<p>Thanks for the encouragement everyone. I think I’ll be able to handle the work if all it takes is effort (which is actually a lot to ask of). The question now is will I get in or not. agh 4 more days. my knees are shaking. </p>
<p>So far, all of the responses have been similar. Cornell is hard to graduate from only if you make it, and it is harder to the other Ivies in terms of graduating. No cut throat competition between students but rather professors. </p>
<p>Thanks again all.</p>
<p>Let me reiterate…I have friends who have graduated from all the big ivy league schools, as well as Berkeley, Stanford and MIT…everyone had to work their ass off to get good grades regardless of where they went. There was no appreciable difference in the work load between the schools (and this is across multiple majors). At the same time, I knew plenty of people at cornell who seemed to party more than study, and they all graduated on time too. One thing I forgot to mention about Cornell is that they have great academic support/advising services which I found remarkable for such a large “impersonel” school…you have to really try hard to fall through the cracks there.</p>
<p>cheers,
CUgrad</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Am I the only one who thinks this is actually a highly significant difference? Put another way, it means that 8% of incoming Cornell freshmen will not graduate, compared to 2% at Harvard. In other words, a randomly selected Cornell freshmen is 4 times as likely to not graduate as a randomly selected Harvard freshman. </p>
<p>Perhaps to illustrate the point clearer, think about pharmaceutical mortality rates. Let’s say you have a potentially deadly disease. Those who don’t take a drug suffer from an 8% mortality rate. Those who do have a 2% mortality rate. In the pharmacological world, that’s a hugely significant difference in mortality - easily enough to get your drug approved by the FDA and easily enough to get patients willing to pay big money to get that drug. 2% vs. 8% is a highly significant difference. </p>
<p>Look, that doesn’t make Cornell a bad school. But it is important to understand the significance of the attrition rate.</p>
<p>People insist on talking about Cornell as if it was a monolith. I think this is partly the university’s own fault, since I don’t readily see the statistics separated by its colleges like I used to.</p>
<p>But keep in mind that Cornell university has separate admissions to individual undergraduate colleges there that are not at all the same, or homogeneous. It has private undergraduate colleges. It has public undergraduate colleges.</p>
<p>I don’t at all know that the attrition rate in its College of Arts & Sciences is the same as the attrition rate in it College of Agriculture, which has completely separate admissions and is a branch of the State University of New York. I haven’t studied the figures, but my impression is that most state universities have higher attrition rates than most private colleges. What is the attrition rate at the University of Michigan, or Cal Berkeley, or Wisconsin, or Virginia?</p>
<p>It also has a large College of Engineering. Once again, my impression is that attritrion in engineering colleges is higher than in most other private colleges, generally, with maybe a few exceptions. What is attrition like at RPI?</p>
<p>The significance of the attrition rate is only important to the extent that it effects YOU. And YOU will attend only one of these separate, non-homogeneous colleges within the greater university.</p>
<p>If you are applying to the Cornell College of Arts & Sciences, then the fact that someone else in some separate, state-supported college, which also happens to be physically located at the same campus, is somewhat less likely to graduate than your peers in Arts& Sciences is simply not highly relevant to you as an applicant. IMO. Compare liberal arts colleges to liberal arts colleges if you want to make a meaningful comparison.</p>
<p>If the data isn’t broken out by college then I sympathize, but without actually appropriate data there really isn’t much of a meaningful conclusion or comparison you will be able to draw</p>
<p>I’m not saying that graduation rates in a particular one of Cornell’s colleges are better or worse than any other college’s graduation rates; I have no idea.
I am just pointing out that you are inappropriately globbing together about 7 separate undergraduate colleges that are really not at all the same, from the perspective of admissions or their goals and objectives. You might as well lump together MIT, BU, BC, Babson, U MAss, etc; and then start drawing conclusions about Massachusetts colleges from that.</p>
<p>It’s interesting that I never see Columbia College, Columbia Engineering, Barnard College and Columbia’s School for General Studies all glommed together the way people are always glomming Cornell’s disparate colleges together. And Cornell’s colleges are much more different from each other than Columbia’s are.</p>
<p>We certainly don’t know if this is a statistically significant difference–in the true statistical sense. I agree that, qualitatively, there is a “sizable” difference in the graduation rate (and are these 5 or 6 year numbers, I’m not sure). Regardless, my point is that we don’t know what causes this discrepancy–it may be that Cornell is actually more difficult, and people simply struggle taking the same number of units as a Harvard student, or Princeton student. It may be just as likely, however, that a larger portion of Cornell students spend a year abroad. We simply do not have enough information to make blanket statements that Cornell is significantly more difficult to graduate from than other ivy league and ivy type schools. At this point, we can only say that fewer students graduate from Cornell in 4 years (or 5 or 6) than other schools–correlation does not equal causation. In any case, it’s pointless arguing about graduation rates at these schools because they graduate most of their students anyway. My point in the above posts is that students who actually drop out of Cornell for academic reasons, would probably end up dropping out at most universities. The predominant reason, I believe, for students failing at school is not the perceived difficulty of the college, but a lack of basic skills on the part of the student (e.g. good time management, study skills, social skill etc.).</p>
<p>Anyway, it’s just an opinion…</p>
<p>cheers,
CUgrad</p>
<p>Understanding the significance of the graduation rate at Cornell (92%)compared to Harvard (98%)…</p>
<p>Harvard has perhaps the most gifted student body in the world in most liberal arts disciplines (but not engineering, not agriculture, and so on). That might account for a little of the difference. But, Cornell also has a very gifted student body. </p>
<p>Harvard has a reputation for grade inflation. Roughly 90% of Harvard students graduate with honors but only about 20% of Cornell students graduate with honors.</p>
<p>All of the colleges within Cornell have graduation rates in the 93%-96% range except Architecture, Art, and Planning which has a grad rate around 75%. Although the Architecture college is relatively small, it is enough to bring down the grad rate by a couple percent. The NYS contract colleges actually have pretty high graduatiion rates (Agriculture, Human Ecology, Industrial Relations).</p>
<p>Another factor is that nearly 50% of Cornell grads are in the Engineering and Sciences area. The other Ivys are about 20%. The heavily quantitative disciplines are more difficult and have lower grad rates. Evidence of this can be seen at MIT, Caltech, Georgia Tech, Carnegie Mellon, Harvey Mudd. </p>
<p>The correlation at the elite universities between graduation rate and the percent of engineering/science grads is very high. As the percent of graduates in engineering/science increases, the graduation rate decreases. The correlation is -.69 (statistically significant) due mostly to the data from the tech schools and from Cornell. Penn has both a low percent eng/sci grads and a “low” grad rate (92%). Not sure why…maybe difficulty at Wharton and in econ, which are quantitative. When you exclude Penn, the correlation increases (becomes stronger) to -.79.</p>
<p>Here is some data:
college, eng/sci grad percent, grad rate
harvard 24.4 98
princeton 27.6 97
yale 19.9 96
brown 20.7 96
dartmouth 26.1 95
stanford 35.5 94
northwestern 26.6 93
columbia 30.3 92
penn 18.2 92
cornell 49.2 92
mit 78.5 92
caltech 96.1 89</p>
<p>eng/sci grad percents are from IPEDS 2004
grad rates are from US News 2004</p>
<p>monydad: your statement “someone else in some separate, state-supported college, which also happens to be physically located at the same campus” … makes it sound like there happens to be “other state schools” that are located on the Cornell campus. This is not the case. They are not separate. Each school within Cornell University is owned by Cornell University. None of them are SUNY or state schools. Several of them receive support from the state to benefit the wallets of new york state residents, but this is about it. The state doesn’t have a word on the most important decisions, these are all dictated by Cornell University. In the end, New York State residents pay only $32,000 a year rather than $42,000 a year. The brunt of tuition doesn’t come from the state, and there’s even word that Cornell will eventually become fully endowed within the next few years. Students at these schools take classes all over the university and are not ‘limited’ to only classes within their individual school. Here at Cornell, there is no distinction between the endowed colleges and the ones NY State helps support. And no, they are not considered to be public colleges. Also, cornell is not the only school with different undergraduate college. Most schools are like this. Cornell just releases individual information regarding each individual college. </p>
<p>Sakky - this is not a life or death statistic here!! If we were talking about life-breaking miracles of medicine … then yes 6% out of 100 might make a difference. But, this is not the case. And this quote “In other words, a randomly selected Cornell freshmen is 4 times as likely to not graduate as a randomly selected Harvard freshman.” No, this is not what 92% vs. 98% actually means. Take a statistics course. Or a general math course. What would you have to say about a college that has a graduation rate of 80%? Is one student at this college is 10 times as likely not to graduate as a randomly selected harvard freshman? You need to look at the probability that one student will not graduate at one schools vs. the statistics of that at another. 2 out of 100 vs. 8 out of 100 isn’t a significant difference, especially for the situation we have here. I dont have exact numbers for what the ‘average’ graduation rate is for all universities and colleges in the US, but it’s certainly way below 90% and this would prove my point even more.</p>
<p>hey whatever gomestar, but they were certainly considered different when I went there. This was no more clearly indicated than by the fact that transfer between colleges was not automatic; one had to apply. And at that time it was generally thought to be more difficult to transfer from,e.g, HumEC to Arts than from Engineering to Arts.</p>
<p>And,at that time anyway, they certainly were considered public colleges, They were part of SUNY. And the state most definitely had a say regarding these colleges; various state officials were on the Board of Directors. Has that changed someplace along the line?</p>
<p>If there truly was no difference then there would be no need for separate admissions.</p>
<p>When I went there state school students certainly were limited in the number of courses they could take in the other colleges. Or, put the other way, there was a large requirement that they had to take in their own college which had the same effect.</p>
<p>Although it is true that many universities have separate undergraduate colleges, most of the colleges Cornell gets compared to do not. Or if they do, then they are not all jumbled together as one , as in the Columbia case where Columbia College of Columbia University is never lumped together with Barnard College of Columbia University. Of the Ivy League and selective LACs that Cornell is always compared with, Cornell stands virtually alone in this regard so far as I can tell.</p>
<p>Here is a web-page entitled “Complete Campus list” from the State University of New York.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.suny.edu/Student/campuses_complete_list.cfm[/url]”>http://www.suny.edu/Student/campuses_complete_list.cfm</a></p>
<p>Note that three colleges at Cornell and its vet school are on this list of SUNY campuses.</p>
<p>Monydad is correct. The non-endowed colleges at Cornell do receive substantial money from the SUNY system. In fact, I think there is an engraving at ILR that says, “State University of New York College of Industrial and Labor Relations.” The fact that SUNY has claims on a few of the colleges doesn’t in any way take away from the prestige of the colleges or the university as a whole. This whole stigma against publicly funded colleges is ridiculous–It bugs me to no end when students discredit a university because it is a public school. Although the contract colleges started as the land-grant campus for New York, I think these days SUNY is riding the Cornell coat-tails (why they’re still listed under the SUNY web-page). It is not like you are entering a collegiate ghetto when you cross from the pastural quads of the endowed colleges into the slums of Agriculture and Life Sciences. The point is that there is no appreciable difference in the quality of the students or faculty from one college to another. An example–Biology faculty are hired by college. This means that depending on what course you are taking, you could be taught by an ALS professor or a professor in ARTS–the only difference being the amount they get paid (ARTS being paid more). I have also heard people argue that the quality of the students in the contract colleges is not as good. I can only speak from experience, but when I graduated, the highest GPA’s in the biology major (again, offered across colleges) were all from the Agriculture school. </p>
<p>Bottom line is you won’t have any idea which college people are in unless you ask them. I assure you, you will find thick headed Arts students and brilliant Arts students, the same as you will in any college.</p>
<p>One more thing…the happiest people at Cornell were those who wanted to be there (and in winter, it can be a depressing place with ten feet of snow, and 3 finals the next day…I digress). I knew many students who turned down “better” schools for Cornell and they never thought twice about it. The most miserable students were those grasping for prestige. Rejected by Harvard and Yale (they wanted an urban campus) and didn’t go to NYU because Cornell was a few spots higher in US News…</p>
<p>…ok, I’m ranting.</p>
<p>In closing, to get back to the original point: Yes, Cornell has contract colleges affiliated with/part of the SUNY system…NO, it doesn’t matter or make a shred of difference.</p>
<p>cheers,
CUgrad</p>
<p>Oh…one more thing if you’re worried (though read above post)…your degree just says Cornell University on it, none of that icky SUNY stuff.</p>
<p>cheers,
CUgrad</p>
<p>More on monyedad’s post from above…if you are in a contract college, you may take up to 55 credits in an endowed college and required major courses don’t count towards that number. In other words, as a biology major, you don’t get penalized because you have to take chemistry and physics (though in a strange way, your distribution requirements e.g. humanities and social studies do count). Anyway, 55 credits is alot, I should know because I was constantly taking courses in the Arts college and I didn’t come close to reaching that number (most of the electives I took were in the 3 to 4 credit range). However, monydad is right on when he says that how students in one college fair should have little bearing on how students perform in other colleges (Biology majors being the major exception). I knew lots and lots of engineers and lots and lots of folks in ILR and both were in their own little worlds (perhaps because those are extremeley narrowly focused colleges). I did have some overlap with people in the Arts college and HumEc and zero (I mean, I barely even knew anyone) from the Architecture school.</p>
<p>I also think monydad’s analysis examining the relative percentace of techy-type majors to graduation rate is pretty interesting. I agree that it’s probably more difficult to carry a 15 credit load of upper-divsion physics courses, than french-lit courses. </p>
<p>cheers,
CUgrad</p>
<p>i realize that as a part of state university of new york, “suny” is automatically put into the equation. </p>
<p>and i believe that suny is just trying to ride on the presige of Cornell.</p>
<p>It should be noted that there is a difference between a suny school and Cornell. Graduation requirements for suny schools are dictated in large by new york state. The same goes for teacher pay, tuition, who is selected as president/deans of colleges, teacher selection, as well as a bunch of other things.</p>
<p>The state-assisted colleges at cornell don’t have to deal with this. They have significantly more freedom. It’s not uncommon to have professors that teach on both the state-side and the endowed side. The biggest thing that NYS currently dictates when it comes to these schools is funding. Yes, i realize that suny funds the schools, but they are not SUNY schools. </p>
<p>It’s just as easy to transfer between colleges at Cornell. All you need I believe is a 3.0 and the transfer is automatic. Cornell realizes that some schools like ILR are very structured, and they make it easy for anybody who wants to transfer. </p>
<p>It should also be noted that students may now apply to more than one college within cornell. </p>
<p>The reason i bring all of this up is the fact that the administration within ILR is unhappy with their partnership with New York State (i happen to know this because of my work with student government). They’re providing less and less funding, and the only advantage the state provides is cheaper tuition in the first place. Although it may attract new york state residents, it also makes for a school where 50% of its students are from Long Island, and another 30% from other parts of new york state. Several people have expressed interest in cutting of association with new york state since they’re being more of a burden than a help. There’s been dozens of rumors that funding will end in the year 2010, but i cannot confirm this. I believe that Cornell is a much different place than it was even a few years ago, and will continue to change.</p>
<p>No disrespect to my compadres in the state-supported schools, by the way.</p>
<p>The smartest people I met at Cornell were a pair of bio majors in the ag school. They took the same courses as the bio majors in the Arts school, with the same professors, but they paid in-state tuition. Both of them are now professors at one of the toniest Ivy League schools, I understand.</p>
<p>Of course not everyone in the ag school was a brilliant bio major, or a pre-vet.</p>
<p>Every school has its stars and its bozos, but the numbers don’t lie. When they are available.</p>
<p>i know my fair share of brilliant minds and apathetic losers. They exist in all schools within Cornell. Fotunately, there a significanly greater percentage of the former rather than the latter.</p>
<p>Wow, this is quite a discussion. Much about stats and SUNY funding…gomestar are you receiving any scholarships from Cornell?</p>
<p>nope, parents are cutting me a check every semester. thankfully :)</p>
<p>i should note that Cornell does not grant any scholarship based on merit or athletics. The same is true for every school in the ivy league.</p>
<p>it’s only need-based.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>But that’s precisely the point. The question then becomes, why can’t Cornell get a student body that is as gifted as Harvard’s? </p>
<p>I would also point out that Harvard’s engineering student body is extremely gifted if, for no other reason, they got admitted to Harvard. For example, I think I am on safe ground when I say that, for undergrad, it is harder to get into Harvard engineering than it is to get into Berkeley engineering or Michigan engineering or Illinois engineering. These are 3 of the top engineering programs in the country. I would even further state that the talent level of Harvard’s engineers is entirely equivalent to that of MIT’s and Caltech’s engineers. Now don’t get me wrong - clearly the actual engineering education at MIT and Harvard (and those other top engineering schools) is better. But we’re just talking about the talent of the students here. I would submit that Harvard’s engineering student body is arguably one of the most talented engineering student bodies around. Maybe they don’t get the best engineering education, but they have unimpeachable talent. </p>
<p>In fact, I would argue that the talent of a Harvard engineer is probably better, on average, than the talent of a Cornell engineer. The Cornell engineer gets a better engineering education, but I don’t think he starts out with more talent. </p>
<p>So again, it leads to the question, why can’t Cornell improve its student talent level?</p>
<p>Not all of the Harvard engineering students I’ve met were particularly intellectually gifted, to be honest. That son-of-a-foreign-diplomat varsity soccer player has to study something there without flunking out, now doesn’t he? This is NOT entirely a hypothetical.</p>
<p>Every university has to have a major like that; for “those” people. I think I’ve found it at Harvard. Could be wrong, of course: limited sample.</p>
<p>Personally I’d rather have one of the Cornell engineers on my team than one of those guys. Not Harvard students in general necessarily, just those guys.</p>