ED Cornell vs. ED Northwestern vs. REA Stanford

[jade sky]

ask me anything abt cornell

“Isolated and far from big cities” - isolated in what sense? Ppl literally day trip to nyc

“Dry social life” - given that there are 4000 students per year, social life is anything but dry…. The minority do greek not the majority

I dont think our engineering and CS departments are “cutthroat”

[timber dirge]

I was not a Cornell fan applying to college, but when I went for a conference I was shown a great time

[gentle harness]

hi jae! i wanted to hear your input and perspective ab that; i've heard that cornell students (esp engineering students) don't really have the time to frequent nyc because of the grade deflation so i was wondering what the work-life balance looks like (where do people hangout, have fun, etc)

regarding class size, i heard that because it's relatively bigger, you have to actively seek out community and that's hard because clubs are selective and greek life is probably not for me

[gentle harness]

that sounds great!

[jade sky]

Grade deflation doesnt cause bad time management

Or lack of free time

The courses u choose and the amount of courses and work and activities you pile on decide that

I will say its kind of like when exam and actual work season starts it never ends until after ur last final due to the format of our “midterms”
But id argue this is the same at many other colleges, if not possibly worse in a quarter system

[timber dirge]

And getting a perfect gpa isn't everything. One of my jobs at Dartmouth was to interview the valedictorians to help pick the speaker. Almost all of them said that they kind of wished they had done just a little less focus on keeping their 4.0

[jade sky]

But we do have a 4 day werkenf break every sem plus the normal holidays off

[gentle harness]

i see! do you think the majority of students who pursue research/intership/clubs/project teams on top of courses still have good work-life balance?

[jade sky]

Yeah

Cuz if u cant handle it u dont pursue all that

Yeah i will say none of my engineer friends care abt their gpa

Only the pre-professionals

[gentle harness]

that makes sense

[jade sky]

Or egoers

The class sizes are larger

[gentle harness]

LMAO gotchu

[jade sky]

Idk what “actively seek out community” means

But if ur avoiding ppl and not talking to anyone

No crap no one wants to be friend

😭

[gentle harness]

as in like join a club, go to events, etc

[jade sky]

I met my friends through orientation and dorms

For the most part

And instagram gcs

Yeah i have other friends i made thru clubs and events so thats def an option

Personally i hate large class sizes but i cant deny that a great part abt a slightly larger community is that you will find your people and most everyone is open to making a new friend

Theres almost always someone thinking the same thing as u in the crowd

And as i said before greek is the minority

And it never feels like ur forced to join greek

Idk where u got that cuz its DEFinitely not true at cornell

Like idk anyone whod ever say greek life is popping here

😭

Also if ur planning to double in cs + cog sci u know ur applying to CAS not CoE right

[gentle harness]

gotchu thats reassuring because my biggest fear is not being able to branch out and connect after that initial freshman year

[jade sky]

Just keep urself open

I wont deny it can be hard if ur literaly hiding in ur room all day and not trying to talk to ppl and remaining scared of interaction with new ppl

[gentle harness]

yes! but i wanted to explore my options if i get in because cornell eng is solid

[jade sky]

Know its harder to internally transfer into Eng than out of it

[gentle harness]

i read the official website and it seems like i can minor in other colleges?

[jade sky]

Yeah u can minor in whatever

[gentle harness]

oh i see do you happen to know why its difficult?

getting the prereqs down or just applying to transfer in

[jade sky]

Some minors may have restrictions like X major cnt minor in this but thats only bc of the severe overlap where youd practically be taking the entire minor with ur major alone

Like psych minor as a psych major

😭

[gentle harness]

LMFAO yea makes sense

[jade sky]

The prereqs

Its not meant to be selective

[gentle harness]

gotchu!

[jade sky]

Engineering just has such strict requirements

[gentle harness]

yes makes sense 😔

[west mason]

what do you like about stanford besides the location/name?

[gentle harness]

the weather 🙏

cornell or nw i will freeze

i have mild seasonal depression so i fear i wont fare as well as id like in the east

also very flexible so i can explore what exactly i want to do in college

[west mason]

well you know this already being in the bay area but the rainy winters are lowkey miserable af too

[gentle harness]

i feel like we only rain like once a month for a couple of days tho

on the east its like every other day 😔 even in spring

[west mason]

i will say this is a huge benefit compared to nw & cornell. there is a ton of flexibility and pretty much no one i know is particularly worried about their major or getting locked into smth too early

[west mason]

hell no bruh

plus everyone bikes everywhere

nothing more awful than dragging yourself out of bed for a 9am and going outside to a wet ass bike seat

[gentle harness]

LMFAO...

but i would rather take bay area weather than cornell/nu weather they go below 0

• snowstorms

[jade sky]

id argue this isnt a thing at cornell either

since for one, CAS doesn't admit by major. and for two, CAS is easy to transfer into

[jade sky]

😭 we have bike rooms

also technically we never go below 0, the "real feel" does 😅

[west mason]

fair but i mean its still more involved to switch across schools whereas there isnt any concept of applying to specific colleges within stanford

[floral maple]

once ur in cas ur forever in cas 💔

[gentle harness]

is it hard to transfer out of cas???

[floral maple]

i dont think its particularly hard but if youre trying to transfer into a popular school/major then its more difficult

[gentle harness]

i see i see would you say it's because of the prereqs or is it an application process w low acceptance?

thank u for the quick reply btw

[jade sky]

well as i said before, the only ones seemingly relevant to you are CoE and CAS

and its easier to switch into CAS than CoE

its not that anything is hard to switch out of

for CoE its mostly because of the requirements

if youre looking at Dyson its a combination of the requiremeents + low acceptance

[gentle harness]

got it thank u! 🫡

[plucky heron]

omg @jade sky did u know she also wants to do cs + cogsci

if she goes to Cornell we’ll have 4 Js doing cogsci

HAHAHAHAH

[dense basin]

i would not rea stanford

[plucky heron]

^ same, as someone who REA’d Stanford it’s not worth it for 99% of people 💔

applying RD unironically boosts your chances because you have the additional 2 months to work on your app (and your essays improve a lot in that time) and the REA pool is so competitive

[somber valve]

rea Stanford