Pros and Cons of Cornell

Colleges & Universities Cornell University
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<p>Pro:</p>

<p>awesome dorm food
nice restaurants in ithaca
solid academics
wide range of courses to choose from
lots of different majors
diversity in student body
pretty generous financial aid
nice campus with beautiful nature
good frat parties
very nice buildings, including awesome libraries and state of art architecture
slope days are always awesome. we had T.I., Lupe, and Drake while I was at Cornell
strong alumni network</p>

<p>Con:</p>

<p>terrible weather
isolated location
too many community college transfers
competitive to get top grades
insanely competitive to get top jobs via on-campus-recruiting (think top banking and consulting jobs)
oppressive workload in certain majors
collegetown can get boring after a while, and not enough of exciting/ fun bars or clubs
lack of hot girls
sports teams here aren’t the best
some professors are absolute pain to deal with
no chipotle restaurant</p>

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<p>What was your major at Cornell? It was my impression that workload at Big4 accounting firms are pretty heavy, although not as intensive as I-banking.</p>

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<p>Do agree about the cc transfers and working your ass off parts…</p>

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<p>Pro:
You can be hired for a job about as competitive as getting admissions to a top, top Ivy. Paid $90,000 your first year out of school. This year, second year out of school, making
$ 110,000 to 140,000 for a job you find challenging and really like. And earning a degree from an easy, stupid contract college.</p>

<p>Con:</p>

<p>The weather in March, April and May.</p>

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<p>There is alot of mention regarding CC kids being admitted to Cornell as transfers. From what my own kids have said this is usually in only two specific colleges on the Cornell campus. Have things changed this past year?</p>

<p>Doesn’t this also explain how the Cornell stats are skewed regarding Cornell with peer schools?</p>

<p>Pro: Both sons graduated and one was offered a job and is working with people that are far more senior than he is and he is the PM coming out of school. Very respectable salary and living in a very interesting part of the world.
Second son…Is enjoying his job which comes with a close to $100,000 salary. Has paid off his loans and will be looking for a condo soon. He graduated in May 2011. I would say for both of them that Cornell has been everything they hoped it would be.</p>

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<p>Pro:
Outstanding academics with amazing breadth
Gorgeous campus
Great college town
Strong alumni network
Cornell Big Red Hockey and Lynah Rink [both men and women now ranked Top 10]<br>
Viewing the sunset from Libe Slope </p>

<p>Btw, CC transfers, who are primarily in the contract colleges, comprise fewer than 2% of students.</p>

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<p>CALS and ILR are known for giving out a substantial number of GTs [guaranteed transfers], so the transfer rate is a bit inflated from those numbers.</p>

<p>And @morrismm – You sound like a complete dumbass. The contract colleges are no easier or harder than the endowed colleges. Although some majors are easier than others, there’s no reason to act like a ******bag.</p>

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<p>I believe Morrismm was trying to add humor to the stupid idea that the contract colleges are easier or substandard. Morrismm has always been a great supporter of Cornell.</p>

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<p>@model
I don’t really care if i would sound like a “******bag” but the contract colleges are simply easier to get into (acceptance rates are higher, and the number of GTs given = slightly less than the number of freshman acceptances and slightly more than the number of enrolling freshmen). </p>

<p><a href=“http://www.jkcf.org/grants/community...ing-practices/[/url]”>http://www.jkcf.org/grants/community...ing-practices/&lt;/a&gt;
^ according to this, 1/3 of transfers are from community colleges, and most transfers matriculate from the contract colleges. Pretty significant number. Perhaps they make up 2% of total number of students @ cornell? They generally don’t have as many graduating requirements as say CAS or engineering as well, which takes the burden off of many students who simply want to graduate with a Cornell degree. </p>

<p>With that said however, if two students (one from endowed and one from contract) take the same classes though then the quality of education that they get is the same.</p>

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<p>Thank you momma-three. I do think Cornell is a great school. And I realize not all threaders know past history of these threads.</p>

<p>Modelgeek282-- My D graduated from a contract college (ILR) in May 2010 with a 3.99 gpa. She was also an IT (computer science) minor.</p>

<p>She is now working in finance in NYC. She, today, found out her bonus and salary for next year. She will not be making $200,000 but over $150,000. It’s a damn good compensation for a 24 year old and Cornell grad in ILR, from an “easy, stupid contract college.”</p>

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<p>@morrismm, not saying they are stupid. Just saying they are easier to get into and graduate from. In the end, it’s still a Cornell degree and you get the same connections. Your daughter made use of her time @ Cornell and was rewarded for it - as finance job offerings heavily relies on connections and she also did well academically in respect to other kids which might have got her another edge.
I didn’t say that kids in contract colleges won’t be successful (which many top graduates and other kids who know what they are doing with their degree are/ will be. I actually think many A&S kids actually have a higher proportion of kids who won’t be, looking @ things like history/english/communications/culture, if you are weighing it by salary - which isn’t a good indicator of educational quality, but of market demand). Just that I disagreed with the point that they are not “easier”. Kind of like HES, where a sample graduate ended up becoming a professor @ MIT & more with a legitimate harvard degree, except not quite as bad (students are more academically qualified).</p>

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<p>Hey congrats to morrismomD!! That’s great!</p>

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<p>I know some kids from my high school who went to Indiana University and University of North Carolina who ended up getting jobs at top Bulge Bracket banks, as I-banking analysts, making close to 150k a year.</p>

<p>Another friend of mine went to University of Vermont. Now, he is working at an elite prop trading firm as a trader, making close to 250k a year. </p>

<p>At the same time, one guy from my high school who graduated from Harvard last year has been unemployed for about a year now. He majored in political science, and had a mediocre GPA. He’s considering heading to graduate school in either accounting or law, but haven’t heard back from him in a while so I don’t exactly know what he’s doing now. </p>

<p>Also, I know many kids from Cornell who graduated with me, who got jobs in sales at some horrible companies. Some other kids are working retail jobs, like GAP, Starbucks, or Home Depot. My freshmen roommate is working as a volunteer or secretary at a local hospital. Many others are unemployed, or heading to grad school. Also, I know some kids who are killing it, working in top consulting, i-banking, or trading positions at top companies. However, I would estimate that only around 10-15% of Cornell graduates ended up in their first-choice, desirable jobs. The rest of students had to settle for non-desirable or second, third-choice jobs, remain unemployed, or head to grad school.</p>

<p>It’s funny how some high school students think their career and future depend on where they go to college. Many of the times, life doesn’t work like that. Also, one interesting thing to think about is how Cornell students all went to same school, many of them took same classes, are all pretty decently smart, etc, yet there are such wide discrepancies of outcome regarding careers and jobs among Cornell alums.</p>

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<p>Not to take anything away from your daughter’s outstanding achievements, but that salary figure is meaningless without her hours. Most people look at top IB guys making 6 figures right off the bat and go wow…but if you factor in that they work 18 hours a day; six days a week, you find out that their hourly rate salaries are not that different from the starting salaries of accountants and any other decent profession (~25-30/hour).</p>

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<p>1) People in trading (S&T division of BB or traders at elite prop shops) make 150k starting out, yet work less hours than people in I-banking.</p>

<p>2) In I-banking, most analysts aren’t working 18 hours a day. It depends on deal flow. Some weeks, analyst work 60-70 hours a week. Some other weeks, they may work 100-120 hours a week. On average, it is close to 80 hours a week. Besides, many of the times, analysts aren’t working. VP’s or Associates dump work on analysts, sometimes, at 4pm on friday and analysts may have to work until 6 am to get stuff done. But many times, analysts are just browsing web, reading news, and doing random stuff and not exactly ‘working’ but just check into office for required face time. I know this because I have a bunch of friends working as analysts at Bulge Bracket banks.</p>

<p>3) Accountants work brutal hours, close to 80 hours a week in busy seasons, yet they get paid like 55k a year. Accounting is an absolute joke compared to I-banking or trading, in terms of compensation.</p>

<p>4) People from I-banking or Trading have much more lucrative exit job opportunities than most other people, including accountants. Many IB analysts go into buy side jobs such as PE or some go to mega funds where money is greater and they work less hours.</p>

<p>In sum, I-banking and trading are the two best jobs you can get straight out of college. It is a stressful job and the work of an IB analyst is mundane and boring (you are constantly working on power point slides and doing data entry in microsoft excel), but you get paid well and it is a good work experience for finance career.</p>

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<p>@colene - Your link doesn’t work. I know that the acceptance rates are higher for the contract colleges, but some of them have more specialized programs [Fiber Science & Landscape Architecture] that are more based on portfolios than test scores.</p>

<p>@mmorris - One problem with your argument is that you keep lumping the contract colleges together. ILR is way different than CALS & Human Ecology, with the main different being that ILR is one major while the other colleges have numerous majors. While some majors in CALS and HumEc are notorious for being easy, what about HBHS majors in HumEc and Biological Sciences majors in CALS? They still take the same pre-med classes as Bio majors in CAS. </p>

<p>Oh and I don’t know why you brought up your daughter and her salary. Good for her I guess. Although life isn’t all about making 6 figures…</p>

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<p>I agree with you. Life isn’t about money. Getting a good education and a job you love is what is important. Of course, money is necessary to live. But it should not be all that matters.</p>

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<p>

I studied in both contract and endowed colleges and I can promise you the students were the same caliber, as were the workloads and challenges to graduate. The difference is in majors, as there are easier and harder ones in every college, but that is true across all universities. </p>

<p>@lazy kid - the vast difference in directions alumni go with their careers shouldn’t surprise you. Cornell has one of the most diverse discipline offerings in the world. Some people go on to push fake money around the finance world to make a quick buck, but others do real work that makes the world better by producing food, technologies, better health, new buildings, sustainable landscapes, or perhaps literature. That all takes hard work and time; very few of those paths reward a 24-year old possessing minimal experience and no groundbreaking innovations with mid 6 figures. A system that does is broken.</p>

<p>Only a little offense intended in that statement, but after Wall Street frathouse knuckleheads tanked our economy it’s time we stopped holding their profession and its absurd salaries up as some gold standard. Encourage grads to instead create something useful. Figuring out which horse to bet on doesn’t take a college degree.</p>

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<p>I’ve only been glancing at this thread, but there really is no difference in quality between contract and endowed colleges. I’m someone who took a variety of courses as a CAS student across a variety of disciplines. If anything, I’d always say Engineering students on average stood out as a cut above the rest in terms of intelligence/work ethic, but that’s a very broad/mostly useless generalization. A major-to-major comparison is more useful because all majors are NOT created equal in terms of rigor. Some do require less work and less intelligence to do well in.</p>

<p>In terms of careers, I agree with applejack that Cornell’s wide variety of disciplines means people choose a variety of careers. I graduated with a degree in Economics and Government, with minors in International Relations and German. Yes, I could go the I-banking route, which I used to think would have been harder for me because the Econ/CS or Econ/Math students took more relevant courses, but a fair amount of my friends who studied just Government got into I-banking as well (and if you tried to talk Econ with them, they were pathetic). If you are taking a more unconventional academic route to these jobs, internships become hugely important. </p>

<p>Of the people I knew best at Cornell, those who struck me as most intelligent are either doing something academic (grad school, research fellowship, etc.) or doing nonprofit work for something they care about. The people I knew of “average” intelligence at Cornell (keeping in mind average at Cornell is still well above average overall), are more likely in finance/banking. I base this off personal experience and I’m not sure if they publish stats about GPA and future jobs. Of people I knew really well, only 1 of my “highly” intelligent friends is in banking, whereas several of my “average” intelligence friends are doing finance/banking.</p>

<p>I never applied to the Econ major with the intention of going into banking/finance, and now that I’ve graduated, my only motivation for that type of job would be envy of the money they make, which is not enough motivation for me to seriously pursue those jobs. I never applied to any sort of finance/investment job and am perfectly happy making less money doing serious research for a nonprofit. And as far as I can tell, research positions at nonprofits are at least as competitive because there are so few jobs available. I work at a fairly large organization by policy research standards, and there isn’t anyone else even in their 20s working as a research analyst here (and even then, only a handful in their 30s). I’d say Cornell gave me an edge…So there are many careers someone can pursue after Cornell, and not everyone is looking in fields with the highest paycheck. </p>

<p>I don’t mean to sound as some righteous person either who rails against finance. I deeply respect finance and I would have no problem working on Wall Street if that type of work is actually what interested me most. I took Financial Economics and I find finance fascinating, but I find research even more fascinating so that’s what I do…</p>

<p>PS. Before anyone who follows my advice calls me out for my advocacy of Econ/Math, AEM + math, etc. and now saying it doesn’t matter, please realize I always make the assumption of “all else equal” and I stand by that advice in terms of pure academic prep for these types of careers.</p>

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<p>The point is being lost if you are only hearing about the monetary compensation of a Cornell grad. For our sons, their salaries allowed them to pay off loans in an economy that has everyone grateful to have a job. They did’nt go to Cornell to graduate and make huge saleries. They choose Cornell because it was such a great fit for them. All of our sons are happy and thriving and I don’t want to put words in Morrismms mouth but I think that is the point she was trying to make regarding her daugher. </p>

<p>The contract colleges have received some pretty stupid criticism on this thread and as a result it has spread to the entire forum. Heck, there are people who could barely write a thought asking to be chanced for Cornell because it is “so easy to get into.” It is this type of ridiculous Cornell talk that stirs up alumni and parents. I have seen my children attend Cornell and graduate as happy, interesting, and contributing members of their community. One of my sons in working in the UE. He left right after graduation and has been there since. His life there is interesting to say the least, but this experience has made him unique as far as new college grads are concerned. He thanks Cornell for this and so do we. Don’t get me wrong I really wish that my son were living alot closer but when this contract is over my son will only be 24. He will of had two solid years in the field that he chose and enjoys. He is a very lucky man. </p>

<p>For those of you who knock the fields that have high saleries attached. Again I could only speak for my sons…They have all chosen careers that they enjoy and as it so happens they get paid well. All three of my sons still volunteer time and now that they have some money they could also use that to help with the projects they are each interested in. The beauty that I have seen with a Cornell degree is that most students come away with a perspective that is different from many other Ivy league students that I have met. There is a humility in Cornell students and that makes them easy to be around yet very capable and competive in the workforce. As a Cornell parent I am so thankful that Cornell has kept to its original values. My sons are great friends with an extradinary landscape architect, med school students, law school students, engineers, hotel managers in Europe and NYC and the list goes on. Their time at Cornell has given them a perspective that their other friends at Yale, Columbia, Princeton and even MIT do not have, and that is because the schools mentioned do not have the breath of majors that Cornell has. That is what makes Cornell unique. I am so glad the contract colleges are present and I am even grateful that there is an Ivy league school who gives community college students who are capable, a chance to attend this life changing school. I know I tend of get emotional regarding Cornell but I have really been blessed with three great sons, two of which have graduated and one who will be attending for graduate school. </p>

<p>When I stood in the stadium for graduation I clapped long and hard for every procession of students that passed us. I never thought for a moment that one school or one major was more worthy. That would be like saying the world should be filled with engineers…and we know that wouldn’t be a very happy place for us non engineer types.</p>

<p>I cross posted with Mikey…had to stop to get a cup of coffee.</p>