Ithaca College

Ithaca College is a pretty terrible institution. If you have any other choices, I urge you to go somewhere else.

Social Life:
If you're a little shy and the world does not turn around drinking and smoking pot you will probably make no friends at all. It's a very harsh environment and no one will reach out to you. There is basically nothing to do at Ithaca ever, so expect to be bored and friendless.

Academics:
If you took any difficult classes in high school prepare yourself for a relatively smooth sail. The classes are painfully easy, some have mind numbing busy work but most just have lots of reading that you don't really have to do anyways. You most likely won't learn anything in your classes.p

Staff:
The staff here is unwilling to help and almost impossible to contact. Both me and my room mate transferred after one semester and we both got routed in and out of 4 different places before finding out whether or not we needed to do any paperwork to make our leaving official. I never met with my advisor, not even one time, I don't even know what she looked like.

Students:
The vast majority of kids are assholes with attitudes. This statement isn't really fair, but the loudest kids and the ones you see more frequently stammering through hallways act like stuck up jackasses. The rest of the students are actually quite nice but again they probably spend all of their time drinking and doing drugs. The few kids you will meet that aren't obsessed with doing illicit acts exist there but are totally miserable so they just stay in their rooms.

Dorms:
The dorms suck, and it's pretty outrageous that the school is so obsessed with money that they won't let students live off-campus.

Also, the school crushes your creative spirit.
If you attend here, expect to be bored about 99% of the time.I urge anyone considering Ithaca College to think again, I transferred after one semester and I couldn't be happier. It's important to be in a place with diversity (I'm pretty sure my entire time on campus I saw no asian people and a handful of African Americans and about three people who weren't from the east coast) and that doesn't just treat you like a number with a money machine attached.

1st Year Female -- Class 2012

Faculty Accessibility: C, Education Quality: F

I came VERY close to going to Ithaca this fall. I had all of my paperwork filled out for Ithaca and the deposit check written.

But I will not be attending Ithaca next year, and heres why.
1. when I visited campus, I liked it. i thought i would love it, but i didnt. i think that i only liked it because i wanted to like it and decided that i would like it before i even came. Everyone says that the campus is so pretty, oh the finger lakes of new york, you cant get any better. and that part is true, the nature around Ithaca is really pretty, but the actual campus itself is not so great. the building's architecture is outdated, there is a lot of concrete on the buildings which is not nice to look at. Also, I am from Chicago, so I had to fly to ithaca to visit. I actually flew into the Syracuse airport, and airfare was 3x more expensive than it would be to fly to NYC, it ended up being $400 round trip, and to think that i would have had to pay that 5x per year to come home for vacation times... not cool. Ithaca is an expensive college, but its the extra things that the dont list that kills you.

all of the people on campus were really nice, and thats really the reason that i wanted to go to ithaca so badly. there is definitely not a lot of diversity, as everyone mentioned before, but ithaca is not the type of school that attracts diverse people.

everyone at ithaca seemed to be from the east coast which made me feel out of place.
The real reasons that i chose not to go to ithaca is because of the quality and value of the education.

on my visit day, part of the program was to sit in on a sophomore level finance class, and the topics that they were talking about were topics and facts of the stock market that i had learned last year in high school. I felt like i knew all of the material the professor was talking about, and we actually left early because i was bored. I want to be challenged in college, and i didnt feel like that would happen at ithaca. But if you are going into the music program, i am sure that it would be different for you since ithaca is well known for that.

At first going to school in upper New york sounded great, I love snowboarding so i figured that in the winters i would never be bored. and even though the weather up there is miserable (but not much worse than chicago) there are parts of the year that are nice (about 2 weeks), and after visiting i was very concerned about what i would be doing with myself when i wasnt studying. all of the kids there like to party...hard. a lot of students smoke pot and then get completely smashed on the weekends. during the info session i overheard all of the business students giving tours talking about the parties they went to over the weekend. so if you are looking to party, your fine, but if you want to avoid drinking and drugs, you may have a problem being at ithaca. the surrounding town sucks, lets be honest, there are like 5 stores and a few decent restaurants. and the admissions office will tell you that there is lots to do on the weekends, like shows and performances, but come on, its ithaca, new york, not new york city or Chicago with Broadway shows or professional dance shows. i think that the only performances you would be going to are the once at the college itself. which are limited.

lastly, i was concerned that it would be hard for me to find a job or internship in chicago after graduating from ithaca. ithaca does not have the same reputation outside new york, or even in new york of other schools i was considering, like Indiana bloomington or George Washington university. i felt like i would be in trouble and have a hard time finding a job after graduation.

all in all, i decided to go to a different school that has more resources and opportunities for me, one with a better reputation and educational value. and i know that i will have a job after graduation as well as MANY internships from the school i am going to now, which is why i chose not to go to ithaca in the end.

if you have any questions please please email me at
hope that helps!

1st Year Female -- Class 2012

Faculty Accessibility: A+, Surrounding City: F

Ithaca College is one word: Basic
The people are basic (absolutely no diversity, average, plain white kids looking to get by with a college education)

The town is basic (Its like a less-lively, humble version of a city)
The curriculum is basic (Liberal Arts classes are just about mediocre. Thankfully, its grad school that matters, right?)

The campus is basic (and by that I mean the buildings look like subsidised housing)
The nightlife/weekend activities are basic (highlights include a sketchy gay bar, wegmans [grocery store], hit-or-miss campus and off campus parties.)

Life at Ithaca College is pretty basic, and if you are a basic kind of person, you could happily settle.

But if you are looking for a place with personality and life, search elsewhere.
Dont visit Cornell if u plan on attending or already attend Ithaca. You will feel deprived, lacking, and inferior. I may sound pessimistic, but I am just telling it how it is. Ask a current, unbiased student at IC and he/she will tell you the same thing.

1st Year Female -- Class 2011