<p>can anyone tell me how competitive the students/ the school as a whole is?
do you only get like one or two As per class and do people not help each other because they want themselves to be the best? or is the opposite? or in the middle? thanks!</p>
<p>I think the students are competitive most with themselves. There is a lot of collaboration in classes because there are not set numbers of people who can get an A in a class (with the exception of the B-School, I think). The atmosphere is not cut-throat in the least.</p>
<p>Naw, I wouldn’t say that there are “set” numbers who can get As amadani, especially in intro courses. That mainly applies to upper level courses, especially in the sciences, and even then, many curve, but not in that fashion (only upward, therefore, in theory everyone can get As). Sometimes it is just difficult to get, but not necessarily limited.</p>
<p>I’d pretty much disagree with just about everything that the original poster said, as well. The DUC food isn’t amazing, but it’s certainly edible and occasionally pretty good. Not gourmet, but definitely better than anything at my high school. You do get sick of it by second semester freshman year, but by the time I was a junior and senior, I would eat there willingly again (it’s pretty easy to sneak in). It’s definitely improved over the years, and College Council has made a lot of efforts to continually improve dining. You can also get a lot of locally grown fruit and vegetables, as well, which is impressive.</p>
<p>Maintenance is fine, and most every building is beautiful. Some of the older freshman dorms were gross, but by now, most all of them have been torn down and replaced with some of the nicest dorms I (and probably most of you) have ever seen. Trimble had a rat infestation a year or two ago, but it was taken care of pretty quickly from what I heard. It’s definitely not a problem anymore. The thing about the south that you have to realize is that roaches are everywhere. You’ll occasionally see one here or there, especially in the summer and early fall. It’s not really an Emory thing… they’re just native to atlanta. You can always request pest control if you think it’s a problem.</p>
<p>I only had 1 or 2 bad professors in four years, and many, many that I loved. A lot of that is what you make of it and planning ahead. Use learnlink to find the best professors and take those classes. Every school has a few profs that are terrible teachers, even Harvard. I’d say the same thing about the students - you’ll find a place among the 6000 undergrads. I met some of my best friends at Emory. Going Greek helped that as well (and I would recommend at least rushing, FYI). Greek life certainly makes the school feel smaller, and a great community exists within Greek life that can really help you make it through tough classes, problems with friends, boy/girlfriends, etc.</p>
<p>Lastly, Atl is an amazing city in most every way. Really diverse, great culture, and amazing amazing amazing restaurants. Yeah, you have to drive, and Marta is really inefficient, but it’s well worth it. I really love atl.</p>
<p>You asked some interesting questions and I’m tempted to answer.</p>
<p>1) the food is horrible, and you have to eat it all four years</p>
<p>Not true. I am a transfer student. I went to a small, no-name liberal arts college up North that was only a little less than Emory is now. THERE, the food was terrible. I also spent a significant amount of time at two other colleges/universities. Food was okay at one, but selection was low. At the other (a large, state university) food was terrible; you had to worry about food poisoning from the fish.</p>
<p>I’ve never had that concern at Emory. Some dishes are a miss, but that’s only from a nutritional standpoint. Apart from that, the food at Emory is actually quite good. Anyone that tells you differently fails to realize that they are dealing with institutional food that’s being prepared in kitchens pushing roughly 3,000 meals a day. Some quality will be sacrificed. It can’t be Mom and Dad’s cooking.</p>
<p>2) the maintenance is slow and disfunctional and the rooms are infested with insects</p>
<p>Maintenance can be very slow.</p>
<p>Some rooms do have insects, but they are by and large a small problem. If you’re really finicky, you should definitely avoid the older dorms. Unfortunately, bugs just come with the climate in the South.</p>
<p>3) the students are super rich, apathetic, and don’t care about anything apart from money and clothes</p>
<p>As someone said before, this is the case with most places.</p>
<p>The students are not “super rich” either. We have a lot of trust-fund babies. We also have a lot of students coming in on full scholarships that wear Hollister and Old Navy clothing because that’s all they can afford. It’s a very healthy mix.</p>
<p>Just to give you a little more perspective, it’s difficult to make assumptions about a person’s wealth here. There is no good indicator—even if people tell you they’re well off, or poor, that doesn’t mean much.</p>
<p>I have a friend who was an American citizen with Mexican Immigrant parents. His father was a laid off industrial worker and I’m not exactly sure what his mother did—I don’t think she was employed. Yet he regularly dressed in expensive Guess jeans and Prada shirts. Contrast this with a prominent student leader I know of who walked out of his room wearing tattered jeans and navy blue hoodies and his father was a Mexican Oil Tycoon. People will give very misleading symbols about their wealth.</p>
<p>Statistically, Emory’s undergraduate student population has plateaued dead center. We have a healthy mix of student who occupy the second, third, and fourth quintiles of the American class breakdown. We’ve actually lost students over time from the highest quintile. So I think, if anything, you’ll a lot of class diversity here. </p>
<p>The apathetic stereotype is more difficult to dispel. I think the most important thing I can say is this: You have a school where the most popular major is Chemistry, followed by Neuroscience and then Psychology. You don’t have a majority of humanities majors at any one place in the school. You’re going to be met with a lot of kids that are face down in books having to do with RNA and statistical probabilities regarding plagues. If people are regularly reading USAToday or the New York Times, there are few formal places for them to express their opinions. There just isn’t time when you’re a natural sciences major.</p>
<p>4) oxford college is like high school, full of cliques and ridiculous drama? and that emory is somewhat the same but with a larger student population?</p>
<p>I think cliques are unavoidable. </p>
<p>They say that Oxford is very open to everyone and anyone, then when everyone goes to Emory, Oxford kids stick together simply because they know one another. I’d say that in a school of 5500, it’s healthy to assume that people will stay close to those whom they know and that they can trust. If there are cliques here, the “walls” are pretty permeable. </p>
<p>5) that the internet connection is sketchy</p>
<p>It’s getting a lot better. All the new buildings have great internet. All the public spaces have great internet. The older buildings are improving; they just switched vendors and their infrastructure so things are drastically improving.</p>
<p>6) some professors don’t give a rats ass about anything</p>
<p>I haven’t had a single professor that could be described like this.</p>
<p>7) atlanta, although exciting, is super spread out and disgusting, chocked with cars, and impossible to get around without a vehicle</p>
<p>It’s spread out but it isn’t disgusting. It’s actually quite beautiful.</p>
<p>I will say that you cannot expect to get anywhere quickly during rush hour (4-6). But that’s a reality most people will face in many major cities.</p>
<p>Quoting js1091, who transferred from Emory to Florida State University:</p>
<p>—“State school puts my mind (and wallet) at ease and my life is 100x less stressful and way more accommodating.”</p>
<p>— "Edit: I also didn’t really feel that challenged at Emory. I never did any homework and minimal studying and I maintained a 3.5 gpa basically effortlessly. I never stepped into a single class that I couldn’t ace if I put in a mediocre amount of effort. "</p>
<p>Who finds that contradictory? A guy claiming that state school is 100x less stressful when says that he barely did S@#$T at Emory and got 3.5? </p>
<p>He’s a ■■■■■.</p>
<p>Maybe a ■■■■■, but if one is worried about being able to return to a school due to finances, that can be stressful. Perhaps that type of stress didn’t really strain his academic performance. I guess I’m trying to give this person the benefit of the doubt, however they have yet to return and tell us their primary concentration of study which they effortlessly made a 3.5 in.</p>
<p>Yeah I mean there’s more to college life than school work, although the ‘100x’ was obviously an hyperbole. Sometimes just being around stressed out people can wear on you, and I would imagine FSU students are collectively less stressed/more laid back. I’m also guessing that person was a freshman taking mainly GERs/lower level classes.</p>
<p>^You don’t get to go to a top college without busting your ass more than your state colleges with supposedly less hardworking and less talented students. You wanna go to an elite school, you pay a bigger price.</p>
<p>Also, if they wanted to be challenged more, why didn’t they just transfer to Georgia Tech or something (wait they probably were not a science major therefore may not have, just as said by you el duque, taken any really tough courses as a freshman.). For all we know, they could have been one of those that aimed to make their schedule as easy as possible, and got exactly what they expected and is now using it as a reason they left other than “I didn’t like it”.
Basically, they had to make an attempt to qualify the venting on this forum. Either way, if we are all wrong, I just must be stupid because I was challenged when I wasn’t supposed to be according to this person.</p>
<p>1) the food is fine. i find the breakfasts to be rather good actually and there is always variety.
2) i’ve found the maintenance to be great. we had a light go out, so i emailed maintenance about the problem and they came by within the day to fix it.
3) i haven’t found the school as a whole to be anything like you just described. in fact, i’ve noticed that most ppl go out of their way to hold the door open for your, especially if it locks. that story sounds made up to me. of course there are always going to be a few kids that aren’t the nicest, but really i’ve found ppl to be extremely friendly and helpful.
4) i’m on main campus, but it’s not really like high school at all.
5) i’ve only had a problem with internet connection on one day of the entire semester and a half that i’ve been here. buy an ethernet cable. you’ll be fine.
6) the professors i’ve had have been amazing and have gone out of their way to really get to know me and help me, even in large classes.
7) atlanta is quite pretty actually. you can take the marta just about anywhere you want to go. there are also emory experience shuttles that take students for free to different parts of atlanta on saturdays.
i know that you all are anxious to figure out what emory is “really” like, but just don’t worry about it so much. i read a lot of negative posts on cc, student’s review, etc when i was a prospective, but they didn’t really amount to anything. emory is wonderful, stop overthinking it.</p>
<p>1) I think the food is really good. I like the DUC (as do many of my friends) and even if you don’t there’s always Cox Hall, which has fast food restaurants like Chick-fil-A, Pizza Hut, Mexican, Boars Head, Sushi, and many more options. There’s also an AMAZING mediterean restuarant, which everyone loves and I’ve never heard any complaints about. If you live at Clairmont, the SAAC is really good too. </p>
<p>2) maintenance is fine…they’ve come to our room about 5 times this year and it usually only takes a day or two. Also, most of the dorms are very new and there are no bugs!!</p>
<p>3) there are definitely some rich students here, but there are also people from all economic backgrounds. Yes, some are apatethic, but definitely not the majority. I’ve found that most people are really nice and passionate about what they study. </p>
<p>People absolutely do NOT shut the door in your face…everyone (almost) will hold the door for you even if you’re far away.</p>
<p>4) i can’t comment on oxford…i didn’t go there</p>
<p>5) the internet is fine… I’ve never had a problem except at the very beginning of the year for a week when they were doing maintenance. </p>
<p>6) i’ve never had a professor like this, but i’m sure they exist, as they do at every school…</p>
<p>7) yeah, atlanta traffic sucks. Even still, i LOVE being here and find that there’s so much to do. Nightlife is amazing and definitely worth suffering rush hour traffic for.</p>
<p>1) the food is horrible, and you have to eat it all four years
- It IS. I got tired of the DUC food after first two weeks. They lack variety.
- the maintenance is slow and disfunctional and the rooms are infested with insects
- I don’t think this is true at all. I’m living in one of the oldest dorms here and I’ve never seen a single bug. I think Emory’s got one of the nicest dorms.
- the students are super rich, apathetic, and don’t care about anything apart from money and clothes
- where did you hear this story from? i’ve never heard this before. i do agree that most students here come from wealthy families but that doesn’t make us evil like that. And there are snobby kids everywhere, not just at emory. If you can’t handle “someone closing the door right in front of you” then i don’t know, you’ll have problems wherever you go.
- oxford college is like high school, full of cliques and ridiculous drama? and that emory is somewhat the same but with a larger student population?
- i’m not in oxford, so can’t help you with this one.
- that the internet connection is sketchy
- yes. it’s rare though. i’m happy with mine.
- some professors don’t give a rats ass about anything
- why would we go here then… i’ve found all of my professors very helpful and they are passionate about teaching.
- atlanta, although exciting, is super spread out and disgusting, chocked with cars, and impossible to get around without a vehicle
- the campus isn’t actually in atlanta (the city)… i’m from ny and i don’t think any city can be more disgusting than some parts of manhattan lol. if you want to explore atlanta, you’ll need a car since it’s 15 minutes away. marta is actually convenient. i’ve been using it and never had problems with it.</p>
<p>emory certainly was not my first choice, but i ended up liking it a lot here. it’s whatever YOU make out of it and this applies to all colleges.</p>
<p>I’m sorry but I’m going to have to disagree with some of your posts; Emory is a college meaning like most other diverse, big national universities, it has negatives and positives. Sure, many of the accepted kids are rich kids who were rejected from Ivys but at the same time, there are many decent, motivated people.</p>
<p>It’s all about who you hang out with and what kind of classes you take. ALSO, about professors: I don’t know where you got that information but you must be talking about some no-name class teachers or something because Emory professors (of notable departments like biology) are among the best, especially compared to some other schools.</p>
<p>But, I have no idea about Oxford…my opinion is, don’t go there.</p>
<p>DEFINITELY agree with Kace, above me.</p>
<p>About Oxford, I go there and there is drama but it is not high school-esque. I reall don’t know how to explain it though…</p>