Pros and Cons of Cornell

Colleges & Universities Cornell University
21

<p>Re: #19, </p>

<p>It’s true, you have some ability to narrow your field to a more copacetic level, particularly as you move to the latter parts of your college career. Where you have least ability to influence it, though, is in the dorms. This can be quite important, socially maybe moreso than academically. </p>

<p>Many or most people can deal, but there are evidentally some people who have limited interest or ability in managing this, or staying long enough to get to the point where they can manage it. Over the period I’ve been on CC, if you read the comments of the people who transfer out, their dissatisfaction with the level of diversity frequently comes up as one factor. In some cases the individual would prefer less social diversity. In other cases the individuals were dissatisfied with their perception of too wide a degree of diversity in academic capabilities.</p>

<p>This aspect was demonstrably a disadvantage in the minds of those people, to the point that it was contributing to their transfer decision.</p>

<p>And I, for one, understood what they were talking about.</p>

<p>I didn’t transfer out though. Every decision involves balancing pros vs. cons. </p>

<p>And again, as I indicated a feature of the place that is a con to one person may be experienced as a pro by others. But as for this particular feature, not by everyone unfortunately.</p>

<p>So no, I wouldn’t say I overlooked something, I just see it the way I told it.</p>

22

<p>Re #20, I do hear the weather raised as an issue, mostly by people who do not attend. Personally I think it’s overblown. I haven’t looked at stats, but to me the weather there is typical of much of the Northern US, far from the worst. </p>

<p>I experienced worse weather when I lived in the midwest. Colder in winter, hotter in sumer.</p>

<p>For some reason it rained a lot in Ithaca during the years I was there. Also not a big deal, I liked it actually.</p>

23

<p>In response to post # 21:</p>

<p>As far as Cornell freshmen potentially being more exposed to social diversity, and a portion of them to academic diversity as well, I agree. Where I have a difference of opinion is in regard to this being predominantly a con. The variety of students and interests ends up usually being a great positive, giving freshmen the ability to choose and learn from many social and academic types. This is one of the catalysts for self discovery. While this situation can sometimes be problematic for students with certain kinds of backgrounds and issues, that is the unfortunate case only in a small minority. This is supported by the statistic that upwards of 96 percent of freshmen return for their sophomore year at Cornell. So Cornell’s diversity – both academic and social – is predominantly a very great asset. It sets up a culture in which specialized academic groups can greatly benefit from the periodic cross disciplinary interaction at both social, as well as academic levels. The fact that a small minority of students are not open to this extremely fortunate potential for synergy does not alter how the solution to this question balances out far on the positive side of the spectrum.</p>

24

<p>yes you have a difference of opinion.</p>

25

<p>Yes … a positive opinion of the diversity, along with the majority of others who know Cornell well. Cornell University’s incredibly high quality diversity is not merely a positive, it is one of its greatest strengths, and the degree to which it is a con for a minority is so small as to be almost negligible. Still, I am not trying to get you to admit this Monydad, because I believe it will be apparent to most thoughtful readers of this thread. They are who may benefit by knowing the reasoned answer to this issue, particularly the new and prospective students.</p>

26

<p>I agree that thoughtful readers of this thread may read it and form their own conclusions.</p>

27

<p>Good, so we are in full agreement regarding your quick comment above, lol :)</p>

28

<p>If I may, I would like to interject my own views into this thoughtful thread, as it definitely tackles an issue that I thought a lot about when I was at Cornell. Coincidentally, I am sympathetic to both Colm’s and Monydad’s perspectives.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Agreed. Due to this academic, cultural, and socioeconomic diversity, Cornell offers a certain unbridled energy of the type that not many other top privates can offer.</p>

<p>At the same time, however, I need to be sympathetic to monydad’s suggestion that a student needs to stay a Cornell “long enough to get to the point where they can manage” this diversity.</p>

<p>College can often be a confusing, disorienting time for a lot of students. Their worldview can get flipped upside down, and in return, most will tend to seek out individuals who are similar to them to find some comfort and friendly faces. </p>

<p>Unfortunately, Cornell’s diversity causes more problems to students in this regard, especially freshman year when housing is assigned randomly. Whether it be a humanities student who finds herself among engineers, a Christian conservative around a bunch of reckless party kids, an agricultural sciences major surrounded by kids he finds to be obnoxiously intellectual, or even in my case, a thoughtful, down-to-earth kid from Upstate New York who found himself living on a floor with a bunch of smart, yet horrifically vapid and anti-intellectual girls from Long Island. </p>

<p>All of these scenarios can create thoughts of doubt and trepidation in the mind of a freshman, and lead to the types of students who transfer out or have a hard time at Cornell for their first couple of years. And I would argue that it affects more than the small minority that Colm suggests. </p>

<p>I should also add that these types of problems are also found on every other college campus, but it is more of a problem at Cornell, simply due to its rather unique offering of diversity.</p>

<p>The vast majority of students successfully overcome this ‘diversity’ obstacle – they are able to find a supportive residential environment – be it a fraternity, program house, co-op, off-campus apartment or upperclassmen dorm – from which to branch out. And by the time they are seniors I would argue that most are making the type of synergistic interactions that Colm suggests is a unique feature to Cornell. </p>

<p>It’s just a matter of making certain the student can find a certain level of comfort their freshmen year.</p>

29

<p>Your comment above is well stated, very diplomatic, and it greatly helps to clarify Cornell’s issue of academic and cultural diversity CayugaRed. </p>

<p>Part of my position is that the cross cultural interaction between intelligent and well meaning students is more often than not advantageous – even for freshmen, of which one is currently my daughter. CayugaRed, your examples above highlight some extreme cases of potential cross cultural turbulence. Yet, my young Cornellian’s experience is that these encounters – usually less dramatic – often serve to define her evolving self concept, and help lead her to special interest groups and potential academic majors that fit her developing self realization.</p>

<p>Nevertheless, I am willing to accede to the point that there may be a larger minority of freshmen that run into unfortunate periods of social vertigo in their first few semesters than I had previously accepted. Still, it is my educated guess that those with undue temporary “social vertigo” are a relatively small minority (though bigger than I formally thought) considering the fact that the vast majority of freshmen continue on to become upper classmen – the figure being just north of 96 percent (and many of the few that leave do so for other reasons). So, clearly most Cornell freshmen navigate the cultural and academic waters of diversity with great success. </p>

<p>Finally, let’s remember that as the semesters roll on most students settle into social and academic sub-communities. These groups end up being enriched by the broader environment of a wide array of high quality fields of study that are embodied by the wonderfully varied demographic of students and faculty.</p>

30

<p>as a non-cornellian, could one of y’all (colm, monydad, c-red) 'esplain what the heck you guys are talking about? Literally, I have no clue (except c-red’s dorm example). “Social verigo”? Do you mean geek-nerds or just folks who are extremely anti-social?</p>

<p>btw: are Frosh dorm assignments totally random, or do students complete a short questionaire and then are matched with a “like” person (as done at most other colleges)?</p>

31

<p>Bluebayou –</p>

<p>We’re discussing the pros and cons of Cornell’s rather broadly experienced diversity. Cornell features both farm boys and city slickers, meathead jocks and pie-in-the-sky intellectuals, engineers and hotel managers, cosmopolitan jet-setters and insulated American-centric conservatives. It has a lot more cultural, socioeconomic, and academic diversity than most of its peer schools, and that provides both challenges and opportunities.</p>

<p>Coln – It sounds like your daughter is self-aware and independently able to cultivate her own experience on campus. Kudos to her. It took me until my junior year to really get a sense for who I was and who I wanted to be.</p>

<p>I think one recent transfer stories is instructive in this regard.</p>

<p>The first featured a Cornell freshmen who had an interest in history and international relations but found herself surrounded by pre-meds and engineers. She had trouble fitting in and found Cornell to be a bit insulated from the ‘real world’ as well. She ended up transferring to Georgetown, although one would have a hard time arguing that one is at a disadvantage academically at Cornell given the number of Fulbrights the school produces and its linkages across the entire globe.</p>

<p>I think most Cornellians would agree that had the student stayed in Ithaca through her sophomore year she would have readily found a ‘home’ for herself on campus. Due to the campus’s diversity, it takes a little bit longer to become acclimated.</p>

32

<p>Bluebayou, “vertigo” just means dizziness. So social vertigo is what may sometimes happen when a new person you meet up with seems extremely different than you in their behavior patterns.</p>

<p>Incoming freshman do fill out a questionnaire at Cornell, and the housing administrators work to set up roommate assignments that have a greater likelihood of working out, not that they always do, of course. But I’m sure that the process helps to some degree.</p>

33

<p>Just for the record, vertigo is a sensation caused as a reaction to heights, such as dizziness. </p>

<p>I have to say, every time I read this thread, I can’t help smirking a little :slight_smile: Keep at it</p>

34

<p>Coming from Canada, ha, the winters at Ithaca are nothing.</p>

35

<p>cayuga, the way you put things into words,it reminds me of uncle ezra.</p>

36

<p>I don’t know if that is a good thing or a bad thing. </p>

<p>For the record, I am not Uncle Ezra. But perhaps I have picked up some of his writing style from years of reading.</p>

37

<p>haha, if you were uncle ezra, would you tell us?</p>

38

<p>Nope. But I’m not Uncle Ezra, so the question is moot.</p>

39

<p>ahh, got it. What is seems to me is that Cornell is in reality just a big Uni, and has all the trappings that go with 'em. The diversity as you describe c-red can easily be found a most large public Unis, such as Mich or Cal-Berkeley, particularly since the contract colleges have a distinctive NY resident flavor. And, yes it does take awhile to find one’s niche in a large setting, but I don’t think it’s so much diversity per se, but just the size of the campus. It’s too bad the transferee didn’t stick around a little longer – Frosh premeds tend to become history-poli sci majors pretty quickly after they see that C in inorganic. :)</p>

40

<p>“The diversity as you describe c-red can easily be found a most large public Unis, such as Mich or Cal-Berkeley”</p>

<p>Quite likely so. And at least some evaluators might consider aspects of the experience at those schools as a relative con as well. (While considering other aspects of them to be a relative pro). I was not suggesting that Cornell was uniquely a complete outlier in this regard, relative to all other schools. </p>

<p>All of Cornell’s recent Presidents seem to have come from “Big 10” schools, this is probably not a coincidence.</p>

<p>There are people who prefer LACs to this type of school though, and some of their reasons may involve aspects that relate to having a more homogeneous peer group than a “big u” offers. Those individuals evaluate large degrees of diversity from their preferred milieu as a relative con. My own D1 appled only to LACs, no big U’s (well only one), and these factors certainly played a role in her reasoning. I’m not saying I totally agreed with her, still pushing the ol’ alma mater, but she established her own priorities. There is a current Cornell student posting on the “transfer” forum quite recently who obviously is experiencing the situation there the same way my daughter conceptualized it.</p>

<p>Actually many state schools might have more extremes of diversity of academic capability, a feature which has been demonstrably non-preferred by some people. (Though they may offer low tuition- a factor demonstrably preferred by many parents !!)</p>