<p>urgh here we go again
trust me on this he is going to throw us more lists if this public exchange of middle fingers keep going on
and then, people will respond with more lists… while life goes on.</p>
<p>Yeah I’m just hoping all the confusion and misinformation will inspire a few college young’uns to actually investigate the undergraduate programs of these institutions in each of these fields. Cornell clearly offers more to its undergraduate student population than any other Ivy League school, and nothing engineerbill says, pastes, or distorts can dispute that.</p>
<p>… you are just looking for someone to argue with aren’t you
well, you aren’t going to run out of people like engineerbill soon.</p>
<p>seriously this is not an argument that any school should take
every school is wonderful and unique in its own way.
why does it matter that cornell has to be more wonderful and more unique than all the other ivies?</p>
<p>It is one thing to love a school. It is another thing to inflate your school and bash 7 other schools along the way, which in my opinion are just as wonderful and unique as cornell and each school is amazing in its own way. Most students would die of joy just to get in one of them.</p>
<p>Seriously this is like getting two people, one with a bmw and one with a mercedes, bragging about how one is better than another when nobody else really cares.</p>
<p>I think this thread has gone far enough. Is there a way to close a thread?</p>
<p>If there was I would have closed it 14 pages ago haha.</p>
<p>My intent was not to bash any other school, rather to expose this hidden secret about the Ivy League: **Cornell’s undergraduate program offers the most depth and the most breadth across the most fields. ** No matter who ranked what when and why, this fact can not be disputed.</p>
<p>ok man that isn’t a fact and it can be disputed. It doesn’t have the most depth in EVERY field. Even harvard/princeton cannot claim that. If it did it would be ranked #1 or near #1 almost all the time. Cornell may be under appreciated by rankings like USWNR (where penn is somehow way over appreciated – maybe has something to do with the wharton grad mastermind), but it is not THAT under appreciated.</p>
<p>I can’t really argue with you on this one, but common sense tells me that is it not a fact. No college can be be best at EVERYTHING. If you really want to stick to that conviction, there will be a lot of challengers and it’ll just make us look bad (even worse than now because of this thread).</p>
<p>I said the most fields, not every field…</p>
<p>but you’re right, this thread decayed really really quickly…</p>
<p>If most means more than 50% then i don’t think it’s true. No school can even get close to being that good across that many fields. As much as you love cornell (which i also do), don’t let it cloud your judgement.</p>
<p>Yeah with that kind of title it’s kind of begging for flame.</p>
<p>Most doesn’t mean more than 50% lmao, there is no set amount of fields of knowledge, that’s the whole point of Cornell. Truth is though, in any given field of study, you will probably find the most courses on the subject (at the undergraduate level) at Cornell (relative to other Ivy’s)</p>
<p>lol</p>
<p>At this whole thread</p>
<p>For someone to assert that Cornell is the best Ivy is like saying BMW is the most luxurious car. In fact, Rolls, Bentley, Ferrari, and Lamborghini are more ‘desirable’ and luxurious. Many times, exclusivity is highly correlated with desirability and prestige. HYP, Columbia, and Dartmouth are clearly more selective and exclusive than Cornell, therefore arguably more elite. Now, that doesn’t necessarily mean that Cornell academics is a notch below others. This thread fails to realize difference between ‘elite-ness’ and ‘academics’.</p>
<p>I think there are things that Cornell offers that other IVY schools do not and therefore the best fit for many. I also believe that reputation and connections are likely better at some of the other IVY schools. I want to be a Vet, Cornell is the best possible place for me. Let’s be honest all these are great schools and we would be fortunate to be accepted to any!</p>
<p>@engineerbill, </p>
<p>Please refer to your post #270.</p>
<ol>
<li>While you agreed the NRC screwed up with their rankings I see several overnight postings where you brought it back. I am not sure why. Anyway, here is how I think about NRC. All this team responsible for ranking was supposed to do was consolidate various data points from various sources and run regression models on them and arrive at various conclusions. However, they themselves agreed that they screwed up and retracted the flawed report and probably fired the team. So, here are some ways to think about it,
a. It is only beginning of spring but I am thinking summer and grilling. Say, you are at a picnic spot in a park and ready to grill. You have the grill all fired up and are in the process of transfer a big piece of meat with your tongs on the grill. And it slips and falls on the ground. You notice that only one side of the meat is full of yuck but you throw away the entire piece (at least that is what I would do). The thing is contaminated. Its credibility and integrity is compromised. The same with the report. The report according to NRC is contaminated and therefore worthy of a dustbin and yet you speak about “Faculty Quality” which is one of factors in the report. The factor itself is likely contaminated.</li>
<li>Although NRC is strictly Graduate only you seem to bring it into undergraduate situations. Lets assume the new report they are planning to bring out is accurate. Is the faculty quality metric is similar for graduate and undergraduate program. And that is where I think you perhaps don’t know the difference. For undergraduate programs faculty quality is measured with most emphasis placed on didactic abilities of the faculty and for graduate programs it is on the consultative skills. So, in an undergraduate program faculty quality is determined on how well fundamentals are imparted to the student. Picture a faculty standing on a platform and s/he is trying to pull students up to the platform to make them proficient in fundamentals. For graduate programs, the students are already on the platform. It is a given that they have a certain mastery of fundamentals. In the situation it is the consultative skills of the faculty that defines faculty quality. This is just a simple explanation but believe me I could go on and on. Again, focus on subsystems and compare apples to apples not oranges. To make it even simpler, lets say a competent AP calc teacher is suddenly moved to 1st grade math. Will he be great teacher in that situation? Chances are no. Because, as an AP Calc teacher he is used to certain givens and situations where as teaching first grade math requires a lot more patience and care. In other words, faculty quality metric is dissimilar. And you see a similar situation in universities as well. </li>
</ol>
<p>Finally, “best” is a nebulous term. In our case, it is specific to engineering and that too biological engineering. If I did care about rankings, why would I care how a program in basket weaving is ranked when I am studying Biological Engineering. It is like saying my best friend’s cousin’s brother-in-law is a billionaire. So? Question where are you. </p>
<p>The rest of the overnight discussion does not seem to have added any value so I will pass on that.</p>
<p>US ■■■■■ Rankings [Undergrad only]
- Engineerbill</p>
<p>No, there is no Ivy that offers the range of academic offerings.But that doesn’t make Cornell the best. Besides, "the best is so subjective, and you would have to define “the best in what”. On the undergraduate level, it is one of the less prestigious of the Ivy League. Cornell, on the undergraduate level, has a branding problem. That’s the reason that there are so many arguments about the prestige factor. Cornell offers a superb liberal arts education within its CAS, while offering agricultural studies and communications within CALS. Its admissions stats are all over the place: It has colleges with kids with perfect SAT scores, and it has colleges with kids with just above average scores. It started an undergraduate business program this year in CALS, which is being promoted as the next Wharton but is still structured as a vocational program and has not been connected to its Johnson graduate business program. A school of business that is trying to compete with Wharton should not be housed in a college of agriculture. It still offers an economics program in CAS, which is far more rigorous and holds the cream of the crop in terms of student body. </p>
<p>The image problem Cornell has may come from what many see is its astrength–all those darn offerings. It is trying to be many things to many different groups–a difficult world to navigate.</p>
<p>The branding issue is limited to a handful of CC ■■■■■■. Soo funny they waste soo much of their time posting here. It’s not an issue in the real world. Cornell’s undergrad business program is ranked top 5 by Bloomberg Business Week and top 10 by US News. Not bad for a relatively new program, recently bolstered by a very large donation.</p>
<p>Thank you 7sisters and BeHappy7,</p>
<p>I think you both bring up a good point: the broad diversity of class offerings, and flexibility within and between colleges, really makes Cornell unique…and speaks well of the students who attend: they have to know themselves to be successful. Self-knowledge assumes a certain skill set that, I think, is desirable beyond any academic setting; it’s rather uncomplicated, in a way, to simply ride the academic rail (without questioning it) to a lazy manifestation of success based on prestige and rank. People can lose themselves, in the pursuit of academic glory, as we’ve sadly seen on this all-night thread. </p>
<p>Of what benefit is a perfect GPA or SAT score slate if you become socially maladroit in the process? </p>
<p>I appreciate all of the obvious love current Cornell students have shown, here, for their school; it’s been a pleasure to interact with those of you who are now attending; thank you. Best wishes to you, Ceresma, on your veterinary goals!</p>
<p>@7Sisters,</p>
<p>Branding depends on how you look at education. Some very good universities (Cornell is one of them) do not believe in feeding the ranking monster i.e they do not supply data other than what is available in public domain and CDS. More importantly, they don’t wine and dine the ranking agencies like many schools do. It impacts the rankings which to begin with should be taken with a mountain of salt. The ranking is designed to sell more publications and build awareness for the publishers. In fact, it is their branding tool. Does not help the school and more importantly hurts students decision making. </p>
<p>Finally, it all boils down to operating principles and philosophy. Despite that and despite the location (which may be undesirable for some, but I simply love) Cornell has done extremely well.</p>
<p>If you want to see true blue branders look at WashU at St. Louis. Great school but huge on branding which turns many people off. 2 years back when my kid was applying they bombarded us with marketing materials, emails, phones calls etc to tell us how great they were. Finally, I told them. In order for us to apply, you must move the school to east of Indiana and too to a less urban area. and requested them not to call again. That was the end of it.</p>
<p>I strongly believe that Cornell’s setting - a beautiful campus in what’s often considered America’s best college town - is a huge competitive advantage. I much prefer Cornell’s location to being in a densely populated city, with all the attendant urban problems.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>This.
7Sisters, you summed it up just perfectly, especially the last 2 sentences. Cornell tries to offer a wide variety of courses, but although this may be viewed as a strength to some, it hinders the school from being the best it can. </p>
<p>Most students couldn’t care less if Cornell shut down classes in basket-weaving, mushroom picking, etc. and use those funds to better some of their more “important” programs. In fact, the rise in ranking that would follow suit would actually please students all the more. </p>
<p>However, some people do feel that Cornell’s large offering of unique courses is a huge asset and thus should not be tampered with. I don’t really mind this too much, but I do wish that the state colleges would increase their selectivity up a bit as Cornell as a whole is getting a lot of **** for that. It has gotten to the point that if you’re a NY state resident with just mediocre stats, the state schools of Cornell is an easy ticket to the ivy league (that’s some of the things people say both on and outside of this board).</p>
<p>P.S. I don’t want to hear those “once you graduate, no one in the real world cares” posts. I’ve already seen them all, so if you don’t like my opinion, just ignore it.</p>
<p>It started an undergraduate business program this year in CALS, which is being promoted as the next Wharton but is still structured as a vocational program and has not been connected to its Johnson graduate business program. A school of business that is trying to compete with Wharton should not be housed in a college of agriculture.</p>
<p>You clearly don’t know about the history of AEM, which has been around for decades under other names. As a current student in AEM, I can say that it’s as much of an established undergraduate business program as those found anywhere else.</p>