<p>CayugaRed makes some very good points. yeh, there are some average joes here in terms of their intelligence/academic ability/motivation, but this happens anywhere. Let’s be honest, no school in the nation would have all of its student body filled with hard working, intellectually ambitious people. Not even HYP. My cousin and his gf are recent graduates of Y and they tell me all the time how shocked they were to discover during their freshmen yr to meet many people, whose lack of ‘intellectual aptitude’ led them to question, “how the heck did people like this get into Yale?”</p>
<p>My take on this issue is that many who get into good schools, including Cornell, get in through many merits other than academics, such as good essays, ecs, etc. They may not be the most deserving or qualifed candidates, but this ‘holistic’ admission process results in producing a student body of all sorts of diversity, which has many benefits, but one of its flaws being that there are many admitted students who shouldn’t have gotten in the first place.</p>
<p>Besides, i don’t agree with many cornell students who constantly complain of the difficulty or workload here. Honestly, it’s not so bad as long as you keep up and as long as you study the courses that are of interest to you. imo, the difficulty of course work here is many times way too exaggerated.</p>
<p>cory123 - it’s really too bad you got the impression of Cornell you did. Of course that meathead element is there. It’s there at Dartmouth, Harvard, Yale, Columbia… It’s simply there in college, so perhaps Chicago was the best choice for you. </p>
<p>What you experienced, however, is not Cornell if you choose it not to be. Like CayugaRed said, Cornell’s different in every direction you look.</p>
<p>Cory…it’s too bad you got the impression you did while at Cornell (although I thought prospectives aren’t supposed to attend frat parties while they are with a student host???). I have to say I disagree with you, but then again, I chose to stay away from certain communities within Cornell and found my 3 years here to be everything I wanted and more. </p>
<p>As for the easiest major…I’d say it would have to be the one that truly interests you. If you study something you dislike…yes, it will be hard.</p>
<p>Also, another thing. Have you been to the U. Chicago parties? They’re pretty lame. </p>
<p>I don’t exactly want to rain on Chicago’s parade, because it’s a fantastic research university, and I have a couple good friends from Cornell who are getting their PhDs or JDs there. But I was there for New Year’s one year, and then again for the Pitchfork Festival the following summer, and uh… the entire undergraduate body is exactly like the Cornell engineers you describe. This one guy at a Chicago party was trying to mack it with a pretty decent looking girl, and it was just such a pathetic attempt that I needed to step in and show him how it was done. Let’s just say it was a happy new year.</p>
<p>But, uh, if you are at all interested in hot girls and good parties, Chicago might be the wrong tree to go barking up. If four comments on this board all in the span of an hour can attest to Cornell’s intellectual scene, then it’s possible you missed something during Cornell Days.</p>
<p>Chicago is a pretty immersive academic culture though, so that might be best for you.</p>
<p>I just wanted to add…I hope that people won’t intentionally choose the major that is considered to be easy for the sake of getting into good schools w/ inflated gpa. You are paying a lot of cash and spending a lot of time here, at this world-class institution, so take advantage of that…take courses that are challenging, interesting, and the ones that you will grow from. Then, again, you can choose to take easier courses for electives so that you won’t be too stressed out.</p>
<p>I also wanted to mention…I’ve taken 2 COMM classes in my time here and they were not a cake walk. The profs were tough graders and you judged solely on the quality of your writing/command of grammar and language. Most of my work done early on was ripped apart but by the end I made all A’s and I consider the quality of my writing to have improved greatly. </p>
<p>I also chose other courses thinking they would be easy and they were a pain as well. I personally think every course of study here is challenging in its own way.</p>
<p>I guess it was unfortunate that I never met too many people at Cornell who shared the same intellectual interests as I did. I guess this is why I’m choosing Chicago over Cornell. At Chicago, many of the prefrosh I met and the current students there seem like they would be very interested in talking about philosphy literature and all that jazz, which I’m very excited about. I guess I would jsut ahve to look harder at Cornell to find these types of people. I have no doubt they are there as well. But, overall I feel like many of the Cornell students I met were reasonably bright, but might not be as willing to discuss learning or htese types of conversation topics outside of classes.</p>
<p>You make good points Cayuga, and are swaying me a little. But, I feel like whenever I think about it for myself, I lean Chicago, and when I talk to OTHER people, they make me lean Cornell. I think it’s a sign that I should go to Chicago.</p>
<p>And yes I have been to a Chicago frat party haha. Honestly, compared to Cornell party, which was actually a semi-formal (100+ people), it wasn’t too far apart. Yes the girls at Cornell were much better, but that’s one sacrifice I’m going to have to make :(. Other than that, pong, dancing, flip cup, and the usual chaos, was all there at Chicago. Fun times. Thanks for the comments guys, and I hope you guys have fun at Cornell.</p>
<p>nah cory you made the right choice…sure you couldve met the types of people youre talking about at cornell by random chance, but they arent all that common around here. its true that you may have met a disproportionate amount of the average slackers and the weird engineers…but it sounds like you made the right choice for what youre looking for. don’t let people change your mind when you have a gut instinct. have fun at chicago!</p>
<p>Student culture also plays a role as well. Cornellians tend to be understated and down to earth, so we’re not going to be in your face about the last great book we read or constantly chirping on about our thesis. And while we will entertain the late night deep-seated philosophical discussion, by the time you are an upperclassmen it kind of gets old after a while. </p>
<p>This is one of the things that actually turns me off from the Oberlins, Swarthmores, and Chicagos of the world. The student body seems obsessed over petty intellectual gamesmanship, and the colleges loves to play into it. When I was considering Chicago, the admissions literature went on about attracting “the type of student who reads Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance or On The Road for fun”, and the uncommon application plays into the whole charade. </p>
<p>This is also what turns a lot of us off from MIT as well. Everybody at MIT waves around their god damned brass rat like it is some sort of holy grail and I suspect if they could they would take a bath in their own holy water every night. But guess what? They wipe their ass just like I wipe mine, and the world still turns, day and night. No reason to get excited.</p>
<p>Under the surface, most Cornellians are bright and engaged, but we aren’t going to wallow in intellectualism or needless attention grabbing as a form of self-gratification. I’ve studied post-modern political philosophy under some of the brightest minds at Oxford and have had economics articles published in peer review journals right next to Nobel laureates. And I can engage you on just about every topic you want – alpha to omega – and so could all of my friends from Cornell. And half of them are currently getting PhDs at top universities around the country.</p>
<p>But we’re not above just drinking a lot of beers, going to a hockey game, and calling the other team dirty names. </p>
<p>I think you will have an amazing time at the University of Chicago. Swimming at the rocks in Lake Michigan is a grand experience, as is browsing through the seminary co-op. And Hyde Park may be the best urban academic enclave in America. I’m also a little bit jealous of the annual scavenger hunt that the students have at Chicago.</p>
<p>There’s a Cornell Street in Hyde Park, I believe it intersects 55th near Lakeshore Blvd. So when you walk by it, you can think of us.</p>
<p>I also think you made the right choice with Chicago. Students here are definitely bright, but they feel like regular people. While there are intellectual-type people, subjects like philosophy aren’t that big here. Cornell felt pretty down-to-earth to me, and my gut told me to come here. If your gut says Chicago, you should probably go for Chicago.</p>
<p>since engineering has been mentioned in this topic, is it manageable for someone who isn’t a super genius? I realize its going to be incredibly difficult and I’ll have to work my ass off. But is it reasonably possible? Now in no way am I dumb, I am decently smart, just not an uber genius.</p>
<p>I have a friend who was slightly above average in high school and she entered Cornell as a Biological Engineering major. She’s done very well for herself and is now doing the M. Eng program.</p>
<p>You don’t have to be a super genius to do well in engineering (although it can’t hurt…lol). Just come prepared to work hard and take advantage of things like office hours and peer study groups.</p>
<p>I might be a prime example of what CayugaRed’s talking about with Cornell students. I can’t tell you how many people throughout my life have said to me “I thought you were really stupid.” </p>
<p>I don’t look like an intellectual and I don’t act like an intellectual unless I choose to engage people on that level. Thinking of the people I knew at Cornell, I think that’s pretty common. </p>
<p>But, alas, Chicago is what your heart tells you, so Chicago is the best school for you. Enjoy all the beaches and the city’s cultural options while you’re there.</p>
<p>is the transfer hard from CAS to hotel school?
when’s should i apply for the transfer?
i’ve actually been thinking of transferring for a long time not b/c i think hotel is easier, but because i can’t really define what i want to do at CAS since i applied for independent major</p>
<p>since you can’t do anything until you are actually a student, IF you are serious about transfering to Hotel, work in the industry this summer. You will hear on these boards all the time about Hotel being “easy” BUT getting in is not easy if you have no background or aptitude for the industry…</p>
<p>so…this summer - get a job. Be a waitress, desk clerk, cashier in a restaurant - my wealthy roommate was a maid one summer near the Jersey shore. A beautiful Malaysian classmate had also been a maid, which made JoLo in Maid in Manhatten seem reasonable. Work experience will help you decide if you at all care for the Hotel industry and will make you a much better candidate for transfer. </p>
<p>over 30 years ago I transferred from CAS to Hotel - but I had worked in restaurants and transferred because I wanted a business education and at the time AEM was AgEc and I sure wasn’t going to major in cows and corn. That was then. If anything , I love Cornell more now than then, and am impressed with what students do and study now.</p>