag, ILR, HumEc) have a lot of GTs and non-GT transfers is largely a part of their land-grant mission: the state would like everybody who is qualified and wants a Cornell education to do so. Unfortunately, the contract colleges are constrained by 1) the size of Cornell’s entering class, which is limited to 3,050 due to housing issues and 2) the additional courses freshman year that are spent outside of ILR. If the incoming ILR class size was 150 students larger, that would mean that the school of Arts and Sciences would have to offer at least 10 additional freshman writing seminars.</p>
<p>By offering a lot of GTs, ILR can admit students who are otherwise qualified to study at Cornell but do so in a way that doesn’t needlessly overburden the University in terms of freshman class size.</p>
<p>I’ll also add that faculty interaction in the ILR school is generally very good. Most of my friends graduating knowing a couple of professors on a first name basis.</p>
<p>I think this is one of the major reasons to trasfer out of ILR: they who move to CAS or AEM have often come to a conclusion that sheer economics, finance or any other majors can offer them better education for i-banking or whatever future plan</p>
<p>Makes sense; thanks for the insight Cayuga.</p>
<p>Just got accepted at an external transfer - I think what CayugaRed2005 makes sense, although I do know a fair amount of people who transfered out of I.LR. One possibility, like ivyconfidential implied, is that the program is very specialized and a lot of people discover it’s not for them.</p>
<p>when you say transfer out do you mean to other Cornell schools or to other universities all together?</p>
<p>Other Cornell schools - mostly to C.A.S. and C.A.L.S.</p>