Cornell Blog: An unofficial blog about Cornell University

Another person has died by falling into the gorge, something Cornell University is famous for. It doesn’t have to happen, though! The Police said they “saw a woman climb onto the railing of the bridge and fall into the water.” Well, the first mistake was climbing onto the railing of the bridge, a definite no no:

I’ve seen students climb up on bridge railings at the CTown Cascadilla gorge or Thurston Ave gorge, and I always wondered when one drunk sorority girl would lurch the wrong way at the wrong time, or a sudden gust of wind would push the Titanic-esque wannabe off the precipice.

Standing on the edge of the gorge is just not a good idea, unless you want to risk your life. It’s just not safe. Maybe only 1 in 1000 of the people that do it fall off, but there’s real, physical danger there. You want a thrill, go skydiving.

We could rewrite this OINY post to show Cornell University and Ithaca College rivalry:

Cornell student: Do you go to Ithaca College?
Ithaca College student: Yes, how did you know?
Cornell student: I could tell by your dirty shoes. Ithaca College gets their students from the homeless shelter.
Ithaca College student: Excuse me?
Cornell student: I’m your biggest enemy.
Ithaca College student: What?
Cornell student: I go to Cornell.
Ithaca College student: Can you leave me alone?

It wouldn’t be very nice, but it would probably be spot-on sentiment wise. Cornellians tend, I’ve noticed, to be quite elitist about any non-1st-tier schools they meet. Or anything ending in “-college” or “arvard.”

The Times UK ranks Cornell a slot lower this year in its 2006 University Rankings, as it switched places with Beijing University:

College rankings are becoming increasingly fickle and unreliable indicators of where students should want to go, but since people require numbers, not tranches, they stick around. Personally, I think instead of looking at the US News & World Report rankings, you should talk to your peers and alumni of different schools to find where you would fit best. The State school are great if you can’t afford a private school. And every private University has some specialities it’s most famous for.

That said, here’s the entire Top 100 Universities List that I OCR’ed, sorted by rank in ‘06 with columns for rank in 2005, the University name, and location:

1 1 Harvard University United States
2 3 University of Cambridge United Kingdom
3 4 University of Oxford United Kingdom
4 7 Yale University United Slates
6 5 Stanford University United States
7 8 California Inst of Tech United States
9 13 imperial College London United Kingdom
10 9 Princeton University United States
11 17 University of Chicago United States
12 20 Columbia University United States
13 11 Duke University United States
14 15 Beijing University China
15 14 Cornell University United States
16 23 Australian National Univ Australia
17 11 LSE United Kingdom
18 24 Ecole Normale Superieure France
19 16 University of Tokyo Japan
21 24 McGill University Canada
22 19 University of Melbourne Australia
23 27 Johns Hopkins University United States
24 21 Swiss Federal Inst of Tech Switzerland
25 28 University College London United Kingdom
26 32 University of Pennsylvania United States
27 29 University of Toronto Canada
28 62 Tsing Hua University China
29 31 Kyoto University Japan
29 36 University of Michigan United States
31 37 Univ of California LA United States
32 26 Univ of Texas at Austin United States
33 30 University of Edinburgh United Kingdom
33 41 University of Hong Kong Hong Kong
35 44 Carnegie Mellon University United States
35 38 University of Sydney Australia
37 10 Ecole Polytechnique France
38 33 Monash University Australia
39 88 University of Geneva Switzerland
40 35 University of Manchester United Kingdom
41 40 Univ of New South Wales Australia
42 46 Northwestern University United States
43 56 New York University United States
44 42 Univ of California San Dieg o United States
45 47 University of Queensland Australia
46 52 University of Auckland New Zealand
46 73 Kings College London United Kingdom
48 73 University of Rochester United States
48 58 Washington Univ in St Louis United States
50 38 Univ of British Colombia Canada
50 51 Chinese Univ of Hong Kong Hong Kong
52 69 i Sciences Po Paris France
53 114 Vanderbilt Univ United States
54 71 Brown university United States
54 University of Copenhagen Denmark
56 141 Emory University United States
57 50 Indian Inst of Tech India
58 45 Univeisltat Heidelberg Germany
58 43 Hong Kong Univ ScVTech Hong Kong
60 109 Case Western Reserve Univ United States
61 117 Dartmouth College United States
61 48 Nanyang Technological Univ Singapore
63 93 Seoul National University South Korea
64 49 Bristol University United Kingdom
64 34 Ecole Poly Fd de Lausanne Switzerland
67 70 Eindhoven Univ of Tech Netherlands
68 84 Indian Inst of Maneigement India
69 58 University of Amsterdam Netherlands
70 103 Sch of OrientalAfrican Ss United Kingdom
70 105 Osaka University Japan
75 127 University of Basel Switzerland
76 88 Catholic Univ of Louvain Belgium
77 58 University of Illinois United States
78 111 Trinity College Dublin Ireland
79 186 University of Otago New Zealand
79 73 University of Wisconsin United States
81 101 University of Glasgow United Kingdom
82 67 MacQuarle University Australia
82 105 Tech Universltat Munich Germany
84 S8 University of Washington United States
JB5 97 University of Nottingham United Kingdom
85 53 Delft University of Tech Netherlands
87 65 University of Vienna Austria
88 193 University of Pittsburgh United States
89 133 University of Lausanne Switzerland
90 143 University of Birmingham United Kingdom
90 138 Leiden University Netherlands
92 57 Erasmus Univ Rotterdam Netherlands
93 79 Moscow State University Russia
93 88 Univ PierreetMarieCurie France
95 120 Utrecht University Netherlands
96 95 Cathofic Univ of Leuven Belgium
97 108 Wageningen University Netherlands
98 55 Universitat Munich Germany
99 112 Q Wary Westfleld Con United Kingdom
99 64 Pennsylvania State Univ United States

The list isn’t accurate, but it should give you an idea of who’s who in the Uni world!