<p>I've read LOTS of posts regarding College of Arts & Science versus College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. However, I am still debating as to which one to apply to (although I will most likely put the other as the "alternate" college choice). I am a high-school senior who will have completed 8 AP courses at the end of last year and am taking a college calc 3 class this semester. My SAT score is 2250. I have a strong interest in science, and hope to one day attend graduate school for biology or biochemistry. </p>
<p>I've heard that CALS allows for a lot more flexibility in course options due to fewer distribution requirements. Does this mean if I was in the CAS, I would have little options to take more interesting and "different" courses?</p>
<p>Any suggestions for CALS vs. CAS? (By the way, I am NOT a New York resident.) Thanks!</p>
<p>Laro, you will not have a problem with flexibility in either school. Trust me, CALS has a fistful of especially annoying distribution requirements as well (like Diversity courses, many of which are heavily biased and repetitive). If you live in New York, CALS is the easy choice. I would choose based off of which school is a better fit. It seriously depends on what your major is and what secondary interests are. For example, if statistics, business, and nutrition appeal to you as a set of subjects, CALS is probably better. But if you want a more liberal arts background or if you want to specialize in a lot of hard sciences/math, CAS is probably the better option. Cornell admissions focuses on fit more than anything.</p>
<p>Yeah, there are tons of kids in CAS, CALS, and HumEc that do premed tracks. Premed isn’t a major, it’s just a set of requirements you have to fulfill.</p>
<p>As a CAS alum, I didn’t find the distribution requirements limiting because you have many dozens of options for each requirement. The pre-med track is the same across all the colleges, so it will matter what additional courses interest you the most beyond pre-med/biology. With CAS, you are going to get a traditional liberal arts education, which means a variety of courses from various departments.</p>