Why does Cornell get so much hate on here?

It's a target right? So why does WSO shit on Cornell so much? Is it because it's the easiest Ivy to get into? Well 1. it has 45% more undergrad students than the next largest Ivy (UPenn) so that's understandable, and 2. Who gives a fuck? It's still an Ivy and generally enjoys the same prestige as Brown, Dartmouth, and UPenn. It also has the highest ranked engineering program out of all the Ivys.

With the new NYC tech campus being built, it seems as though Cornell's future is only looking brighter. Thoughts?

(I don't go to Cornell or anything, but am considering getting my Master's there.)

 
Rupert Pupkin:

Need I say more?
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wtf? Reminds me of "I work at Goldman Sachs, ever heard of it?". Anyway, I'd also like to know why Cornell gets so much hate. The guy from Designated Survivor went there, so it can't be that bad...

I'm talking about liquid. Rich enough to have your own jet. Rich enough not to waste time. Fifty, a hundred million dollars, buddy. A player. Or nothing. See my Blog & AMA
 
Matrick:
Rupert Pupkin:

Need I say more?Image and video hosting by TinyPic

wtf? Reminds me of "I work at Goldman Sachs, ever heard of it?".
Anyway, I'd also like to know why Cornell gets so much hate. The guy from Designated Survivor went there, so it can't be that bad...

Oh, btw, there's a new Designated Survivor tonight.

I'm talking about liquid. Rich enough to have your own jet. Rich enough not to waste time. Fifty, a hundred million dollars, buddy. A player. Or nothing. See my Blog & AMA
 

I don't think people shit on it really. Anyone going into engineering knows that Cornell tops HYP, but for its other colleges Cornell ranks among the other Ivies (as you said). It is in an awkward position though due to the lower prestige (warranted or not) but still being an Ivy.

 

In my experience, a lot of Cornell kids complain about the same stuff you do (part of the problem). They think that because they play basketball against kids from Harvard (or even Brown, Dartmouth, UPenn, as you mentioned) that they are on the same level academically. Some of them think they're hot shit and better than everybody just because they're in the Ivy League. Not all Cornell kids act this way and I have no bias against them nor do I "hate on them", it's just something that I noticed and understand how it might be seen as obnoxious. Plus, Andy Bernard went there.

All of that said, Cornell's a great school and I know some great people who go there.

 
LACmonkey:
does anyone know how cornell does in consulting recruiting? I heard out of MBB only bcg recruits there and its extremely competitive.

Consulting recruiting is terrible at Cornell. If you want consulting, steer away. Finance recruiting, on the other hand, is pretty strong.

So many consulting firms didn't even show up at OCR to recruit at Cornell last year. There were like 600 kids at Cornell who applied for 3 analyst jobs at BCG.

 

WSO shits on Cornell because...

  1. WSO is full of high school students who have no prayer of getting a job on Wall Street.

  2. WSO is full of dumb bros and antisocial nerds without identifiable skills from bad schools (that aren't even part of the Ivy league) who wouldn't survive a job on Wall Street if they got it in the first place

Because of groups (1) and (2) I have sometimes thought that the median user on WSO has had roughly zero finance interviews. People from groups (1) and (2) mostly can't get in to Cornell and have "Ivy league" status envy. Thus, they don't like Cornell. I would argue that you should ignore them.

However:

  1. WSO has some people who, through a combination of luck, hard work, brilliance and perseverance managed to get jobs on Wall Street despite not going to traditional "targets".

4.WSO has some people who through a combination of luck, hard work, brilliance and perseverance managed to get jobs on Wall Street after going to" top targets" (HYPSM...some might even have a smaller list).

People from group (3) are usually pretty chill about school, but think arrogance is really irritating. People from Cornell can be arrogant (to grossly stereotype), so they get annoyed about it. People from group (4) often seem to think Cornell is a slightly better version of CUNY, so you don't get any "Ivy-league" points for having gone. Just for the record, you wouldn't have gotten them for going to UPenn (except Wharton) or Brown...

Basically, non-Ivy leaguers either don't like you for going to an Ivy or don't care where you went to school. People at top schools accurately observe you didn't go to a top school. That doesn't leave so many people.

Edit: to be very clear, none of the above represents my personal view. I candidly don't care where you went to school when I interview you. I will ask the same very difficult questions. I also happen to think it's dumb to get into school status competitions on largely anonymous online forums, so I don't do that. However, I do think Cornell suffers a bit from positioning as it is ideally situated for hate from a lot of different groups (as I tried to lay out above).

 
Best Response
Marked to Market:

WSO shits on Cornell because...

1. WSO is full of high school students who have no prayer of getting a job on Wall Street.

2. WSO is full of dumb bros and antisocial nerds without identifiable skills from bad schools (that aren't even part of the Ivy league) who wouldn't survive a job on Wall Street if they got it in the first place

Because of groups (1) and (2) I have sometimes thought that the median user on WSO has had roughly zero finance interviews. People from groups (1) and (2) mostly can't get in to Cornell and have "Ivy league" status envy. Thus, they don't like Cornell. I would argue that you should ignore them.

Why do you frequent WSO again?
I'm talking about liquid. Rich enough to have your own jet. Rich enough not to waste time. Fifty, a hundred million dollars, buddy. A player. Or nothing. See my Blog & AMA
 
stvr2013:
All of that said, Cornell's a great school and I know some great people who go there.

This too actually. I think people on this board prestige whore too much. I really don't care much about where people went to school.

 

I hate The Office...

Obviously it's not on the same level as HYP, but most people that I know (admittedly most of who don't know anything about prestigious schools) would put it on the same level as Brown, Dartmouth, and UPenn in regards to prestige. Actually most people I know have probably never even heard of Dartmouth.

I don't know many Cornellians so I can't comment on this supposed arrogance. Hopefully there's no truth to this stereotype. The only two guys I know who got into Cornell were actually incredibly modest (can't say the same thing about the chick who got into Princeton) so I've always had a good impression of the school. Obviously you can't judge people by what school they went to though.

 
swagon:
JDawg:
I hate The Office...
Fuck you.

Easily one of the most overrated shows ever. It's incredibly dry and boring. I hate all the characters (except for Dwight, the boss, and maybe a few others). But if it somehow manages to entertain you, then all the power to you I guess.

 

Nothing wrong with Cornell. I only have a problem with it because I go to an "objectively" better (and higher ranked) school in some ways and can see that Cornell is not that fantastic of a school as many alumns/students make it out to be strictly because of the fact it is an Ivy League institution.

There is something off-putting that comes with the Ivy League moniker, especially at a school like Cornell. It is a relatively new school that is much larger than the typical Ivy and carries, I would argue, less prestige. The kids that I know who have gotten into Cornell are most probably not HYP material.

For me, it's more of the fact that students there tend to distort reality. I go to a great school, but we know it's not on par with Princeton or Yale as an overall institution (financially especially). Cornell, on the other hand, seems to think that just by being in the Ivy League, they are part of a "special" group.

I know some great people who go there, and there's nothing wrong with the school, just a general stereotype I have found to be true.

 
blackrainn:
Nothing wrong with Cornell. I only have a problem with it because I go to an "objectively" better (and higher ranked) school in some ways and can see that Cornell is not that fantastic of a school as many alumns/students make it out to be strictly because of the fact it is an Ivy League institution.

There is something off-putting that comes with the Ivy League moniker, especially at a school like Cornell. It is a relatively new school that is much larger than the typical Ivy and carries, I would argue, less prestige. The kids that I know who have gotten into Cornell are most probably not HYP material.

For me, it's more of the fact that students there tend to distort reality. I go to a great school, but we know it's not on par with Princeton or Yale as an overall institution (financially especially). Cornell, on the other hand, seems to think that just by being in the Ivy League, they are part of a "special" group.

I know some great people who go there, and there's nothing wrong with the school, just a general stereotype I have found to be true.

It's definitely not just Cornell students/alum that play up the whole Ivy thing. I'd argue that the general populace is just as guilty, if not more so. Everytime I tell someone that I might be going to Cornell, their initial reaction tends to be "omg that's an Ivy league school!!" Even a (douchey) 60-year old Yale alumni I know tried to play up the whole Ivy thing and told me that I should try to get into an Ivy League school.

(Just for the record, I think the automatic prestige associated with the Ivy League is stupid, especially since there are tons of schools like Stanford, MIT, Berkeley, etc. that are better than many of the Ivys)

 

Cornell student here. Many friends at HYPS so I believe I can speak fairly well to the differences among them. I love my school, and it's set me up well career wise (especially given where I transferred from). Past a certain point we're splitting hairs in debating relative rigor or whatever. Cornell has some kickass engineering professors (whether or not it's worth the cost is another matter entirely), and I've enjoyed the sheer breadth of awesome courses offered here. That said, I know that my best friend at Princeton is unquestionably going to the better school. That's not an opinion, that's a fact. Do I let that define my existence? Nope.

Sorry for all the Cornell kids out there who do let this prestige whoring arrogance define them. It's a weird, douchey kind of arrogance (shout out to GQ) that we have here, but it is by no means universal. I bet there's a selection bias in that the kids from Cornell that end up in finance tend to think they're hot shit, and so would be more prone to believe that Cornell is something it isn't and shouldn't be. So, that's probably why there's a hate there.

To the poster above asking about MBB recruiting, yeah pretty much.

 

Cornell senior here.

I recently had a chance to grab a coffee with an MD of IBD at an elite boutique who's an alumnus of my college. He constantly mentioned how grateful he was for having gone to Cornell because: 1) it helped him break into banking in first place via good OCR, 2) huge alumni presence on the street, 3) he told me that when he was an analyst, the MD that interviewed him was a Cornell guy and the MD made sure that he kept his job as an analyst when layoffs were going on at the time, 4) when he was being considered for promotion from Associate level to VP level, there were some MD's who had gone to Cornell and that common ground made it 'easier' for him to play politics and win support from those important people at his bank.

He constantly emphasized that in upper echelon of business (VP or MD level in IBD or consulting), being able to play politics is very important for your survival. And, since there were tons of very successful Cornell alums in major finance/ consulting firms, it made it easier to find a common ground with those prominent alums and he capitalized on that opportunity. (playing politics)

I guess one really nice thing about Cornell is that unlike other Ivies, it is pretty big. So, there are bound to be many alums on the street.

 

I've always wanted to go to Cornell, but the location sucks. I'd go to Pinceton,Upenn,MIT, etc over Cornell just to not be in Ithaca. Upstate NY is a miserable place and I am sure most kids would agree.

 
ANT:
I've always wanted to go to Cornell, but the location sucks. I'd go to Pinceton,Upenn,MIT, etc over Cornell just to not be in Ithaca. Upstate NY is a miserable place and I am sure most kids would agree.

Ithaca during summer/ fall is actually pretty nice. Beautiful nature and decent frat parties. Once November rolls in, it turns into a shit show

 
ANT:
I've always wanted to go to Cornell, but the location sucks. I'd go to Pinceton,Upenn,MIT, etc over Cornell just to not be in Ithaca. Upstate NY is a miserable place and I am sure most kids would agree.

Penn is better than Cornell, but Upstate NY >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Philly.

As for the OP's question--people who 'look down' on Cornell are morons. It has an amazing reputation both domestically and overseas--an instantly recognizable and respected brand. It is a top engineering school, the AEM program has enviable placement into finance (Qatalyst, Lazard, all the BBs), and almost all of its departments are in the global top 15. Add to that some decent sports, an accomplished student body, and a loyal alumni network and you have one of the best schools in the world.

 

Personally I chose not to go to Cornell because of the location. It might have been a mistake, but I couldn't get over spending 4 years in Ithaca, NY and chose a similar school not in Ivy League. This was my thinking at age 18. For MBA, I looked higher than Cornell overall, but I still couldn't imagine spending 2 years in Ithaca once again. I think its location deters a lot of people just like how NYU and USC benefit from their locations. Let people stated above, it is in a awkward position.

Great school overall. I know a friend and a family friend's kid that went there. One if very well adjusted and doing really well in PE. Another is super insecure in banking. Anecdotal evidence, so it's awash.

----------------------------------------------------------------- Hug It Out
 
Ari_Gold:
Personally I chose not to go to Cornell because of the location. It might have been a mistake, but I couldn't get over spending 4 years in Ithaca, NY and chose a similar school not in Ivy League. This was my thinking at age 18. For MBA, I looked higher than Cornell overall, but I still couldn't imagine spending 2 years in Ithaca once again. I think its location deters a lot of people just like how NYU and USC benefit from their locations. Let people stated above, it is in a awkward position.

Great school overall. I know a friend and a family friend's kid that went there. One if very well adjusted and doing really well in PE. Another is super insecure in banking. Anecdotal evidence, so it's awash.

The fingerlakes are awesome but of course some people just can't leave an urban area. In hindsight it would've been fine for undergrad. For an MBA, not so much imo.

 

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