Cornell University Panel
CollegeAdvisor.com (formerly Bullseye Admissions) presents its Cornell University panel, a 60-minute webinar and Q&A with alumni and current students from Cornell. Our Cornell advisors will share their insider perspectives about campus life, academic programs, and career opportunities. Come ready to learn and bring your questions!
Webinar Transcription
2020-06-16 Cornell University College Panel
Hi, everyone. Welcome to both admissions college panel for Cornell university. This is our eighth panel this month out of our 13 college panel series. My name is Alicia. I’m a program manager at bullseye, and I’m going to be your moderator for tonight. So just to orient everyone with the webinars structure and different functions that you guys have, we’re going to start off with a presentation about Cornell, and then we’re going to have a live Q and a with our Cornell panelists.
I’m on the sidebar. You can already download the slides for tonight in the handouts tab, and also start submitting your questions for your panelists in the Q and a tab throughout the cleaner. We’re going to have a few polls offers, and we’re also going to do another giveaway and that’s going to be where you can have you can, you’ll have a chance to win private advisers.
So getting started, I’m super excited to introduce you guys to our Coronet panelists. We did have another panelists named Dominique. She wasn’t able to make it tonight, but we’re still gonna have two panelists here for you who can answer your questions. So we have Carly, who is an alum. She graduated from Cornell in 2020 with a degree in labor and industrial relations.
We also have Jay who is a current senior at Cornell he’s majoring in government and China, Asian Pacific studies, which is also known as caps on the next up. Carly is going to tell us more about. Sure. Thanks Lilly. So first off Cornell, isn’t it? The gun New York, which is upstate New York. That’s about four hours away from New York city driving in terms of relation.
The school type is that it’s private. I’ll go into this further, but some institutions within the larger institutions are bonded by the government. So there are considered public. This will size is fairly large. There’s about 24,000 students. As you seeing 15,000 are undergrads. And then we have a lot of professional graduate students that are sometimes mixed with the undergrads in terms of setting it’s suburban and rural.
So definitely a huge benefit to me of Cornell was the rural aspects. And because no, one’s for it’s gorgeous, it’s scenery, it’s nature hikes. And there’s also that suburban feel with the commons area, whether it’s local bars, restaurants, and the ability to interact with other students in the area, the campus size is 745 acres, which is fairly large, but I still think by five, you’re able to get to everywhere within all the schools at Cornell and the students, faculty ratio is nine to one, which means that on average for every nine students, there’s one faculty, which is definitely a great benefit.
So you can have, more FaceTime with your professor.
So some notable alumni tend to tie as well as bill Nye, who is the science guys. A lot of people know also RBD with Bader Ginsburg is very well known Supreme court justice. So it’s great to learn, know. From about them and in the same ways that they did some fun facts are that, or now as I said, nature is a big aspect of Ithaca and Cornell has its own plantations and Ethica, which students were able to walk by and go to.
And it’s a beautiful site, beautiful walk. There’s also campuses within New York city. I’m not sure if you guys are familiar like Cornell while within New York city is a pretty big hospital that people know of. And you can go to as I said earlier, for the seven schools that make up Cornell specifically, the one that I’m in receive from the senior interview, New York.
So there are some benefits in different aspects to those schools. And also people at Cornell are very into trivia and very into our fun facts. So there’s a whole group of people that are very into that. And we all love just reminiscing and discussing what fun facts.
So I talking about, within schools. So what does that mean? Something that’s specific to Cornell is that it’s divided by different undergraduate academic colleges. And within those colleges, mostly are a bunch of different majors that kind of have a central theme or something to do with each other.
Additionally, each of these colleges has their own buildings, faff their own deans libraries. And it’s a way that you can get that focus attention within your major, but you are of course able to go into every single building, no matter what. So we have your art, agriculture, life sciences, which houses our aim program, which is our business program communication as well as sciences.
Those are some popular majors within the architecture program. Cornell is known for our architecture program. It’s a great program. We have our arts and sciences program where we have our language majors or English majors histories. And of course, a bunch of other majors. We ever SC Johnson, college of business.
It’s houses, our hotel program, the hotel school, which if you go to Cornell, you will know a lot of hoteliers. They’re very proud to be a part of that school. We have our college of engineering, which is well known college of human ecology, school of industrial labor relations, which is the one that I specifically just graduated from and our faculty of computing and information science.
Awesome. Thanks Charlie. So after hearing a little bit about the different colleges that you guys have at Cornell, and I know everyone’s interested in a lot of tripping, so I also sent out a poll just asking you guys what specific academic divisions you guys are interested in. So let us know in the poll.
I’m going to keep the poll open for a few more seconds. So far, it looks like it’s between the college of arts and sciences and the college of engineering, but it seems like you guys are spread out across all of the different colleges. Hopefully we’ll be able to learn about each of them today.
All right. So I’m going to close the poll arts and scientists one just by a sliver. And then second, most popular school was college of engineering. So then Carlos is gonna tell us a little bit more about academic divisions. Sure. Something that’s great about Cornell is that it’s a university. So they have a lot of graduate and professional colleges that come out of Cornell.
So we have our business school, our school of Johnson management. That’s in Ethica, that’s right on campus. So whether you’re living on campus or living around, whenever you go to Cornell, most likely you’ll see this building. We have Cornell tech, which is in New York city. We have our Cornell law school, which also is right on campus.
You can easily see it or veterinarian school with. Is also on campus when Elia, which I discussed is in New York city, as well as the school of continuing education. Something that’s a great benefit that I found is that as an undergraduate, you can take a lot of courses. And these graduate divisions, I personally have taken a course in the business school of management, as well as Cornell law school.
I’m pursuing law. So it was a great benefit for me to be able to meet Cornell law. Professors take courses in the Cornell law school study in the law school. And they’re usually a little bit nicer facilities. So it’s great to be able to use those buildings. They’re open later hours and be able to study there
is going to tell us a little bit more about student like that Cornell.
Thank you, Lily Carlyle. So the popular majors are made as lists the engineering. Biology agriculture. These majors are just listed. They are paid that tend to be higher density in terms of students that come in. But obviously Cornell is renowned for this. The number of a number of majors that provide our school motto is any person, any study.
And I do, I personally believe that Cornell really keeps up to that model. So these are just a couple popular majors as we can list. And for athletics, it is an NCAA division one school with over 1300 student athletes and 36, 4 city teams. And what is actually interesting about the athletics is Cornell.
If you are in the arts at school of arts and sciences, there is actually a cup there’s actually a PE requirement and you act, and you have access to a lot of, you have access to a lot of these different sports programs, as well as these athletic programs. So that’s actually a very interesting way that students can be engaged on campus outside of their school.
Yeah, so awesome. Before Jay tells us a little bit more about some different events and traditions at Cornell, we have a trivia question for you guys, so let’s see how much you guys know about Cornell traditions, or just as a hint. You guys can select multiple answers for this.
for options are dragon day slope day and papaya day
It looks like we have votes for all three so far, but let’s, I’ll keep the poll open for a few more seconds and I’ll let you guys know what the answers are.
All right. So you guys basically got it. The two ones that are actually are Cornell traditions are dragging in slope day, provide eight does exist, but it’s not a part of, one of Cornell’s traditions. It’s just the national holiday. So I’m gonna close the poll and then back to Jayden, tell us more.
Thank you. So for the extracurriculars that are over a thousand student organizations would 15,000 undergrads and even more graduate students, there is almost literally anything to gauge your interest. If you’re a freshman, that’s a very effective way to meet new people, find out what you’re interested in to the south side of your classes.
60 they’re up to 60 fraternities and sororities, including not just the including the at At ethics, specific ones specifically Asian Latino and African-American fraternity sorority organizations. There are 30 plus in our intramural sports clubs, 30 plus art clubs and 46% of undergraduate students live on campus.
For the other students. A lot of them live in college town, which has a lot of restaurants, as well as housing units apartment use individual houses as well as on north campus. Those were there and there are not many, they’re not how many restaurants around that area, but there are still a large number of students that do live there.
And for school events, traditions, and attractions, there’s dragon day, which is led by the freshmen. Class in the architecture and the architecture school. That’s when the freshmen class come together, present the dragon that they made. It’s a really fun way for the architecture students to come together, show the work that they’ve done throughout the year.
And there’s the psychotic parade and the big event, which is slope day, which is which is held on the last day of classes where the students gather on the, on live slope of massive slope on west campus. And we invite musicians and just have a lot of fun and the concerts and emails from Denise Cassara, which I’ll, we’ll get into our ways that we come together.
The Chinese concerts is on the arts quad, where students actually audition to play the chimes on the clock tower. These can range from classical music to even pop music. And then these casinos emails are notable for giving us a lot of information of what’s happening on campus. I personally believe that it’s often overlooked and how useful it can be.
The Cornell orchards Beebe lake and Casca Billa Gorge are just the magnificent ways that Cornell presents itself naturally. Students can go to these orchards relate and just appreciate ethicacy beauty outside of just the academics that Cornell provides. And it’s a really interesting way and beautiful way for students to be integrated into the city.
Awesome. Thanks Jay. So next we’re going to have Carly and Jay both tell us about why they chose Cornell on the first day. The question for you guys, are you guys planning to apply to Cornell? Let us know in the poll
All right. I’ll keep the poll open for a few more seconds. So far it seems like we have a mix of answers. A lot of people who have Cornell on the college list, that’s a really good sign.
All right. So I’m going to close the poll and then next Carly, why did you choose Cornell? Sure. So I chose one out. I visited a lot of schools and specifically what drew me was the ILR program. School of industrial labor relations. I personally, in high school, I had no idea what any of that meant, but when I went to the program, what it really is I knew that I wanted to go on a pre-law track and it offered me that ability to do that.
Pre-op track while also focusing on business labor, through resources and management, which are all topics that I knew. I was interested in high school based on various extracurriculars that I can talk about as well as just what, where I have general answers. When I went to Cornell, the program kind of sold it for itself.
And then additionally other ancillary things, the amenities and things like that the campus, the location Ethica was a proper location for me. All those things came together and culminated into why I thought it was the perfect school and packaged for me.
Okay. I think Jay might have lost connection for a second, but we should come back to him in a little bit. I guess after this we were going to have Jay tell us more about the college application process, especially specific to Cornell’s app process. So I also have a question for you guys. So where are you guys in the college app process?
And then Al Carly, is Jason able to come back in a little bit? Do you mind presenting the college app slides? Sure.
Oh, yes. Hi. I apologize for my internet cutting out. No worries. We’re going to jump back to your slide for a second, so you can tell the about why you cannot pronounce and then I’ll switch forward and we can go back to the college app stuff, but I’m just having them do the poll right now, possibly.
So I’m gonna close the poll on. It seems like you guys are all doing different things. It’s totally fine. If you guys are just starting the process, but it seems like a lot of you guys are already working on your college list already working on your personal statements. That’s a really good sign.
Okay. So going back, Jay, can you tell us why you chose. Sure. I was particularly drawn to obviously the arts and sciences program because of just a number of majors at heart. I knew I wanted to study a certain area, which was international relations and political science, but, and the funny thing is I actually thought I knew exactly what I wanted to do.
I thought I wanted to join the foreign service study international relations and and to be a diplomat, but I actually had a lot of those kind of those goals changed during my time in Cornell, which is what I think is the true beauty in it during arts, during my class and time in the arts and the school of arts and sciences, I had the time to really.
Shape my experience because of just the number of classes and because of the requirements we needed to fill, I had the opportunities to think, oh, do I want to study international relations in a gender perspective? Do I want to study under a racial lens? I had these choices, so I think that’s actually what made me reconsider more towards academia.
And that’s definitely not to say that the experience is going to be one of change, but the my experience was, and I think having the opportunity explore that was really what drew me to the program. First of all.
Awesome. Thanks, Jay. I’ll slip two slides ahead. And then I’ll, we’re going to go right onto the Cornell application process.
For the application options, there’s the early decision deadline, which is November 1st, 2020. Just as a reminder, the early decision is binding. This is not early action. Once when you apply to the early decision program, it is with the intent of it is with the intent of going to that school.
If accepted and the regular decision deadline is simply January 22nd, 2021 the supplements required is one long answer. And the response depends on the academic program that you apply for specifically on the school, from my experience with helping students as well as applying to Cornell myself, the question is generally why Cornell and why you, and you can think of it as another long essay of why you’re interested in Cornell and what you do.
To show for that. The substance rate is 10.9% with a total number of applicants, 49,114. With the acceptance rate, early decision acceptance rate being 22.7 and regular decision being nine point 16,
excuse me. The average statistics of a minister admitted students are, is the average GPA is around 3.9 when unweighted on a 4.0 scale. The average ATC act score is 32 to 35. And the average sat score is 14 20 14, 22, 15 40. And for application for need-based financial aid it would include FAFSA, which is the free application for federal student aid, which is from the federal government and the CSS and the I doc from college board, which is applying to the school separately.
And Cornell is one of those schools because it is a private school.
Awesome. So that’s the end of our school presentation, parts of the panel. Moving on to the live Q and a, I’m going to read through the questions that you guys submitted in the Q and a tab, and I’m going to paste them into the public chat so that everyone can see them. And then Carly and Jay will give you some answers and we’ll have a few breaks throughout.
So we’re going to have time for a giveaway, and we’re also going to have some offers, some stuff for you guys. And just as a heads up, if your QA tab, isn’t letting you submit questions, just double check that you entered the webinars through the custom link that’s in your email, not just from the other website.
So the first question that we have is what advice would a graduate senior to at Cornell give to a student who is planning to attend,
Jay, you you’re going to be a senior next year. Carly just graduated. So either you can answer I guess that I can start a day on very, oh Okay. Sure. So some advice that I would give to a graduating senior who’s planning on attending Cornell is first of all, congrats, of course, if you got into Cornell, that’s amazing.
So something that I personally heard was, it’s so hard, it’s so difficult. Of course. It’s a very competitive school and although that, it is a competitive school, I think that’s some advice that I would give a. During your first yellow year to not, worry about the small things. Of course, you’re being surrounded by a lot of academically focused students who also, got into this university because they were one of the best within their own high school.
And it’s hard coming in freshman year being among all these, the best. And sometimes you feel, I personally felt no, if I’m among the vests, I might have asked myself. And I think that, those questions, of course, it’s good to be motivated and feel competitive and want to succeed.
But I think that not sweating, the small stuff I go that may sound cliche is some advice that I wish I had, receiving that beer. See the first semester, isn’t the end of the world. No, you have the next three and a half years, four years to make up for any mistakes. And just got out of your comfort zone and remember that you’re here to, learn of course be academically focused, but to grow as a person and experience new things.
I always, I need just to like, not freak out about all the small stuff and worry about all those competitive nature of the school. Awesome. Thanks Carly. Jay, did you want to add on to that? Do you want me to go to the next question? Okay. I think Carly was had all with it and that’s excellent advice for me too, since I’m be graduating seniors.
Awesome. So the next question we have, what are some extracurriculars you participated in during your high school year? That aided junior college application? Personally, for me, I, my main activities were a debate or like a straw and teen court, which is when teams are both when classy misdemeanors are represented by teens, about as jurors defense attorneys and prosecutors.
I was mainly a prosecutor and defense attorney for two years, and I wasn’t sure for the other two years four. I’ve mainly wrote about the bait from my college essays and my main advice for what your extracurriculars should look like is, and this might sound very general and I intend this to be do what you like.
Because that was truly what it was for me. And it might seem oh, he did debate. So it was easier to write about why he wanted to political science. That’s true. But I know a lot of successful student friends and students who did debate, who wrote about engineering and how it helped them in that way.
So if you enjoy debate or if you enjoy any other activity, it’s truly robbing from there and examining their what it meant for you and how you grew from it rather than directly. Oh, I did debate therefore I can apply to political science. So that’s personally, that was personally my line of thinking.
When I chose my extracurriculars for music, I did include that as well. And that was something I personally enjoyed. But so that is the general direction of it.
Yeah. With giant terms of doing what you like. I feel like some, a skill that I garnered at Cornell was being able to pursue what I was passionate about and then the ability to spin that into the skills and the leadership qualities that I learned. Something that I was very involved in was I was the captain of three of our city teams in high school.
And I did not play any form of sports in college, but I was able to write a lot of that out in my essay and talk about the leadership skills. I garnered the teamwork skills I garnered. Additionally, I was involved in model UN and DECA, which I’m from New York, so I’m not perfect popular, I know.
It’s throughout the nation, but DECA is a business organization, a business club. So although specifically, I’m not a business major and I’m not a sports athlete. I was able to use the skills that I garnered there within my essay. And we’ve been in another piece of advice that I guess I can give is when applying specifically to Cornell, as we keep mentioning about these programs.
And I saw a few questions if you want after go into why these different schools mean things, definitely take a look at to the different school. What is their mission? What’s their focus. And I think that can help guide, the tone or what good attributes you learned from the extracurricular and why that specific extracurricular could be beneficial to the school and why you could be a great difference for the school.
Awesome. Thanks both of you. Next question that we have is does Cornell feel more rural or.
I could take this one as well. As I said earlier, Cornell definitely of those options feels more rural. If it is an upstate. So as I said before, you have a lot of MaineCare and scenery. I personally corned teamed and ethic. I recently came home, but I quarantined until June. So I had a lot of months of beautiful nature and Ethica going on these gorgeous going on these hikes.
But as I said before, there is an amazing downtown comments area, which is like a hub for social aspects. Whether that means restaurants there’s live music or sometimes art shows, and it’s pretty close to Ithaca college. You’re able to meet those students as well. But I would definitely say it’s not urban.
The closest city I believe is Syracuse, which is about 45 minutes away driving. Awesome. Thanks. Next question we have, what are some of your favorite things to do in it? The CTCA, so personally for me and this might not be for everyone, but I think it is appreciated by a lot of Cornell students. It’s just hanging out and D major and the big library in arts and sciences, which is all in library.
And what is in there is also the ox, which is the Asia collection. It’s just a very nice place to study. I have to say I took my I think more naps than I should have in that library, but it just goes to show that the atmosphere overall is very welcoming. It’s really warm. It’s one of my most favorite places to hang out, just with friends as well.
There’s also a cafe in there. And so going around and in this very big campus, it just allows me to just hang out in different places. When I want to there’s ice cream, there’s an ice cream shop. When I go to the when I go to the agriculture life sciences quad. It feels almost like a different campus.
So just exploring campus in that way, this is something I really enjoy.
Awesome. Thanks. So the next question we have is what are the freshmen dorms dining halls and amenities like? Sure. So something that I think is not completely the, to Cornell, but if you use benefit and is unique to some other universities, is that all freshmen are put on one campus, which is called north campus.
There are 10 freshmen year dorms, as of that, I think, but I know that they’re currently building more, which would be great for you guys. There’s currently 10 buildings. Like they definitely do vary and what’s the best, some have AC some don’t. So it’s just a lack of desire on that, but I will say their farthest, they can be from each other is about an eight minute walk, five minute walk.
In terms of dining halls. There are two dining halls as of now on this north campus. And once again, they’re from each dorm, you’re probably two minutes away from the closest dining hall, which is a huge benefit because as a freshman in university, you want to be among other freshmen to connect with.
I personally know that most of my friends I met in the dining hall or in these lounges that are in the facilities. Additionally on this north campus freshmen, there are two gems, which once again is a nice benefit. I met people at the gym. I met people in the dining hall and I really appreciated that it was on this campus.
That is about, let’s say a 10 minute walk to the school campus, where you have your classes. And there are of course buses and bikes, and other ways you can get to class if you don’t want to walk the 10 minutes. Awesome. Next question we have, what is your least and most favorite thing about it? So personally for me, this is this comes from a more my aspect because, and just to start off, I’m from Texas.
So I have warm weather for most of the year and I’m coming to the Northeast for the first time. And the reason why I mentioned. My least favorite is that it takes some time to get used to especially for coming from somewhere new. That is a very big change. And then also going from that, there are times when the campus feels almost encapsulating, it feels like it’s just too big.
There’s just too much to do. I definitely felt like that my freshman year what I do have to say, however, is I feel, I personally saw a lot of friends in other universities feel the same way, but I do think Cornell student body size, as well as campus size is a factor in that. So I think it really forced me on introverted person to really push out Explorer, not just randomly, but within my major, within my field of study, really talk to people and find, and I was able to find people who I really enjoy talking to you.
And really sure comments. My most favorite thing I’ll say shortly is the dining hall. It is as west campus, especially is as good as they say. And there’s, reputated other than that, I would say build those one-on-one connections with professors. I have had the time to do that. I have had I’ve basically had the opportunity to do that and just building the rapport and the connection is something I was able to do personally and for my academic goals as well.
Great. Thank you. Next question we have before we have a break can you tell me some ways that your professors have made the classroom experience? Exciting?
Sure, definitely. So something that, we’ve touched on is the student to faculty ratio specific reason, the ILR school that I’m in, what I’ve experienced is my classes are that I’ve chosen a predominantly scholar. Of course, if anyone is interested in larger classes, But I liked the smaller field because I do feel like I’ve been able to honor those strongly from professors.
So some ways that they’ve made them exciting is we’ve had a lot of collaboration. I like working with teams. There are ways you can work independently, but I appreciate that. I thought that’d be left in high school. I wasn’t sure if in college you could still work with teams and have fun and do things like that and present.
And that’s definitely back there at Cornell. Additionally professors are really accessible outside of the classroom. Office hours are big thing, which is equivalent of extra help in high school. I know that from my high school, I was very close with all of my teachers and at Cornell, like not all, but some of them I was able to still be close with.
I also saw a question. I was able to TA, which is being a teaching assistant for a class and that, so basically I excelled in one particular class. And at the end, the professor asked if I wanted to be her assistant, a teaching assistant for the new years to come. So that’s another way that kind of my Cornell experience has enhanced throughput.
They’re awesome. So now we’re going to have a quick break. I also want to let you guys know how you guys can get in touch with our advisors after this panel and how you can actually get help from Cornell students when you’re doing your college apps. If I had advising plans, we have the starter plan, the scholar plan.
And so they’re both in the format of moldy subscriptions. You can choose an advisor that you want to work with, and then you’ll get one or two hours of one-on-one advising each month. You can use this for building your college list, getting help on your essays, getting feedback. I’m also getting help with negotiating financial aid or doing a practice interviews and so much more.
So I’m going to send everyone at this panel a free 15 minute trial to get started. And then, so this link is going to go to Brian Mitchell’s calendar. Brian’s our CEO at bullseye, and he’ll be able to get you set up and started to work with an advisor and just get started on your college apps. So I’m going to give you guys a few seconds to click on this link and I’ll also send it again at the end of the call.
So after that we can continue with the Q and a. So our next question that we have is do people stay on the Cornell campus all four years? And is it difficult to find housing?
I have not personally met a student that stayed for all four years. There is a way to do that. So for freshmen staying on the dorms as mandatory, you’ll be staying in north campus. That is where the residential yeah. No, it’s for freshmen and dining halls and located after your sophomore year, you are technically guaranteed housing through our time slot lottery.
So you aren’t guaranteed. Obviously west campus might be a more favorable option, the most favorable option for most students, but that won’t be guaranteed, but you will technically be guaranteed housing your sophomore year afterwards, if you are active in your residential unit, or if you take on some leadership roles that afterwards you are technically guaranteed a couple more years, you could technically stay up to your senior year.
But as I mentioned students live on both college town and north campus prices have a very big quite honestly have a big, very big range. North campus options tend to be cheaper just because they’re not so conglomerated with other residential units as well as restaurants. So they tend to be cheaper, but even in college town, I personally have been able to find Housing housing off-campus housing, especially after I grouped up with my friends.
I would, I say it is difficult. I would say to an extent it is certainly when it gets around that time, it can be, I can quite honestly be a year long process or people just start looking for next year’s housing, from the start up that year. So if you have other friends it’s definitely affordable and you can definitely find them find a place that suits you.
Great. Thanks, Shea. So we have our next question. You spoke about the downtown hub or their internship opportunities open for Cornell students.
There are definitely internship opportunities available, so I’m seeing a lot of questions. So it does explaining the geography of Cornell. So you have Cornell, so you have new campus. You have the dorms and the campus, we have the schools and then we have college towns. So what college found is it’s where some people have.
I personally, would’ve been called now in my junior and senior year. So I lived off campus in college town for two of my four years on campus, my first two years. So during my last year, as you have college town, where there are restaurants, stores, something like seven 11, there’s a bagel score. That’s pretty well known there bookstore, there are different stores here, intimate, where there are apartments there off campus housing.
So there’s typically you wouldn’t getting incentives here. And then we have the downtown hub, which I think you’re referring to. It’s like a 10 minute drive from Cornell. It’s very restaurants. It’s where you have more cultural aspects and ethic. And you’re specifically, I don’t know, have internship opportunities that these downtown hubs provide, but there are definitely ways that you can get involved personally.
So I, for example, know everything well, and I reached out to just an attorney that I literally passed on the way to dinner. It’s about her. I said, hi, like on, as a part-time student, my last semester is the only way that I could come in for a few hours and intern with you shadow you. And he was more than happy to help me out.
And of course it depends up to support the Cornell community. There are definitely in terms of internships during the summer not at specifically Cornell, they’re really supporting that your advisors cornell’s at a pre-professional school. So they’re really tough, well at a young age, like they’re out for that summer.
And hopefully that mean for that, Iceland. So Quinn offers a lot of these decades into helping you get jobs and connecting you with a lot of our alumni that would help you secure those roles. Awesome. Thanks. So I know you’ve had a few questions about financial aid. So next question is, do you think that you were financially supported throughout your years at Cornell?
How easy was it to get around it to do you think with friends without worrying about monetary costs? I’ll start with I’ll just start with the first question about the bureaucratics of financial aid. So I’m a financial aid recipient of FAFSA and CSS. So I went through both of those processes.
Just from an application standpoint to put a shortly a CSS is quite a long ride. It does have a lot of information. I will say. I do think starting this year, Cornell has tried to make it a little more easy for these students by just making FAFSA the requirement after freshman year. So I, for my freshmen, sophomore and junior year, I had to be submitted both cycles for every admission for every financial aid cycle, which was quite a long process.
But I think Cornell is trying to get around that by just making FAFSA the requirement. And how I was financially supported, I would say I was, it was supported pretty well as a low income student. I do think Cornell in many ways is very generous. Even during this time with coronavirus Cornell has been offering me support as a low income students.
So I do think there are ways to talk to Cornell about that as well as any changing situations. Take a very good look at your family situation as on the second part about just moving around campus and doing activities without worrying about monetary costs. I personally I have been able to do that and I think I’ve been particularly lucky with my friend groups.
However, I I will say obviously it is a big school. It is it is a school. It is an Ivy league school in the Northeast. So some students do tend to feel that wealth gap and feel this pressure to meet up in terms of what they wear or just what they do. And I think just surrounding yourself with people that you can be comfortable and honest with is a difficult process, but it is a process that I I’ve found that needs to be hot during, in college.
Awesome. Thanks Jay, for the comprehensive answer. Our next question is what is your favorite spot on campus? So my favorite spot. There’s someone, I guess I’ll break it down a little. So to study there’s the Harry Potter library called , which is a building. If you guys Google right now, Harry Potter, after our library, you’ll see.
Also we spoke briefly about low, which is this big hill right in the middle of Cornell’s campus. And I really liked it, my friend, who I wanted to be year, we were going to sit in the slope during sunset time. So those are two of my favorite spots on cafe slope for leisure and then Gareth for academic.
Awesome. Thanks. Next question. I have, what is Greek life like?
I can answer someone who didn’t take part in Greek life. Carly, if you have, please feel free. I could, I guess I was in Greek life. So what is Greek life? So when you’re a freshmen, sophomore, whenever you’re ready or able to go through, I guess I’m going to speak on it from a female perspective, but this is a whole separate issue, but there’s definitely a lot of a difference between Greek life for women and men, the Panhellenic community, and then the Interfraternity community.
But as someone who went through Greek life, as in the email process what it’s like is. For me, it was a way for me to meet new friends and new people my first semester. So rough recruitment is the second semester during your first year, if you want a rough freshman year. So I had my first semester of friends who I love so much, and then I was able to go through this process and growing up sorority that they weren’t in.
And it was just an avenue for me to meet so many morning people, which is amazing people who are different than me, people who are like me. And it definitely provided me personally, like a way to, socially link up with people. But there are so many other ways I have so many friends, not in Greek life who had the same exact social experience in terms of professional and academic experience.
This isn’t really highlighted, but there are definitely academic perks. I think for me personally, going through recruitment more, I had an academic lineage, so my dad was in the same major as me. Bounce back questions. So I was that if I was interested in a particular industry, someone could set me up with an alumni who had that role two years ago.
So I personally see many benefits for me life, but as I said, I have so many friends who didn’t join Greek life and had the same exact experience and benefits as well.
Awesome. So we’ll probably have one or two more questions before we start our giveaway. So our next question is how do you do with the academic rigor while trying to make your college experience number?
I think time, man personally for me, I think time management year is what I’ve really learned. China’s set a time apart from studying and just taking the time to eat in college challenges, hanging out with my friends at the same time, what personally worked for me is connecting what I’m studying in class to what I’m personally invested in and what I’m personally interested in.
So for example, if I’m taking a class on a political issue or Chinese politics, I will think of research questions, or if it’s a big paper, I’ll think of questions that personally excite me and I have a vested interest in and try to go through in that way. It might sound like I’m taking too much. It might almost sound like I’m putting too much into the work myself, but I actually found that personally to be a way that I can spy the purpose and the studies that I’m doing and connecting it to my own personal
awesome. Okay. Next question we have what makes Cornell different compared to other Ivy league specialty colleges? What is something Cornell has that others don’t? So if someone went through recruitment at Cornell and everything, I can only speak for the other ideas until they have any file, but just something that I really thought was like a strong sense of pride in every student who goes to Cornell and where that is in decline, where that comes into your specific benefit is through recruitment in the professional world.
So what recruitment is when you’re trying to get a job or a summer internship, you go through this long process of interviewing different companies and going to different companies and trying to make these connections. And what I found through compared to a lot of other elite schools is that Cornell alumns at, top companies, top firms, they love Cornell so much that they really want to help those Cornell’s to be there.
Like for them, it’s like a sense of being able to connection. And then at least for me hopefully if you have this experience, like you too will want to reciprocate that connection. So although I, perhaps like all the other ideas might have it as well, but what I really found shown through was the sense of pride outside of Cornell.
Once we leave Cornell, people still love it and people still want to connect about it.
Awesome. Thanks guys. So now their next break, we’re going to start off to giveaway. So you S and pull out your phones in order to enter the giveaway, there are three things that you guys need to do. One follow bull’s eye on social media, either Instagram or Facebook, and then to just leave a comment tagging to your friends.
Once you’ve done those things, just type the word giveaway in the Q and a tab, and that way I can see who entered. And then if you guys do, when you dismiss that a screenshot of the first two steps to my email, and I’ll put my email in the chat later, I’m still giving you guys a few seconds to do that.
And I’m also going to explain how the speed round works. So for the seed round, it’s going to be the same style, except all of the answers will be under a minute. And then so hopefully that will help us burn through as many questions as we can. So our first speed round question will be what has been your favorite class in your years at Cornell?
For me, it’s been a class it’s been my Asian American studies class. I, it was a intro to Asian American studies literature, and the reason why it was so memorable for me, I took it this past semester was I came in, I came into Cornell thinking I was a political science person. I was going to study international relations and I am that person, but it really pushed me to think about questions in a different way.
And not only did it change the way I ask questions about different political issues, but it was, it also pushed me to. Really not think of myself as, oh, I can’t do this because before I thought, oh, I can’t write what write papers about literature. I can’t analyze literature on a critical level, but this is just an example of how a class really showed me that not only could I do something for could I, did I have to conference do something, but I could apply to in different ways that I’ve never imagined before.
So I think that’s one of the persons, not just Cornell, but the arts and sciences community overall.
Awesome. Next question we have, how does Cornell help you if you’re not sure about your major. So something, a lot of questions that I’ve been seeing is within these different schools, can you take classes in different schools? The answer to that is best. So I’m in a unique situation with my school.
So one of those seven schools is the major. So I’m in the school of industrial labor relations. And my major is industrial labor things. I’m sure that there’s other experiences, but when you join into the JAG and speak, but when you’re in, arts and sciences, but towards a bug of majors underneath it, you’re in that school.
And then I think if you’re undecided, you have time to decide. You can take classes in different programs, in different schools themselves. And I know a bunch of people who have transferred within those schools. So we’ve gone from ILR to arts and sciences, vice versa. Although, like you have to.
You have to take it upon yourself though, to make those moves and to decide like what you want to do. Take classes that you’re interested in, where you’re leaning and I think it comes to you. Additionally, each school provides really great advisors that provide good advice. They help you to ensure that you’re on track with your credits.
You’re not alone. You have these guidance counselors, like figures you can meet with whenever you want, for as long as you want with them, stare at your screen and be like, okay, what do I have to do to graduate? Like where should I study? What do I do? And they will help you as well. So you’re not alone.
But now that you’re in college, you if you want to transfer, that’s great in terms of schools within the school, but you have to take it upon yourself to do so and start looking at the credits and things that will move over. Awesome. Thanks. My next question is in the, is the environment collaborative or comeback?
The short and easy yeah. And answer, which I think is accurate as it is what you make about a make of it. I will say that it is very cool. There is a very goal oriented aspect. People are very pro it is very pre-professional Greek life. The Greek lives also have a lot of pre-professional organizations, which is business fraternity’s political science for fraternities.
So there is that aspect. So there is this competition going on, people are looking for jobs, they’re looking for the next internship, but the collaboration really does come in depending on the people that you surround yourself with, people that you surround yourself. So if you are in that pre-professional fraternity, it does really build you up in a lot of ways.
As Carly mentioned you have access to these alumni, you have hacked, you have access to these friends in these organizations where in your social circle that can really give you advice. Really just talk. And I think that’s really where the collaboration comes in and building that close knit community is really important.
And I found it very rewarding because of college experience. Awesome. Next question should be probably pretty quick. How do you get downtown? Is there free busing? So first semester there is a free bus pass to get you to campus. And I believe downtown it’s just be bus. Then there is not through blessing.
I could be wrong. I’m not sure that, but I don’t think there’s free blessing then and you have to pay. It’s not too much. It’s definitely a little annoying, but there’s ways to get downtown if you don’t have a car.
Awesome. My next question, do you ever feel overwhelmed at how big the campus is? As I’ve mentioned, that is a potential negative, I could say, but the way to get around that. Yeah. The campus. As I mentioned, the campus is very big. I feel like I can’t possibly go everywhere. And the way to get around that is by going everywhere, because then you’ll realize each part of campus really does offer something.
When I took a class in the ag quad or the agriculture quad, I really thought, huh, this is really nice. This is, I never explored this part of campus. I never went to the dairy bar, ice cream where they sell so varying products. And I felt like all these places were so foreign to me, my, at least my freshman year by, but by actually going out not even by just taking a class, but just literally going out, I could actually feel the campus becoming smaller.
And that was just the way that I learned to appreciate this overwhelmingly big campus. Awesome. Next question we have, what is the weekend life at Cornell so something that I personally heard at Cornell a lot similar to Jay’s mantra of it’s what you make. It is work hard, play hard at Crouse.
So there’s a sense of camaraderie. Like when you finished that exam, when you finish that thesis, let’s salvage, let’s, go to dance. There’s like a salsa night. Let’s go to the sauce tonight. Let’s go out to dinner, celebrate in whatever way celebrating is to you. So weekends of course, comprise of sometimes you have a free weekend, you can find that studying and planning for your future weeks.
Sometimes, you have the weekend or you’re in the library, you got home, perhaps 10 o’clock. You see your friends reading if you want to watch a movie together. Okay. But like you said, it’s all about planning and organizing. There’s definitely time for you to go out for you to relax, unwind whatever that is for you.
But definitely when you got to school and university. Planning your time is huge. Finding those little pockets during the day. Whether it’s the two hours between your classes instead of just going home and sleeping, they didn’t work. So in the nighttime and during the weekends, you have time to, you’d rather those two hours there to have fun.
Great. I actually posted the next two questions in, so you guys can see that right now. Next question is how does Cornell create a sense of community? Would you say as quite cliquey,
it is a big campus. 15,000 students is not a small number. However I personally never felt it to be cliquey. I think Carly can definitely add into this if she looked like, but personally for me, I was able to find a group of friends within my own major, who shared common interests were taking the same courses.
So we’re not exactly a clique. But we were just we’re just a group of friends that share A common interest and that’s part, that’s just a part of navigating this big community. And that’s quite honestly what I really enjoyed about it. Awesome. Next question is already there.
What is student life and workload like? So like I said, once again, the work hard play hard, I guess something, Jay, I’m curious your thoughts, but I do see like a difference in workload between majors in schools and programs, which of course makes a lot of sense. Different majors acquire different workloads and different programs require, different workloads.
So I will say that whatever major or school you decide, that’s a factors you can look into that there’s definitely research or people you can reach out to, to ask, what are the schools that predominantly, have heavier workloads, however, it is what you make of it. Like I said, like time management is a huge skill that I learned and mastered in college as I move on.
Like there’s everything, there are enough hours in a week, even though it doesn’t seem that way to have fun, to eat, to be healthy, to work out if you want to read to sleep and to do your work in a successful way. So yeah, so that the recipes are there to help you not completely make it too hard, but of course there are difficult aspects to any program in Asia.
Awesome. Next question we have, what do you believe were some of the defining factors that got you accepted into Cornell?
Give me just one second, please.
So personally for my essay, as I mentioned. For a high school. I did what I liked. I wasn’t really thinking long-term okay. Debate relates to political science. I was able to write about debate in a way that felt honest for me, not in a way that I felt I was auditioning to Cornell. And I wrote about how debate was assessing communication between cultures and I was able to connect it in a very personal way rather than just this process of okay.
Debate made me ask questions about political science. So I think I was able to really connect my interests of, okay. I was researching these topics and this is how it connected to me and I was able to be genuine that way.
Awesome. Next question, rehab. What would you say Cornell is missing? If anything,
I don’t want to say it’s missing anything, but something that I guess that I missed out on. I feel like there are certain things that, you know, as a senior year that I didn’t, I did for the first time. And I was like, I, with my new this freshman year for example, like different, I keep talking about the scenery, but like different hikes, the ability to, like within the Cornell athletics program, there are ways that you can get involved in hikes and do really cool niche things.
And I guess it wasn’t missing. I just didn’t look for it and I didn’t find it. So I guess what that means is something that Cornell is missing is I guess, in terms of their like nice, cool little things, the ability to tell its students about different, fun hikes, or, different sports teams, things like I never went to a baseball game, but maybe all of I did, so they’re not missing, but I guess you have to take it upon yourself to find these little fun things about Cornell and school in general.
So you’re not like a senior, like me and sad that you miss out on some things. Next question we have, what did your class day look like? So I guess, any day that you had classes speak from my own personal experience, it had, it was pretty different from my freshman year compared to by class date now, because my freshman year was packed with these language courses.
I was taking Chinese, which is a six credit class the first year or so that actually really did pack up my classes. So I was taking morning classes and classes that with sometimes you didn’t go until 4:00 PM, but even then I was taking 16 to 18 credits, but that will look different depending on the school and the major.
I was able to shape my four years in a way. Able to stay anywhere between 14 to 18. And I’m thinking roughly the same credits now, but it’s turned out that because it’s so discussion heavy and I’m just meeting with professors it’s more compacted and discipline days. So I’m taking, I actually was fortunate enough to take less morning classes, focused my classes around certain days and still take the classes that I needed to and wanted to.
Awesome. Next question we have, what is the overall vibe of Cornell? In other words, how would you categorize the personality of the student body? So I just, the mental in there 15,000 undergraduates, or there’s not necessarily like one vibe or personality. I feel like the vibe that I would describe, but probably a month
but I guess notice a trend we’ve mentioned this before, but different than the other, like other schools is that it is goal oriented. Like I really. Whatever that like a lot of students, of course, they know exactly what they want to do and make that clear. But I do think that the Cornell support and faculty good at reminding students, like you come to court and holler does it vehicles, we explore yourselves, but also as a vehicle for a career and what you want your job to look like.
So I guess the vibe of Cornell is that a lot of people like we’ll see like a lot of people in seats on campus going on interviews. And a lot of people looking for jobs, sophomore year, which might sound crazy. But I think that’s like also once again, based on the needs or if you’re a fanatic of the piece and of course different, but that’s something that I personally witnessed.
Awesome. This should probably be pretty quick. Is there parking for cars on campus?
Yester is from my knowledge, if you’re a freshman looking to have a car. Overall theme is don’t do it. It’s very expensive and mostly not worth it. You have, you get a free bus pass for your freshman year. So I, there it is available, but I don’t think a lot of people take advantage of on-campus parking.
And then probably our very last question, before we do our an ask to giveaway winners and then end things. So duties, undergrad colleges, may Cornell feel like a small school or is the culture still large? So I think these undergraduate. Or if you’d have band aids and that Cornell is still a big school, you’re able to, you see the campus and feud, you can take classes within other schools, but we’ve colleges, at least ILR is a very small school.
There’s about 150 kids per grade. And for me, I appreciated that it felt like a smaller school within a larger school because I had that ability to really, I know everyone almost in my, my class because 150 people, I have classes with them for four years. So yes, these undergraduate schools and these programs were able to make, it seems smaller.
But to a benefit of that, you have more, you are closer with your peers to study with them, to get resourceful, as well as closer with the professors, but you still have that big school feel when throw those classes that have thousands of kids in them that you can take. So you can get most of both worlds, but I think you get the benefits being in your program.
Awesome. So that’s the end of our Q and a I would have asked to giveaway winners really quick, and then I’ll also wrap things up. So our three winners are Sana Choudhry Maya Khurana and Jeffrey and con sorry, I haven’t made any mispronunciations. Everyone else, if you didn’t win, don’t worry.
Are you guys still have the 15 minute free trial of our solid plan? So I’m going to resend that link right now. Just in case you guys missed it the first time. And yeah, that’s the end of our Cornell panel. Thank you so much to Carly and Jay for answering all of your questions and doing a great job as panelists.
Our next panel is going to be in two days, it’s going to be for duke university. And we’ll have two alumni that will tell you more about their experiences at duke. So I hope to see you guys there. Thank you so much for coming out tonight and I hope you guys have a great night,