Is Cornell overrated?

College Search & Lists
241

<p>Hawkette-</p>

<p>The root frustration with your repeated argument is that pointing out different features of various schools has nothing to do with the topic nor of Cornell’s overall quality. You portray yourself as this victim who’s just trying to provide a community service, yet you know you have a far deeper agenda to tear down the reputations of Ivy League schools so the Southern schools you value can gain reputation. </p>

<p>You should know how incredibly insulting it is to tell people their school is inferior and provide absolutely no evidence beyond attendance charts of sporting events, which we have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt have no bearing on the overall quality of a school.</p>

<p>If you want people to know about the value of big time athletics at a school, start your own thread where that issue might have a shred of relevance. In the meantime, stop coming onto threads about specific schools and telling people they don’t know what they’re missing and that schools X, Y, and Z are intrinsically superior because they have big time sports to watch. They’re not. Nor should Harvard, Princeton, and Yale be exempt from your contempt if you are truly unbiased. They’re not really that great at the undergraduate level. No matter how many times you try to portray yourself as innocent, you’ve flat out stated you think Cornell is overrated and that it is intrinsically inferior to schools with big time sports programs.</p>

<p>Cornell might not be the best fit for someone who defines his or her educational choice by the ability to watch a sport with tens of thousands of other people, but it is not inferior. </p>

<p>No need to reply. Have a good life.</p>

242

<p>“As for why not theater, why not study abroad, etc., please don’t let me stop you from bringing this up. If you feel it is important and distinctive and unique to a school, then IMO you should bring it up.”</p>

<p>What’s the point? You’ve already concluded that Stanford/Duke/et al are superior to the non-HYP Ivies – based on something as superficial and as trite as watching sports with tens of thousands of people. </p>

<p>That’s how Joe Schmoe Average rates the “prestige” of colleges (“I’ve heard of Duke’s basketball, but I’ve never heard of U of Chicago’s basketball, so therefore Duke’s a better school!”). That’s People who are of the caliber of the top 20 or so universities should be a bit more refined that that, IMO.</p>

243

<p>applejack and pizzagirl,
I thought we’d finally moved to a constructive dialogue, but I guess we have backtracked… and more than a little. The personal insults resume along with the blatant mischaracterizations. Are false accusations and (poorly researched and presented) character assassinations really the best you can do in making an argument? </p>

<p>Cornell is a fine academic institution and I have never said anything different. In comparisons with other highly regarded academic institutions, it is smart and fair to evaluate the non-academic aspects of the undergraduate experience. In some of these other areas including social and athletic life, I believe that other colleges, including Stanford, Duke et al have a more compelling offer. And I’m certainly not making my case in support of these colleges from the position of a victim. These are all terrific colleges and easily compare with the undergraduate experience at the non-HYP Ivies. </p>

<p>Furthermore, claiming that I/students at these colleges are victims reflects an incredibly arrogant view that I and the students who attend these colleges are Ivy wannabees. Hah! Get a clue. Hey, I respect the academic reputations of the Ivy but I think that the other colleges offer a better undergraduate experience. I prefer Stanford, Duke, Northwestern, Rice, Vanderbilt, Notre Dame, while completely acknowledging that some others (like you) might prefer one of the Ivies. Why does respect only go in one direction in this discussion? </p>

<p>The humor and irony of this whole discussion is that applejack and pizzagirl don’t even like or care about the athletic life of a college. And yet you devote pages of vitriol to this. Heck, at least I care about the subject and have dedicated a lot of hours to learning about and comparing the relative offerings at various colleges. Maybe your energy would be better focused on things that you actually like and want to write positively about and let those who care about athletic life make a defense of Cornell (as current Cornellians CayugaRed and patlees have effectively done).</p>

244

<p>I think you’re preferring these other colleges based on a bit of a straw man, however. I am very familiar with both NU and Penn, as an example. You somehow seem to believe that the athletic life at NU is vastly different from the athletic life at Penn, simply because we play in the Big 10 against nationally known schools and Penn plays against other Ivies, and that therefore the two colleges then provide a vastly different experience. You seem to set up a straw man of Penn games being a handful of people in the stands at a boring game versus NU games being the big blow-out tailgates with action aplenty. I just don’t think it’s all that different. The overall character of NU isn’t like any other Big 10 school in terms of athletic boostership. It’s fun to go to games and see your friends and listen to the marching band and sing “Go U Northwestern” and wear your Greek colors and what-not, but it’s not the big campus common denominator like it (apparently) is at Duke with basketball or Vanderbilt with football. I have never, in 20 years of affiliation with NU, seen anyone who puts their sports programs on the pedestal that you do, or believes that they make a MAJOR difference in the undergraduate experience (aside from the players of course). Frankly at homecoming, more people pay attention to the homecoming parade down Sheridan Road than they do the actual game. For a student deciding between NU and Penn, therefore, it would boil down to other personal preferences (Philly vs Chicago, being in a city versus outskirts, etc.). Unless that student had a BURNING desire to be in the Big 10 or something, it’s simply not enough of a difference, IMO. And from what’s described here with Cornell - I see no reason why Cornell’s hockey scene is any less fun for those who enjoy rooting for it than Duke’s b-ball scene, or the Vandy/UGA game you described, etc. Nationally ranked games with large crowds of people are a priority for you personally. Not objectively superior things, which is why we react so strongly to the “but this stadium holds 80,000 people!” If big crowds of sports followers were so important, I’d go to UMich or OSU.</p>

<p>I think the other thing is that many other aspects of a college campus don’t intrude on the individual the way that loud boisterous sports spectatorship does. If my college has a great theater scene and I don’t wish to go, then I don’t have to, and I won’t notice one way or the other. If, OTOH, my college turns into a drunken nightmare of people woot-wooting all over the place every time we toss / catch a ball better than some other team – it leads to an overall sense of the campus that isn’t very appealing. And taking the actual game so seriously, as if it’s anything other than a fun diversion, is the first part of that equation.</p>

245

<p>"Hey, I respect the academic reputations of the Ivy but I think that the other colleges offer a better undergraduate experience. I prefer Stanford, Duke, Northwestern, Rice, Vanderbilt, Notre Dame, while completely acknowledging that some others (like you) might prefer one of the Ivies. "</p>

<p>Because it’s a straw man to set the Ivies on one side of the continuum and S/D/NU/R/V/ND on the other when it comes to social life and undergraduate experience.</p>

246

<p>Oh my God. You just twist everything I write. There’s seriously a skewed worldview at work here. </p>

<p>I never said you were a victim for affiliating with any college. That’s absurd. I said you portray yourself as a victim in your posts as if you are doing a community service by endlessly talking about the value of spectator sports and connecting that to the overall value of an institution.</p>

<p>Whatever. Please stop responding.</p>

247

<p>In some of these other areas including social and athletic life, I believe that other colleges, including Stanford, Duke et al have a more compelling offer. "</p>

<p>More compelling across the board, Hawkette? </p>

<p>Or more compelling to some and less compelling to others?</p>

<p>Because if it’s the first, then you ARE saying that athletics should be a point of evaluating the college experience.
And if it’s the second, it’s just too obvious to warrant saying - it’s like saying that some people prefer cities and others prefer small towns, well, duh.</p>

248

<p>pizzagirl,
As they say on Wall Street, differences in opinion are what make a market. A key to an efficient market is information. You and I can exchange information and then folks can make up their minds to value it as they see fit. I have no problem with your having a different opinion and making a different choice (despite your regular misstatements that I am an absolutist in my thinking). But hopefully, in the case of students making their college choices, they are choosing with more, rather than less, information about what they will experience, inside and outside of the classroom, when they arrive at ABC College. </p>

<p>In the Vanderbilt example that I earlier referenced, the student did not have all of the information until after he made his visit to Vanderbilt. After getting some new information, he chose the school. I’m not saying that Vanderbilt is better than Cornell-who cares as they’re both great colleges and different folks will prefer different things. But I am saying that information that is important to a student is sometimes missing in their calculations as they make their undergrad choices. I am seeking to fill in some of those gaps. </p>

<p>Re your comparisons of the football scene at U Penn and Northwestern, we have a difference of opinion. While Northwestern has not been a football power recently, I feel very comfortable claiming that it still has a far higher profile locally and nationally than U Penn. Average attendance at NU games this past fall was well more than twice as much (25k vs 11K) with top attendance at NU of 46k (U Michigan game) vs top at U Penn of 15.5k (Yale game). On the national level, Northwestern was in the running for a bowl bid and had several nationally and regionally televised games (many alumni like these things). I don’t know, but I wonder if U Penn has ever had a national TV football game and I doubt if they have ever had 46,000 at one of their home games. Since you are very familiar with U Penn, maybe you can answer that question. </p>

<p>applejack,
That’s twice or more times now that you’ve ineptly tried to shut down (shout down!) the discussion and competing viewpoints. </p>

<p>If you are so motivated, please feel free to remove yourself from the thread. Or if you wish, please continue. I have no problem with you having a contrary view and think that the trading of ideas and information is a healthy process (even if our exchanges in this thread could rarely be described as healthy).</p>

249

<p>Why do you care about raw attendance numbers? Shouldn’t it be more about the actual fun you have at the game? I mean, I had a lot more fun attending CMU’s football games where the crowd was about 1/4 the size of my high school’s than the couple of University of Pittsburgh games I attended.</p>

<p>Not to mention if you’re talking about “powerhouses” by just their win/loss records, CMU had an undefeated season a year or two back; shouldn’t they be one of the best colleges out there for sports, then?</p>

250

<p>This is not trading information. You just keep beating the same point and keep ignoring the basic fact that preference of one type of school has no correlation to quality. I don’t know how many times that point has been made - most recently by pizzagirl’s latest post. </p>

<p>But, here we are back to comparing attendance records. It’s just not getting through.</p>

251

<p>applejack,
In the case of our exchanges, I agree that it is not sharing information. For my part, it has almost entirely been in defending myself from your comments.</p>

<p>In the post above, if you are referring to academic quality, please point me to a single post (just one!) where I have said that one type of school is correlated to academic quality. And yet you persist in making this false charge. </p>

<p>If you are talking about the quality and vitality of athletic life, then measurements like attendance are absolutely relevant facts. If you or another reader thinks that they are not, then feel free to make that interpretation. I would disagree. </p>

<p>As for the views on social life and athletic life, I have a view which I have stated many times on CC. We can both put forth our views and let the reader decide. Would you like to share your views?</p>

252

<p>

Perhaps a little history lesson is in order:</p>

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</p>

<p>[Nov/Dec</a> Gazette: Harold Stassen and the Ivy League](<a href=“Penn: Page not found”>Penn: Page not found)</p>

<p>hawkette, you should read the article to which I linked in its entirety. It’s an interesting account of how Penn’s then-president, Harold Stassen (former Minnesota governor and future perennial Republican presidential candidate), clashed with the NCAA and Penn’s future Ivy League partners over his desire to keep Penn a national football power, and to keep Penn’s contract with ABC to nationally televise all of Penn’s home games.</p>

<p>As the article makes clear, Penn and the other Ivies easily could have continued and expanded their nationally prominent football programs after World War II and into the modern era of big-time college football, but they made an explicit, affirmative decision to go in a completely different direction (albeit dragging along Stassen and Penn, kicking and screaming), and they formalized this decision with the formation of the Ivy League in 1954.</p>

<p>You personally may disagree with the reasoning underlying this decision made by these 8 schools over 50 years ago, but it’s the central tenet at the very heart of the foundation of the Ivy League, and has continued to serve these schools–and their athletics programs–quite well over the past half-century:</p>

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</p>

<p>[Ivy</a> League Sports](<a href=“http://www.ivyleaguesports.com/whatisivy/index.asp]Ivy”>http://www.ivyleaguesports.com/whatisivy/index.asp)</p>

253

<p>I know you are not talking about academics. You are talking about the overall experience of life on a campus, just like the rest of us. But…</p>

<p>THIS THREAD IS NOT ABOUT “quality and vitality of athletic life”!!!</p>

<p>You are fixated on this one miniscule aspect of collegiate life and seem unable to see that it is your preference, not an objective measure of a school’s quality (which IS what this thread is about). </p>

<p>This thread is not about putting forth our various opinions about athletic life. It never was. You hijacked it and won’t simply abmit you are wrong in correlating OVERALL quality of an institution with the opportunity to see big time sports. THERE. IS. NO. CORRELATION. I don’t see why you keep pushing this subjective preference on this thread. It is a completely different topic.</p>

<p>I’d certainly let this go, but I have trouble allowing people to believe they are right when they are just completely wrong about something. No one is disagreeing with you about your various theories on athletics and watching sports and all your attendance records. What you are not understanding is that THEY ARE IRRELEVANT to the topic of whether or not Cornell is overrated.</p>

254

<p>A lot of you like pizzagirl and applejack just don’t understand what hawkette is saying regarding the importance of athletic life in American colleges. Large crowds DEFINITELY add more fun and intensity to a sports atmosphere. Do you think it would be the same experience if you were cheering by yourself in the stands for your favorite team? Absolutely not. You may not agree about the importance having good sports teams in a college but you’re in the minority, not the majority. It binds the entire student body together in a way that no other activity can. This is because athletics is traditionally “inclusionary” and it enhances the prospect of social bonding among students through the parties, tailgates, atmosphere, conversations, culture that results as a byproduct of it.</p>

<p>Playing sports and watching sports are two different things and I don’t know why people keep bringing up. All the top schools offer students intramural opportunities so it’s not like Cornell is better in this regard because it additionally offers ice skating and logrolling as well. This is a moot point. </p>

<p>The point Hawkette and I are trying to make here is that strong athletic programs only bring POSITIVES and not negatives to their schools. High-profile football/basketball teams bring in large revenues, whip up student excitement, provide alumni with a way to stay connected to the school and generally increase the quality of the college experience for all students. What are the negatives to having Vandy’s football team or Duke’s basketball team? It’s not like you are being forced into a cult. You can completely choose to disassociate yourself from the college sports scene altogether if you want to. Although, I don’t think this is the case at all for pretty much every student who goes to a school with a celebrated sports team. Even if you could care less about sports, you will still be happy that your school is performing well and is bringing increased recognition to your institution.</p>

<p>Every other activity that you partake in college like involvement in Greek organizations, religious groups, intramurals, drama/theatre is something PERSONAL TO YOU. These activities are “exclusionary” in nature and tend to result in cliques forming. There’s nothing wrong with this though since everyone should be encouraged to pursue and explore their individual interests in college.</p>

<p>Wouldn’t it be great if one day all the kids in your hall in college-the chemistry nerd, the drama queen, the tennis player, the aspiring writer, the frat boy, the neurotic engineer and the english geek-could bond and do something enjoyable together? At a school like Duke or Stanford, this is what happens during a basketball game when students from all walks of life join together and cheer for their beloved school. It’s hard to find this kind of social outlet in any other college activity.</p>

<p>The Ivies can’t compare atheltics-wise so Cornell students are too busy worrying about how to improve their school’s present reputation as the “bottom ivy” while students from Duke/Stanford/Vandy/ND have something more productive to talk about during their college years than the prestige of their school academically.</p>

255

<p>"While Northwestern has not been a football power recently, I feel very comfortable claiming that it still has a far higher profile locally and nationally than U Penn. Average attendance at NU games this past fall was well more than twice as much (25k vs 11K) with top attendance at NU of 46k (U Michigan game) vs top at U Penn of 15.5k (Yale game). On the national level, Northwestern was in the running for a bowl bid and had several nationally and regionally televised games (many alumni like these things). I don’t know, but I wonder if U Penn has ever had a national TV football game and I doubt if they have ever had 46,000 at one of their home games. "</p>

<p>I don’t know the attendance stats of UPenn vs NU – but they’re irrelevant. If I’m in the stands, what difference does it make to me if there are 10,000 or 20,000 people there? Either way, I can only talk to the dozen or so who are immediately around me. The rest is just – a crowd. If I’m in the stands, what difference does it make to me if the game is nationally televised or not? I’m not 12 years old, so I won’t be waving at the camera yelling “hi Mom.”</p>

256

<p>"lot of you like pizzagirl and applejack just don’t understand what hawkette is saying regarding the importance of athletic life in American colleges. Large crowds DEFINITELY add more fun and intensity to a sports atmosphere. Do you think it would be the same experience if you were cheering by yourself in the stands for your favorite team? Absolutely not. "</p>

<p>We understand you plenty well. We just don’t agree. We don’t see what the hell difference it makes if it’s an Ivy matchup with 5,000 in the stands or a Big 10 matchup with 50,000 in the stands. To support my school and visit with my friends, I’d be equally happy to go to either event, and I wouldn’t find one more “fun” than the other. It’s clear that you and Hawkette find larger crowds more fun than smaller crowds. I don’t see why, personally – I don’t see what’s so much more fun about 50,000 people than 5,000 people when they’re all strangers anyway that I’m not talking to, but whatever. Maybe you’re the kind who also like participating in victory parades when pro teams win championships – in which case, more power to you, but some of us don’t find that fun. In fact, some of us find the smaller venues more appealing. I’d rather go to a Cubs game in a small atmosphere, not drawing a big crowd, any day over a huge stadium with thousands more on hand.</p>

<p>"You may not agree about the importance having good sports teams in a college but you’re in the minority, not the majority. "</p>

<p>So what, though. I don’t make my decisions or form my taste on what the “majority” thinks is appealing. The “majority” of people in this country couldn’t identify a member of the Supreme Court but they could tell you all about who won the Final Four. The “majority” of people in this country would choose OSU over Wellesley because OSU has cool sports teams and what’s Wellesley again? I don’t wish to be part of that “majority.” </p>

<p>“It binds the entire student body together in a way that no other activity can. This is because athletics is traditionally “inclusionary” and it enhances the prospect of social bonding among students through the parties, tailgates, atmosphere, conversations, culture that results as a byproduct of it.”</p>

<p>It is not necessary for me to be bound to the entire student body at my college for me to have tremendous school spirit, loyalty and love for that college. And I don’t see what everyone’s obsession with tailgates is, either. It’s just meeting up with people before the game and eating food off the backs of cars. What on earth is more “fun” about that versus any other venue of getting together with friends? Frankly, I’d rather go to a restaurant and sit and catch up, but it just so happens our group of alumni friends does a tailgate every year because it’s a convenient meeting place. But when I’m there, why would being in a crowd of 50,000 other tailgates be “more fun” than being in my crowd of 10,000 other tailgaters? They’re just the rest of the crowd.</p>

257

<p>“What are the negatives to having Vandy’s football team or Duke’s basketball team?”</p>

<p>One could argue the resources that it takes away from things that are more central to the mission of the college, such as academic offerings, classroom or technological improvements, or cultural venues. Simply put, I don’t see spectator sports as being as central to the mission of a college as I do things like theater, the arts, engineering labs, improving buildings, etc.</p>

258

<p>“Large crowds DEFINITELY add more fun and intensity to a sports atmosphere. Do you think it would be the same experience if you were cheering by yourself in the stands for your favorite team? Absolutely not.”</p>

<p>I don’t think you understand that for those of us who are merely going to watch football and basketball games to hang out with friends and enjoy something to do / a diversion, we’ll have equal fun whether it’s the LAC with a few hundred people in the stands, the Ivy with 10,000 in the stands, or the Big 10 with 50,000 in the stands (and if anything, the 50,000 in the stands may be too much). You keep assuming that larger = better experience for everyone, just because it is for you. Because you keep trying to quantify the “fun” of spectator sports by talking about attendance, and that has nothing to do with it at all for us.</p>

259

<p>It makes a hell of a lot of difference. On both counts.</p>

<p>The atmosphere changes along an exponential curve as the attendance increases. Varsity fb games my frosh and soph years = about 3k people. Junior and Senior years = about 5. There is no comparison.</p>

<p>Additionally, when we had playoff games with local TV, we had attendance of about 7-10k(depending on the game), and the experiences related to those games are flat out astounding.</p>

<p>Then, regarding college FBall, I have seen pretty much the whole range in person - Saginaw Valley St./Eastern or Central Michgan/Michigan St. or Notre Dame/Michigan. Excitement is the most important component, but you cannot compare a SVSU or Eastern game, no matter the importance to a MSU/ND/UM game. Being able to spend an entire day with 50,000+ of your closest friends, and 10,000 of your most hated enemies(at least for that day), is the experience of a lifetime. And no, NU doesn’t offer that, but they do offer the same stage. And the difference is clear, much to NU’s favor if you do appreciate sports.</p>

<p>If you aren’t into sports, the differences likely don’t matter. But if you are, there is no comparison. For many people not into music, a Steinway grand could be replaced by a Yamaha upright, and no notice would be held - they play the same notes at the same pitch, right?</p>

260

<p>Okay. I’m going to stop trying to make this thread relate in any way to its original purpose. </p>

<p>Why do you keep saying we don’t understand Hawkette’s point? It’s a simple one. She likes watching sports with big crowds. She wants everyone else to make sure they know they can watch sports with big crowds and still get a good education at a few schools she has hand selected as her favorites for that reason and that reason alone. This isn’t multilateral trade negotiations here. It’s simple.</p>

<p>You are just in a blind flurry of love for watching sports and have stated you can’t fathom how anyone else wouldn’t love it. There’s not much objective in your perspective and therefore not much of an objective value to assessing a school’s worth by such an activity. Move over MIT and Caltech, here come UF and Michigan State. </p>

<p>As I stated above, big time sports do not intrinsically make a school better. That is your OPINION. I wrote a post earlier as to why I see big time sports as a negative at a college and would never go to a college with them. For starters, I hate watching sports. They’re boring. I’d rather play them. </p>

<p>Do you really think theatre is exclusionary? You don’t go to much theatre, do you? Your attack on Cornell at the end was just childish. Anyway, Brown and Dartmouth usually vie for that distinction.</p>