Well, as the semester winds down (and by ‘winds down’, I mean ‘becomes increasingly more difficult’) there is one thing that comes to mind which I have being trying to assess in my first year here. That is the subject of Cornell being a place where dreams go to die. Is this true? I have heard it many times from my peers. While they seem quite certain, I am personally not sure. Most recent Rasmussen polls do not help either, citing 50% of people thinking dreams die at Cornell, 49% saying they don’t, and 1% undecided. This isn’t extremely helpful, so I will be anecdotal and then generalize.
I personally know three kids who are dropping out of the university after this semester. One was a clown and didn’t do anything but sit around and take part in just about everything besides schoolwork. Another was sort of just a ‘coaster,’ and did work as he pleased and slowly fell behind. The last one was a really hard-working kid who gave it his all but just couldn’t reach his goals. His lifelong dream of attaining a certain profession is crushed (hopefully only temporarily).
However, I also know many kids who are coasting through on 2.3-3.3 GPAs, and some kids who are greatly exceeding their expectations. So why the crushed dreams of the other three students? I think it is greatly attributable to Cornell’s practices in admissions processes. I’m talking about under-qualified students who are accepted in light of having legacy, minority status, legitimate faculty/administrative ‘connections,’ relatives who are donors, etc.
While the school’s intentions may be good in some of these cases (to bring the ‘under-qualified’ student out of a trend and into an environment where it has the opportunity to excel), it destroys the concept of a functioning, legitimate meritocracy, and puts many kids in a position prone for failure. Yes, Cornell offers many programs and initiatives to help prevent this, but there is a good amount of students that end up not meeting standards and dropping out. Not only does this destroy a person’s confidence, but it also means that a better qualified student was rejected from the school to let in a lesser qualified one who failed anyway. This is very counter-productive to the school’s objective of providing fair, equal opportunities for all applicants.
For these reasons I think it may be unfair to say “Cornell is a place where dreams die.” Instead, I propose: “Cornell is a place where the legitimacy and attainability of hopes and dreams is subjected to rigorous tests and investigation, upon which the outcome often indicates that said dreams are realized to have been initially unreasonable at worst, and unfeasible at best.” (Lol)
Considering that less than eight percent of all entering Cornell students don’t graduate in six years or less, I think you might want to rethink your use of anecdotal examples. Keep in mind that a fair amount of those who do not graduate actually end up transferring to even more rigorous institutions or leave Ithaca for non-academic familial or medical reasons.
Absolutely – agreed. I would say the vast majority of people find that Cornell is in fact a great place to achieve one’s dreams. Basically this was supposed to be a lighthearted approach on the fallacy of ‘dreams dying at Cornell,’ and the Cornell stereotype of being a breeding ground for depression, suicide, etc. As far as reasons for students leaving, I’m sure there is a substantial amount of those who leave for more rigorous education or familial / medical / financial reasons, but I still think that a substantial amount of students are falling behind due to their acceptance being heavily influenced by factors other than academic competence.
Intrigued by this article I decided to do a little freelance investigation and data gathering of my own. Through complex equations, polling, number crunching, and some under the table bribes (yes unfortunately many of them were sexual, but then again what good journalist doesn’t have flexible morals?) I set out to find what things were going to die and where were the aforementioned things dying. After careful analysis of these cold hard facts I have drawn these conclusions:
Harvard-Where your sex life goes to die.
Princeton- Where your heterosexual sex life goes to die.
UPenn- Where your social life goes to die.
Yale- See Harvard
Columbia- Where athletics go to die.
Dartmouth- Where my application went to die.
Brown- Where your brain cells go to die.
Nicely put, haha. You sure turn out research quickly!
Hahaha thanks for the contributions to this on-going research, Ussdaddy. I’m afraid all of those locations, unfortunately, are mortuaries for college applications. (or at least cornell was this year!)
Ussdaddy: I trust that that research is very accurate. But Cornell?! They have some of the greatest minds in the college-aged part of society, as I can see by the posts on this Blog. I wonder what would happen if they would be mortuaries for my college application, if I sent it.
Hahahaha that first dude got completely rebutalized, and yes i made up that word. Clearly, my man was making a subtle argument against a ridiculous policy within Cornell. But, you just had to get way too defensive. Bottom line, the statements made by my dude are straight up physics; Cornell has received a stereotype that it does not deserve, yet it brought it upon itself. Without a change to the system, the self inflicted stereotype will continue to burden Cornell. Its the truth… dig it. And the guy who made the first comment needs to righten up a little bit, and yes, I did intend to use the word righten. PEACE