Block Plan

Cornell is one of only a few colleges in the U.S. with a block plan. A schedule in which students take one course at a time for a block of 3 1/2 weeks. This enables students to really dive into a subject without having to divide their attention between several courses. Many courses have a travel component, and students also have the option of doing a full-time internship during a block.

Lots of Financial Aid

Cornell is very generous with financial aid. The average aid package is half of the total cost of attendance. And there are academic, service, and diversity scholarships ranging from $7,500 to full tuition. The costs associated with courses that include off-campus study often are offset by departmental funds. Also, grants are available for students also.

Speaking of off-campus study, Cornell recently opened a campus in downtown Chicago. While courses had involved travel to Chicago for many years, faculty now have a permanent location in which to teach. Additionally, the facility includes residential space for students and professors.

Courses

Cornell offers a First Year Program which includes orientation. And a required seminar on study skills, which must be taken in students’ first block. Students also are required to take a writing-intensive course within their first three blocks.

Students do graduate level work in their junior and senior years, and indeed, about two-thirds go on to graduate school. All students are required to do a senior capstone project. But the scope of the project varies depending on your major.

Social Life and Housing

As for the social life at Cornell, there are over 100 student groups, including local fraternities and sororities. (That is, they are not affiliated with national Greek organizations.) Service is an important part of campus life. And the college has a Civic Engagement Office to connect students to service opportunities. Although students frequently venture into Mount Vernon and beyond, most make their home on campus. Housing is guaranteed all four years and 92% of seniors live on campus.

According to Erika Pepmeyer, Senior Assistant Director of Admission and a Cornell graduate, the college is a good fit for students who are motivated, like to learn in interactive ways, and are curious about the world. If that sounds like you, you definitely should explore Cornell College.

The post Cornell College: One Extraordinary Opportunity After Another first appeared on College Admission Counseling.

Consider the following:
February 1st

• Baylor
• Arizona State
• University of Connecticut
• Cornell College
• DePauw
• Gettysburg
• Goucher
• Kalamazoo
• Knox
• Lewis & Clark
• Miami University of Ohio
• University of Michigan
• Mills College
• NC State
• Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT)
• St. Lawrence
• Sweet Briar College
• Trinity University (Texas)
• Whittier College
• Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI)
• Xavier University of Louisiana

• February 15th
• Allegheny
• Case Western
• Centre College
• Drew
• Earlham
• Eugene Lang
• Guilford
• Howard University
• Muhlenberg College
• Rhode Island School of Design
• Rollins
• College of Wooster

Juliet Giglio
Educational Consultant in Syracuse, New York

The post It May Be January, But It's Not Too Late to Apply to College! Part 2 first appeared on College Admission Counseling.

Mark Montgomery
Educational Consultant

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TRANSCRIPT:

Okay, I’m on a new campus and I want to just play a little game. I want you to take a look with me here and I’m going to walk around the campus, I’m going to show you different aspects of the campus and I want you to tell me where we are. What state are we in? So as we are looking around, we can look at the architecture. Notice the red brick, sort of Neo Georgian architecture with the rectangular windows and the columns in the Doric style.

Hmm, I wonder where we are. And here we have some of the practice fields and a really nice athletic facility and business center and beyond that is the track and some more playing fields. Hmm, nice big trees too. I wonder where we are. Hmm, where are we?

Look, a stately old building, built in the last century and behind it, a beautiful chapel on a hill; a beautiful location. I wonder where we could be. And on every campus we always find the ugly building. This is the ugly building on this campus. Hmm, so that doesn’t really tell us much, if every campus has an ugly building. I wonder which campus we are on now.

And over here we have the little New England like Protestant Chapel, red brick and white steeple, and then over here we have the grand monumental church, not exactly a cathedral, still probably called a chapel. Where are we?
Behind me we have the library; it’s a little more modern than most. But notice that at least architecturally it’s trying to blend in with the surroundings of its other buildings on this nice pedestrian mall. Again, the red brick buildings, the white trim, the Doric columns. Wow, it’s just so New England.

So, yes, here we are at Cornell; not Cornell University however, Cornell College . Not in Ithaca, New York, but in Mount Vernon, Iowa. You know, it’s so amazing. Sometimes I will recommend colleges to students and say, “It’s in Iowa, it’s in Wisconsin, it’s in Michigan,” and students would look at me like, what planet are you from? I have in my mind the Amherst, the Harvard Yards, the Williams of the world. I want to go to school in Massachusetts, New England or Upstate New York.

Well, it really amounts to is geographical chauvinism in many ways because here at Cornell College you have all the same kinds of feel that you would have at a New England College, right here in Iowa. The beautiful trees, the fantastic wonderfully harmonious architecture and built on a hill and you call it Little College Town and first class education.

So before you make snap judgments about whether Iowa or Michigan or Indiana or Ohio is right for you, ask yourself whether you’re really being fair. Ask yourself whether you’ve been there. Ask yourself what you’re looking for in a college. If you’re looking for the bucolic sylvan environment of a Cornell College, you might just find it in a place you least expect.

The post Ivy Covered Campus – Can You Guess Where We Are? first appeared on College Admission Counseling.