bunny2015

What are the stereotypes of each ivy league? Especially Cornell, I'm very interested.

Bill73

No clue. Personally, I have never understood the fascination with Ivy league schools.

Whenever I see high school students obsessing over being accepted to one of these schools, I cringe. You can be successful in life and get into med school, investment banking or consulting if you do well at a state flagship school.

bunny2015

ok....

My question was how the student body of each school differs.

Lagging

I'm sure it varies based on what part of the country you're in. But here's how it was at my old high school. Dont be dissuaded by stereotypes, they're not accurate depictions generally.

Dartmouth: outdoorsy, rural, party and drinking a lot, conservative etc.

Princeton: preppy, snobbish, "elitist"

Brown: chill, free-thinkers, "hippy ivy," very liberal

Harvard: "elitist," rich, academic driven.

Cornell: "safety ivy" (if you cant get into any other one you get into Cornell). Good sciences, but high suicide rate

Columbia: a bunch of leaders who all dont like each other and are only out for themselves. In the city, lots of fun

Penn: grade inflation galore, excellent business school, terrible location.

Yale: not quite as snobby as Princeton but close second, artsy, big gay population

These are the stereotypes, not my personal beliefs.

bunny2015

Sounds about right. I've been hearing this around but I wasn't so sure about it. Anyone else?

bruno14

I would agree with the stereotypes that Lagging posted but would also warn you heavily not to rely on these stereotypes to make your application decisions. You need to evaluate schools on their own.

Shaq395

I also agree with what Lagging posted for stereotypes. Except for Cornell- great applied sciences and engineering, but terrible pre-med.

g0ld3n

What are some more stereotypes about uPenn and Cornell? I haven't heard about the grade inflation one. Curious about more opinions.

melody10511

I can't say about the whole Cornell but it's generally known that Cornell engineering is very rigorous and competitive, and also the best among the Ivies. However, I'm not sure if Cornell engineering is called rigorous because most Cornell students are less competitive than the higher-tier Ivies. (All the good engineering students are probably in MIT, Caltech or Stanford)

UPenn is known as the party ivy, afaik.

whenhen

UPenn: Cut throat business school, excellent social scene ("Social Ivy").
According to a friend that goes there, some stereotypes she's heard about the school are that most people that go there are gay and/or Jewish. So much so that she's heard it referred to as University of Pennsylgaynia or Jew Penn.

Cornell: You'll probably kill yourself before graduation due to the insanely hard engineering program and the fact that it's in f$#@ing Ithaca.

michellel

Most of the stereotypes I've listed are the ones I've heard too. Also, UPenn has a reputation as a party school. Cornell does have a suicide reputation, but it's a total lie. People who tell you it has unusually high suicide rates aren't actually correct- they're not much different from the national average at colleges. It just has that reputation because it has a bunch of gorges which I guess people who do commit suicide jump into. Flashy gorge-jumping suicides just get more media attention I guess. In general all the Ivy Leagues have reputations for snobbery (I have a bunch of Ivy friends and think this is a lie. You can find pretentious people anywhere, but they're the exception, not the norm... even at Harvard.)

1789

Penn has a little of the safety ivy reputation as well, and that Wharton students are prouder of the Wharton brand than the penn brand. Leads to a bit of divisiveness.

annasdad

Nonsense.

There are hundreds of thousands of practicing engineers in this country who were "good engineering students" and who did not give to MIT, Stanford, or Caltech.

scoreforsure

All of these must be put into context that they are all Ivies, so the standard is really high at all of them (Even Cornell). Only MIT and Stanford can really compare.

Brown: liberal, freethinking, really chill, open curriculum, not as well funded
more informal: stoner school, really easy, not really famous for anything other than Emma Watson, Providence isn't so nice

Columbia: independent, edgy students, surrounded by new york, heavy core curriculum emphasizing the classics, international, good grad schools, hipster
informal: yale's waiting list, barnard connection, random school of general studies

Cornell: big, tough to get through - "easier" to get in, can study anything, traditionally the "working man's ivy", strong hotel and engineering schools
informal: the ivy safety school, suicide alley, Ithaca is so random

Dartmouth: really small and really isolated, crazy fratty (in the animal house sense), emphasis on undergraduates (or an excuse because their grad schools are pretty bad)

Harvard: traditional, reputation crazy, very academic (but those with connections get z-listed), the most renown, silly finals clubs, great at almost everything
more informal: egotistical, easy to get in for the well-connected - incredibly hard for everyone else.

Penn: "jewniversity of pennsylgaysia", betchy (scene-y), classy as well as fratty, diverse, international, famous med and business schools, pre-professional
more informal: party school (see I'm Schmacked), random engineering and nursing schools, confused with state school

Princeton: rich, elitist, pretentious, eating-clubs, undergrad focused, suburban, beautiful architecture
more informal: always complains about grade deflation to address rampant inflation of past years, insecurity with Harvard and Yale

Yale: artsy, the most gay ivy, really academic, secret societies, famous law school, not the best college town, beautiful architecture, traditional
more informal: harvard's waiting list, really sketchy borderline hazardous New Haven, bad med and business schools.

All are Division 1 schools, so they recruit all athletes (lots of not-so-smart people) - and all kind of are about as equally athletic.

scoreforsure

Never heard about grade inflation at Penn, perhaps pre-professional curves? I remember admissions saying that the average GPA (similar across schools) was about 3.3