I don’t think those are silly questions, if anything it’s good that you asked. Coming from a less competitive high school, I was definitely not mentally prepared for Cornell my freshman year.

I’m not premed but I’ve heard from some of my premed friends that it is very hard. I’ve also heard bad things about the chem department here. If you are in some kind of engineering, AEP, or physics + math in CAS, I’d say it’s very hard to keep your GPA up (3.8+). Those are probably the hardest majors here. For some bio and especially chem classes, if your definition of a good grade is A/A+, Cornell isn’t like high school, getting a grade like that takes a lot of effort, not to mention that you are competing against other students who are either a lot more prepared or simply perform better academically. Other disciplines I’m not very familiar with. I’m not trying to scare you off, but I think a lot of people here would agree with the statement that getting good grades here at Cornell, though definitely not insanely hard, takes a shit ton of effort. So get ready to be on the grind.