Cornell has a pretty good social life, and there are TONS of activities to get involved in. There are over 600 student groups on campus, and they range from cooking clubs to sports clubs to religious clubs to political groups. I actually find the idea of all these clubs overwhelming, but I guess it helps to find one or two groups that you really want to get involved in. There is a thing at the beginning of the year called "Club Fair" where hundreds of clubs set up tables of information and students just walk up and down aisles of tables getting info where they want, signing up where they want, and just generally getting an idea of what they want to be involved in.
Cornell has a lot of school spirit... for a few sports. Our hockey team is the most popular team on campus, and you have to buy season tickets that are upwards of $300 in order to go to games. I did not buy season tickets (can you say broke college kid?) but I heard that they are a lot of fun to go to. We also just really got into our basketball team, which went to the NCAA tournament last year for the first time in 20 years. It was amazing. For basketball and just about any other sporting event, you buy individual tickets for the game
(that are cheap- about $3) or you can buy a Sports Pass for $40 that lets you get into any game you want without buying a ticket (but you can't use these for hockey games). Our football team sucks, but the games are kinda fun to go to, especially homecoming because all the fraternities and sororities come and cheer on the team. There's also a "Freshmen flock the field" game where all the freshmen get to line up on the field before the game and welcome in our team. It's kinda fun, but not overly so.
Weekends at Cornell are what we live for. We work really hard all week, and by the time the weekend comes, all we want to do is let off some steam. For those of you who drink, there are always frat parties to go to where you just have to show a Cornell ID to get in (no cover charge and no worrying about not getting beer!). For those who don't drink, there are always shows going on at the Cornell Cinema that are a bit older movies or up at the mall's movie theater, which shows all new movies. Or you can go bowling at Helen Newman lanes, which is in the basement of Helen Newman Gym right on North Campus by the freshmen dorms. It's kinda small, but really cute and very cheap. Going out to dinner is a nice way to get away from the dining halls (which actually have very, very, very good food!), and for that you can hop on a bus (you get a free bus pass your freshman year) and either go up by the mall, down to Collegetown, or down into Ithaca.
My favorite activity I do here at Cornell is be a part of my sorority, Alpha Xi Delta. You can rush at the beginning of your 2nd semester as a freshman or in the fall if you're a transfer or upperclass student. Rushing for girls is hard- you go all over campus visiting the 12 different sororities and then you choose first your top 9, then 6, then 3 and then your top 1. But in order to go back to the houses after choosing your tops ones, you have to be on that houses list as well. It can get tiring, discouraging, and highly annoying (and also really cold because it's January in Ithaca) but it's highly rewarding if you stick it through. For guys, the process is a bit different because there are almost 50 frat houses on campus. For guys, you take the first few days to visit as many as you want, then you start going back to the ones you like best repeatedly. Frats also have events at night that guys can go to, and you choose to go to the frats that you think you connect the best with. Then, after a couple more days, the frats will invite you back for a bit more formal meeting and then you can only go where you were invited back to. The final pick comes when frats offer you a bid and then you have to choose which house to accept the bid from. Cornell has the 3rd largest Greek system in the nation and so approximately 30{4a082faed443b016e84c6ea63012b481c58f64867aa2dc62fff66e22ad7dff6c} of the student body is involved in greek life (this also includes Multi-Cultural Greek Letter Council houses that have frats/sororities for minorities). It is the most amazing experience of my life and I have met some of the most wonderful people on Earth. They will be your best friends for the next four years, and you will enjoy every minute of it.