Cornell! Its really as great as you think it is

 Well early this morning found us on the campus of the venerable Cornell college.  And really, wow, it is worth the hype.  The truth is chances here is slim, 70,000 applications and 3,500 seats.  Some must go to prodigies of all types and of course athletes.  But ahh it is such a great school to shoot for.  The vibe even on an empty weekend day was upbeat and welcoming.  

I did forget to sign us up for the tour so after the information session we were on our own which is often not so good.  We stumble around the campus and say oh look the engineering building.  But this time we ran into a senior, Bell who really gave us a pretty good overview on her walk to Collegtown.  

One of the first and foremost item in the information session was INTELLECTUAL CURIOSITY.  This is another term for the now favorite idea of a passion project.   The newest buzzword. Demonstratable interests.  It is what 2015 the craze for students "giving back" where after time there were programs just built for high schoolers to go give back through building housing, educating kids in third world countries and other packaged opportunities to spend some money and put it on your college application.    The new spin is that you need to find a way to prove that after school, sports, clubs, jobs and family you don't actually just want to game with your friends or hang out getting ice cream.  No, you want to shadow a professor at Stoney Brook doing research. You want to be in Cold Spring Labs, writing a book, helping a lawyer defend the indigent, study the social interactions of primates.  You have passion for learning!  Not for flirting, gaming, swimming, hitting the beach, not you!  You have insatiable intellectual curiosity that must be fulfilled!    

Well in any case, I had never been on their campus before, and it really was great. Pretty the atmosphere was friendly and smart.  The presentation had that great mix of smart and relatable that so many lack. They gave out plenty of information on what they offer and how students can get involved on campus. The reasons that we like a school can often be intangible.  The "feel" or the "atmosphere' combined with good academics seem to be the secret sauce and being that each of our kids gets to make his or her own recipe we never know what will be appealing to them.