Why isn't Cornell better?

Someone I know faced another difficulty after being flown in for an official visit to an Ivy. The Ivy school wouldn`t be able to tell him with certainty that he would gain academic admission until well past the regular February signing time ( I think it may have been late April/ early May before Admissions would make a decision on his application). Because of the risk of potentially not getting accepted academically to the Ivy he chose to go to a non-Ivy which was dangling a big athletic scholarship offer and which was only willing to wait so long before receiving a commitment.

Hey Douchebag, I still don't think you get the point. You don't go to Cornell for free or even close just cause you make less than 120k a year. My parents make a combined total of less than 90k a year and I pay quite a bit more than 3 thousand to attend Cornell. I may only have that much in NEED BASED LOANS but there is still a substantial amount of parental and student contribution expected.

Did you actually even read the article you posted? (http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Jan08/finAid.html)

Look at the charts on the bottom. If you make 50k a year you're still expected to pay $8,800 up front cash every year. And if you're over that 60k or 75k mark or whatever it's a lot more.

If you get to the 120k mark you pay:

$2,000 student contribution

$20,025 parent contribution

$1,800 work study (which is not easy to actually do if you're a runner doing 100miles a week, so most likely this is out of pocket)

$3,000 student loan

Total: $23,825 and another 3k in loans each year...not quite free.

That said, I'm not saying that still isn't a very good deal for an Ivy League education, but I am saying that a lot of top runners who can go to a state school on athletic scholarship for next to nothing would rather do that than drop 9 to 24 thousand a year(depending on where you fall in between 50-120k income). And most people do not fall at 50k, that's pretty low. So more than likely even if you're not making 120 you're going to pay somewhere between 10-20 thousand a year not including the loans you have to take.

More Facts:

~Any kid who can get into an Ivy can go someplace else for next to nothing, if not entirely free, just on academics. That option for most people will be cheaper over 4 years than an Ivy.

Forget athletic cash for a sec. State schools are generous, and if you're above 1300 on the base SAT, you won't have to look hard to find a school that thinks you're the cat's pajamas.

~The lack of a normal 5th year is huge.

The posters above sum it up so well: You bring back even one top senior from last year, each of the top 4 teams (save Columbia who I don't think graduated anyone) would be close, if not legit, contenders for the dance.

~The SAT is a strong predictor of Ivy admissions.

Duh

~The SAT is more strongly correlated with family income than it is collegiate success.

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/27/sat-scores-and-family-income/

~Thus poor people have an obnoxiously difficult time getting into Ivies.

Odds are German couldn't get into Harvard even if he wanted to and had earned it. Most smart poor people can't. Thats why there are very very few at any given Ivy.

~Ivies are hard academically.

Yes, anyone looking at top colleges will be told that you will get a good education anywhere provided you apply yourself. That is true, in a sense. The schooling itself is very different. For instance: I'm a psych major and many of my HS friends at other institutions are as well. I'm the only one who's classes require reading empirical articles on a weekly basis as a way to learn concepts. Yes, to read a 10 page paper published in Psych Science on a topic is more time consuming than reading a 1 paragraph summary in a textbook reviewing it, but it is also infinitely more informative and thought provoking. I'm not bitching about work, I'm being rigorously trained in my major by some of the best in the world. I'm just saying more is asked of me than of my peers. Colleges are not all created equal.

If a kid really is convinced that he wants to go to school somewhere and be a part of a program with real promise, he'll take less than has been offered by other schools. Do you really think that all the runners at Oregon, Colorado, Oklahoma State, or any other perennial top 10 program really didn't get better financial aid or scholarship offers from other schools? This scholarship vs. financial aid stuff is just a crap excuse.

This talk of the lack of the fifth year is pretty misleading. You CAN have a fifth year of eligibility in the Ivy League. But, you need to still be an undergrad to do it unlike the rest of the NCAA where you can take your 5th year while in grad school.

Its also misleading to say the Ivy teams aren't going to NCAA's because the other teams in their regions are good. Check out the West Region lately? Oregon got an at-large bid this year. If your team is good you can get an at-large bid even if Iona and Providence beat you at Regionals.

The other thing that has changed recently that hasn't really been mentioned is the change in coaching and philosophy (and scholarhips?) at Syracuse. Cornell used to be able to at least get some top local talent from NY. Those days are gone. Syracuse is a a very good school and will also pull out the stops to get athletes admitted. Chris Fox has a great resume and is a very good coach. The previous Syracuse coach didn't focus on distance but on sprints and throws. The previous coach also had basically no scholarhips. Almost all of the scholarhip athletes on the track team had them from football. Everyone ASSUMES Syracuse has 10 full rides they are giving out (probably split somewhat) and they are only going to distance and mid-d guys. Maybe this is true or maybe not. But certainly you are seeing them grab all of the talent in NY.

You can have a fifth year, but only through injury. You cannot redshirt a season and still race.

Even if you race once and it is unattached, the IVY league won't grant you a fifth year. Besides it costs a lot to stay that extra year.

When Coach Fox took over not one football player was on our team. The previous coach had over 10 scholarships. Why do people forget that Syracuse has the best sprinters in the Big East and perhaps the whole northeast? Look at Big East and IC4A results and that is not a distance only team. Coach Fox and the sprint coach have done an excellent job. I can't forget this is letsrun and a distance based board.