What are Cornell students like?

TchaikovskyPiano
Wed, 19 Nov 2008 14:14:29 +0000

My experience is that Cornell is not overly competitive. Cornell is competitive in that in most cases you have to work as hard as everyone else in order to make the mean. This does not, however, encourage a “me against everyone else” mentality or promote sabotage. I would even argue that in some disciplines the intellectual atmosphere is very collaborative; for example, engineers frequently work on their problem sets and study in groups. It’s not uncommon for students naturally to push themselves, though, which might lead to the impression that Cornell is competitive.

I don’t find Cornell that preppy. Having visited other Ivies, I think Cornell is less preppy than some. I occasionally meet “rich snobs,” but I think the majority of students here are just normal, hard-working people.