<p>I am planning to transfer to Cornell from a state university after my soph. year. Before transfer, here some things I need to know:</p>
<li><p>Does Cornell transfer only CREDITS?(The GPA I earned in the previous is not transferable?)</p></li>
<li><p>I heard Cornell is Xtremely competitive and the suicide rate is the highest of all ivies. In Cornell, how are the upper-division courses?(the workload?) Is there a lot of curve in this school? </p></li>
<li><p>Are junior/senior years more relaxed than freshman/soph. years?</p></li>
<li><p>I might major in chem. or chemical biology. How is the dept?
I would like some detailed info. Thanks.</p></li>
<li><p>My other choice of transfer is UC-Berkeley. Compared to Cornell, which school gives more curves?</p></li>
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<p>to the best of my knowledge, GPA is not transferred at any school, just the credits. I visited cornell last year and am applying for transfer this year- the campus is amazing, and absolutely humongous. as far as difficulty goes, they say that “cornell is the easiest ivy to get into and the hardest to get out of.” hope this helps.</p>
<p>As I’m not a Cornell student, I can’t really answer most of the questions, you may want to post this in Cornell board. But I do think northram is right about the transfer of credits.</p>
<p>Northrams, if you already know that “cornell is the easiest ivy to get into and the hardest to get out of,” why are you willing to apply for this school? If you’ve had good grades in your original university, why?</p>
<p>As a current transfer student finishing my first semester at cornell:</p>
<ol>
<li>The GPA does not transfer</li>
<li><p>I hate to say this, but it really depends on what school you’re applying to. Overall you will see a curve in most introductory classes, certainly premed. The curve can work for you if you take an honors class (honors physics curved to an A-, honors intro chem to a B+), or against you (intro bio curved to a C+ this year).
The curve seems to disappear at higher levels. </p></li>
<li><p>I really dont see why junior/senior years should be more relaxed, although I’m still a sophomore here. You usually end up taking the same load, if not a little more over time, for every semester you’re here, and as courses become more advanced, more is expected of you.</p></li>
<li><p>The chemistry and chemical biology department you will see has most of its emphasis on chemistry, very (too) little on chemical biology. If you’re really seeking a greater depth in biochemistry or molecular biology, you are better off working in the department of molecular biology and genetics.
If you simply wish to restrict yourself to the chem component of the dept, I really cant add much except to say the number of faculty appeared to be relatively small, and this will mainly reflect when (if) you start looking for research laboratories within the department.</p></li>
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<p>cool: statistically, yes it is the easiest to get into out of the ivys, but its still an extremely prestigious school, and difficult to get into in comparison to non-ivys. its also not my first choice; more of a backup plan, as i dont have the option of staying at my school for the full degree because its a cc.</p>