Cornell: Where dreams go to die
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)
