Cornell University Top Questions

Since Cornell is an Ivy-League School students may be thought to be studying all the time, but this is not necessarily true. While there is a lot of work and lots of studying, there are also many campus events and other social activities for fun. Although I am not into it, greek life is much bigger here than I thought. Sometimes people call Cornell "the easiest Ivy" but I do not think this is true. The other saying is that "it is the easiest to get into, but the hardest to get out of" mostly because the academics are challenging at times, so I think (but am biased) to say that it is not the easiest Ivy.

As soon as people hear Cornell, the general question seems to be, "have you been to the bridge that students jump off of to commit suicide?" Basically, the stereotype of the students at Cornell is that students here tend to get suicidal because of the intense environment. In actuality, during my four years as an undergraduate at Cornell, I studied, partied with, and lived with other Cornellians that balanced a rigorous stressful academic workload and a typical college social experience as well. Sure, there is pressure and sure, there are moments when you feel that you may crack. But these are hard-working students with a strong work ethic who are backed by supporting faculty and family-like environment. After all, being in the boonies does force you to create closer ties with those around you and you will rarely feel that you are alone. The best thing is knowing that others around you are sharing a similar experience.

Okay, let me get this out of the way right off the bat -- no, students at Cornell are NOT all suicidal, depressed people looking for a way out! The people I've met here have been the most well-rounded, happy, grounded, friendly people I have ever met. Yes, Cornell is a tough school... but isn't that why people want to go here, so they can get a top-notch education? I can guarantee that if you come here, you'll be earning your degree, but it's not like there's anything wrong with that. There's also the Hotelie stereotype, that people in the Hotel school never study, or that people going to Cornell are all going to the Hotel school. The Hotel school is pretty awesome looking, quite honestly. They may not seem to study quite as much as the rest of us, but hey, we don't have to make beds in the Statler. And there's also the idea of the crazy Engineers. Engineers are very, very smart, and they have a lot of work, but they're by no means antisocial. The majority of my friends are in the engineering school and they're some of the funniest kids I will probably ever meet in my entire life. I think it's somewhere around 30{4a082faed443b016e84c6ea63012b481c58f64867aa2dc62fff66e22ad7dff6c} of people who are involved in Greek life... Cornell isn't a crazy fratty Greek campus, but it's definitely a major part of the partying social life. But it's not like you can easily point out who's a frat boy, who's a sorority girl, who's this or that. Cornell's campus seems pretty stereotype-free once you're in it.

I don't find there are many stereotypes that fit with Cornell. It's motto "any person...any study" really seems to apply to its student body which is incredibly diverse. A few people are wealthy, may be considered "nerdy," or fall somewhat into one category or another, but the huge diversity in economic status, race, and topics of study makes Cornell unique to many other schools.

People think Cornell students jump into gorges and are smart but shallow greeks. This is not true. Our suicide rate is at the national average. Greeks at our school are Cornell students first, they have depth of interest and are smart as well. Greeks only represent 1/3 of the student body. Though they are a large social force on campus there are many other options to party and socialize.

Cornell is a veryyy fratty/Greek life-oriented school. This is a fact of which I was only somewhat aware upon starting at Cornell, but became aware of extremely quickly during my first week here. While a majority of students are not involved in Greek life, Cornell has one of the highest percentages of students in Greek life of any school in the country, and Frat parties are a huge part of the social scene, especially for freshmen and sophomores. For more info on Cornell's rep, see the following link: http://www.gq.com/entertainment/humor/201108/douchiest-colleges-america-2011#slide=10 Having visited many other colleges, both before attending college and since beginning Cornell, I do not actually believe Cornell is the "douchiest." But the reputation isn't entirely undeserved either.

According to this site: http://www.gq.com/entertainment/humor/201108/douchiest-colleges-america-2011#slide=10 Cornell ranked as the douchiest college in America. However, I think this is completely false. An excellent rebuttal can be found here: http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-07-20/lifestyle/30003002_1_cornell-gq-hotel-school Due to size of the university I don't think there is any one general stereotype that can describe students here. Sure there are plenty douches, jocks, frat boys, sorority girls, but there just as many geeks, nature lovers, hippies, and plain hardworkers. With such a broad range of majors and interests there are people of all sorts. Everyone can find their own niche.

Okay, let me get this out of the way right off the bat -- no, students at Cornell are NOT all suicidal, depressed people looking for a way out! The people I've met here have been the most well-rounded, happy, grounded, friendly people I have ever met. Yes, Cornell is a tough school... but isn't that why people want to go here, so they can get a top-notch education? I can guarantee that if you come here, you'll be earning your degree, but it's not like there's anything wrong with that. There's also the Hotelie stereotype, that people in the Hotel school never study, or that people going to Cornell are all going to the Hotel school. The Hotel school is pretty awesome looking, quite honestly. They may not seem to study quite as much as the rest of us, but hey, we don't have to make beds in the Statler. And there's also the idea of the crazy Engineers. Engineers are very, very smart, and they have a lot of work, but they're by no means antisocial. The majority of my friends are in the engineering school and they're some of the funniest kids I will probably ever meet in my entire life. I think it's somewhere around 30{4a082faed443b016e84c6ea63012b481c58f64867aa2dc62fff66e22ad7dff6c} of people who are involved in Greek life... Cornell isn't a crazy fratty Greek campus, but it's definitely a major part of the partying social life. But it's not like you can easily point out who's a frat boy, who's a sorority girl, who's this or that. Cornell's campus seems pretty stereotype-free once you're in it, quite honestly.

The Cornell Student is highly variable in the nature of their academic or extracurricular pursuits. But, from the party animal frat boy to the forever in the studio architect, all Cornell students put their all into everything they do. The general stereotype would be that all Cornell students are busy. Everyone manages to get so immersed in the wealth of diverse clubs on campus that, coupled with their academic interests, manages to fill up the majority of their free time. This doesn't mean we are all workaholics though, it implies that when we aren't doing school work or helping out with our other activities we are out in Collegetown partying three nights a week (maybe less if you're an architect or engineer). That being said, it is very easy to not get involved in the party atmosphere if that's not your thing, with the over 700 clubs and student organizations theirs something for everyone. And when the university manages to bring Kid Cudi, Phoenix, C-Lo Green K'naan,MIA, Nelly, Jon Stewart, Keith Olberman, Carl Rove, and even Billy Joel in a single Calendar year there is always something not alcohol related to do on the weekends. Lastly Cornell hockey fans are the most brutal in the world, the crowd at Lynah rink on a Friday or Saturday night truly shows the Cornell student as a whole, Excited, Proud, and just a little bit tired.

Cornell is big, not quite Ann Arbor big, but big enough to have a range of stereotypes. From an outsiders perspective, Cornell, like most all the Ivies looks pretentious, full of privileged snobs who wear a lot of Patagonia and Burberry. There are those people, they may be legacies, and their parents may be google-able but as my mother said upon our first family college visit to Cornell, it's the "Common Man's" Ivy. Go to Princeton and the surrounding town drips money. You can't even go into a library without a student ID. In contrast, Cornell is surrounding by gorges, cows, and incredibly quirky Ithaca. Once you get to Cornell you realize that most stereotypes are tied to the seven undergraduates colleges. According to the stereotypes, CALS (the College of Agriculture and Life Science) is full of animal sci majors who don't shower, Architecture students all wear black by senior year to reflect the depressing amount of work they do, ILRies (Industrial and Labor Relations students) like me, are all headed to law school, and the Engineers are so overwhelmed they never leave their rooms. Stereotypes tend to have a little nugget of truth, but I'm not going to law school and my best friend in Mechanical Engineering parties harder than any hotelie (School of Hotel Administration student) I know.