<p>About math at Cornell:</p>
<p>There are a few people who are very talented in math, many more people who are pretty good or decent at math but not great. I think your scores put you around the middle of Cornell engineering, so I don’t think you’ll find a huge problem in terms of your math ability. What I’m curious about is whether you’ve taken calculus. As long as you create a solid foundation of calc before coming here, you should be fine. </p>
<p>As for the grading and curves, my TAs tell me that it’s not exactly the traditional rigid bell curve thing. They add up all of your test scores and section grades and stuff, and then they set cut offs for letter grades. For example, 470/500 might be an A, 400/500 a B, etc. These are totally random numbers but you get what I mean. So it’s not nearly as unfair as if they literally placed grades on a curve… If you score well, they’re not necessarily going to bump you down, etc. The median grades usually end up being somewhere around a B.</p>